Another person died today. I can’t tell you the make or model, but a gun was involved, again. This person and I didn’t see eye to eye on just about any topic. Candidly, I felt their statements were at best asinine, and at worse, incendiary. I often pushed back against their rhetoric in my everyday life.
Though, an activist at heart, I’m far from having the following they did, so I can’t pretend like I had nearly as much reach. In truth, if our messages were stones to a pond, in comparison, I’d be the pebble.
Theirs however…
Weighted rocks of rageful white supremacist language. Boulders of bigotry, misogyny, and xenophobia, cast far and wide. Labeled as a logical love, and inoffensive by the power of God, their listeners could feel emboldened to hate. Did this person genuinely believed what they said, or were they just “tryna make their nut,” as Cartman said?
Opinion or persona, I can’t say. Nor should I pretend to know. Regardless, their words disheartened me. Enraged me. And yet, I feel bad.
…
I feel bad because they had children. Untethered to the believes or actions of this world, a figure in their heads is not coming home.
Speaking of children… I feel bad for the other children, who had to wait their turn. Though their suffering took place first, they were overshadowed by the untimely death of an individual who believed the risk of their lives, and the deaths of all children, and other victims of gun violence were “worth it.”
I feel bad for the people who find themselves wrapped up in rage bait posts from authors who want them to believe the majority of people “on the left” wanted this person to die. Influencers, sending orders from behind a screen, wanting you to march to war against liberals.
I feel bad because I saw this coming. Mass hysterias and moral panics for years now convincing everyday Americans that we need civil wars to protect our freedoms, rights and… good genes. Now, terrified I can’t unsee it, or what comes next. With so many feelings, my heart can’t help but break in the most complex of ways.
And so, I mourn.
I mourn the loss of another life.
I mourn the loss of safety in the minds of the children who feared they would never see their families again.
I mourn the loss of the children who never did see their families again.
I mourn the loss of the next life.
I mourn the death of the teachings of Christ in the minds of those who chose to make you, their martyr.
Though you were not my witness, I mourn you.
In spite of the difference in our views on an Amendment, or the scores of individuals who may have also lost their lives as a result of your teachings, or the women being taught to “submit” to their male partners, you were human.
I mourn because I have chosen to be someone who mourns in spite of, not someone who exudes spite because of.
Holding onto my practice harder than ever, and not without ease, values of love, kindness and compassion, fill my actions and deeds. In a twisted irony, though you thought he was “awful,” I learned it from King. And I’m grateful to write it in my unsegregated coffee shop, without fear of fire hoses thanks to the Civil Rights Act, which you opposed.
Although you were Christian, and I prescribe to a spirituality you may have thought inferior, I use it to mourn your life. Remembering one of our four Great Vows, I recite,
“Sentient beings are numberless; we vow to save them all.”
In the car on my way from work, eyes watering with fear for it all, I nonetheless give you the respect I would give all… speaker volume up, chanting how I learned from my teachers,
“dae ja dae bi
Kwan seum bo-sal”
May compassion reach us all.
So, what do I say when a person who I vehemently disagree with, who cast stones on people of identities that have shown nothing but love, who died a senseless death from a gun while talking about gun rights?
I say, rest in peace.
As I did for the lives in Charleston,
As I did for the children and their families of school shootings,
As I did for Amaud, Breonna, and Treyvon,
As I did for Congresswoman Melissa and Congressman John,
As I would practice doing for anyone.
Rest in peace. I mourn you all.
Perhaps most of all… I mourn where we are at as a society, and the resulting deaths that will no doubt continue to be collateral damage.
I mourn because I get to choose who I want to be. No one else.
And I choose love.
