There wasn't a whole lot of response in the moment. We were meeting for different reasons, and so the suggestion was noted, someone spoke a bit about the security measures that are currently in place in the building, and we moved on to other things, but I would be lying if I didn't say it left me rattled.
I wasn't angry about the suggestion. There are moments when I'm not even completely sure it's wrong to consider such an action. It is the same impulse that has motivated communities to lock down school buildings, to install metal detectors in doorways of public spaces, and to implement safety protocols such as ALICE (which was recently implemented in my son's public school, where there is also a full-time SRO- a police officer who is stationed within the public school and is responsible for safety and crime prevention).
It is really difficult to stay resolute about our aspirations for the world in the face of fear. I think this is true for most of us. We have a vision of how we would like things to be in the world, and, we also want to feel safe. When those two things: maximizing our aspirations and maximizing our safety- are aligned, things are relatively easy. As an example, we all want to love and to be loved. I have yet to meet someone who would argue that point. Conveniently, loving and being loved makes the world better and makes us safer. Being loved is one of the most important factors in developing resilience in people. If you are loved as a child, even by one other person, you are significantly more likely to embody resilience. You are more likely to thrive, less likely to be violent and harm others. So, the act of loving and being loved has a positive impact on the world and a positive impact on our own safety. Win, win.
It isn't always so simple.
I have aspirations about the kind of men I want my sons to become, and those aspirations inform my parenting. I teach them the importance of kindness, how to communicate, how to be a part of a community, how to advocate for their needs while respecting the needs of others, and how to speak up when they witness injustice. My vision for what I want them to know is clear, and those qualities I work to foster in them are qualities that, I hope, will also help to keep them safe most of the time, but that is not always true. If I am truly teaching them to speak up in the face of injustice, for example, I am teaching them something that could put them in harms way at some point. I am teaching them a way of living that does not always maximize their safety, but instead balances it against the safety of others. That doesn't feel as comfortable as it does to offer them love, and yet, I still feel certain it is important, so I have to come to terms with that conflict between my aspirations for them and my desire to keep them safe-- and ultimately, they will have to come to terms with that conflict as well when they are making choices around confronting injustice.
I think the proposal of arming our congregations illuminates a similar conflict between what is best for the greater good, and what might offer an individual community a greater sense of safety. Yes, we could hire armed guards, rerouting funds that would have gone to some other need, to pay for someone to stand and wait for an attack that may or may not come. There is little evidence to suggest this would prevent a gunman from opening fire on the room, but maybe it would lessen the number of deaths, maybe it would be a deterrent. It might make that congregation a little more safe, but then what? If anyone who can afford to hire armed guards to stand in the doorway of their churches, does so, then who is left at risk of the violent armed men who are looking for an opportunity to terrorize people? Has this strategy worked in other applications? Have we solved poverty by locking it into isolated corners and specified communities, have we improved our public education system by accepting a system that funds districts based on the wealth that lives within it's boundaries. Are we made more whole by sacrificing a living wage for the opportunity to buy cheap stuff and have it delivered to our doors? We have ignored the proliferation of guns to the point that guns out number human beings in the United States. There are 326 million people, and 396 million guns. Until that changes, drastically, we are not safe. Period. We need to open our eyes to the connection between the thousands of gun victims in poor black neighborhoods, and the dead children in too-many schools. We need to understand that our liberation from this fear is tied up with every other person in our country, and in our world. We need to realize that open doors- true sanctuaries, where we welcome one another and seek to understand the experience of another, are essential to our safety.
The difficult truth in this moment where hatred is being used to manipulate people and gain power, is that none of us are safe. In the idyllic community where I live, it is easy to forget that we are never safe from hatred. Moments like this rattle fear to life for some of us, but millions of people in today's America live with the awareness of that fear every day. Our job, in seeing this fear, is to remember our aspirations for the world, and to work toward that goal.
The Reverend Jennifer Hamlin Navais wrote a post on social media yesterday to her own congregation, and it is with her words that I will leave you for now:
We are as safe today as we were yesterday and as we will be tomorrow. Our safety, our sanctuary is in each other. Always has been always will be... Look folks in the eye, treat them with respect, confront hatred and return love. Show the world not here, not now, not ever. This, this is what fights hate. More hate, more fear, will not stop the violence in this world, the violence of supremacist rhetoric. More love is what we have to give and more love is our sanctuary.
