Linda Loving preached on Sunday, and wonderful preaching it was indeed. Since sermons come week after week and one after the other, this little time off gave me a chance to find my breath. Free of another sermon deadline my mind went where my free time has gone, with New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. I invite you to join this group and the wider Santa Fe community at the plaza this Saturday, December 12, at 12:00 noon.

I really hoped and expected we would be in a much better place in these three years since Sandy Hook, which was the impetus for the group’s formation. I am both startled and dismayed beyond words that the world is a drastically more dangerous place. Gun violence fills our headlines and back pages, our entertainment, and now every part of our lives. Unlike Scotland, which lost its appetite for guns twenty years ago after a horrific school shooting, we seem to be even more mesmerized by them. Certainly we have done nothing to curtail their use and, in fact, the gun industry is thriving.

How can this be? Why don’t we stop it? How can we tolerate all the shootings and then say it is our right to have as many guns as we want, no matter where, no matter how lethal, and then be allowed to sell them to felons, domestic violence offenders, and those on our no-fly list? As a country I hope we are better than this.

When the cathedral bells stop ringing on Saturday, members of our choir will sing Dona Nobis Pacem followed by the reading of names of those killed by guns this year in New Mexico. Let us with sadness remember them but also envision that shining day when we no longer have names to read.