Not the Time to Stop Crying ~

A Prayer offered at a Vigil for Healing & Common Sense Gun Control in Marblehead, MA (December 15, 2012)

O Spirit of Life, Divine Source known by so many names

We gather with broken hearts

Weeping souls

And we need to cry

We arrive from as many different stories as there are stars in your sky

We may be Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, Pagan, Straight, Transgender, Gay, Black, White, Latino , Republican or Democrat  - but all children of creation, sharing this single thing:

                 We Love our children, our children of the world

And we need to cry

         For tonight a mother looks at an un-opened present carefully placed under a tree and no longer has a child to open it.

         Today someone is taking a sweatshirt out of a dryer and wishing they had never washed it because they yearn for the scent of their child.

Tomorrow a child will wake and automatically head into a sibling’s room, and then remember – that sibling is gone.

         And another child will stare out a window mourning the loss of a best friend

         And children all over will be hugged and hugged and hugged again by parents, grandparents, teachers, cousins, caregivers, the whole world so grateful that they are alive.

And we will cry and cry some more.

We do not come together in vigil tonight to help one another ‘get over’ this horrific tragedy. 

We do not come together to help one another ‘stop’ crying.

It is time to let the tears flow on and on

Time to let our tears flow down our faces and through our streets

Flow through our streets and out of our towns

Flow out of our towns and into the inner cities

Flow until they mingle with those of the many who each day fear for their children’s lives

Flow until they mingle with those of the many who still mourn children lost in other shootings

Flow to the 19 different places in our country where mass shootings have taken place in just these last five years.

         Minneapolis, Minnesota (September 2012, 7 dead, 2 injured)

         Oak Creek, Wisconsin (August 2012, 7 dead, 4 injured)

         Seattle, Washington (May 2012, 6 dead)

         Aurora, Colorado (July 2012, 12 dead, 59 injured)

         Norcross, Georgia (February, 2012, 5 dead)

         Seal Beach, California (October 2011, 8 dead, 1 injured)

         Tuscon, Arizona (January 2011, 6 dead, 14 injured)

         Manchester, Connecticutt (August 2010, 9 dead, 2 injured)

         Parkland, Washington (November 2009, 5 dead)

         Fort Hood, Texas (November 2009, 13 dead, 30 injured)

         Binghamton, New York (April 2009, 14 dead, 4 injured)

         Geneva County, Alabama (March 2009, 11 dead, 6 injured)

         Carthage, NC (March 2009, 8 dead, 3 injured)

         Henderson, Kentucky (June 2008, 6 dead, 1 injured)

         Blacksburg, Virginia (April 2007, 33 dead, 23 injured)

         Kirkwood, Missouri (February 2008, 7 dead, 1 injured)

         Omaha, Nebraska (December 2007, 9 dead)

         Crandon, Wisconsin (October 2007, 7 dead, 1 injured)

         DeKalb, Illinois (February 2008, 6 dead, 21 injured)

         and Newtown, CT (December 2012, 27 dead, 20 of them young children aged 6 and 7, more injured).  Young children who just last week may have sat on Santa’s lap and whispered what they wanted for Christmas or lit a candle on a menorah.

           It is not time to stop weeping.  Our hearts may be broken, but our heads and our hands are not.  It is time to take our tears, join them with the many who have been weeping for years in our inner city neighborhoods and let our torrents of tears flow right into our state and federal houses where real change can occur.  It is time for our tears to help our minds find ways of helping those who equate common sense gun control with a loss of freedom, to see our dead children and see them as their own.  It is time for our tears to help our hands shape local and national policies that will help restore innocence in the lives of our children.  We will never stop weeping for the lost children but we have the power to help restore safety and build safety where for so many years there has been none. 

           Spirit of Life, Wonder of Creation ~ hold our tears but only for tonight.  But then, as the people of Newtown, CT mourn real-time loss and fractured futures,  be with us as our tears fuel our efforts to change the world for the sake of all of our children.  

                              May it be so.  May it be so.