[Dialogue] Pachamama Pondering, 2022; Photos: CVPA Vigil, Town Hall Meeting
JAMES ADDINGTON
inarja at comcast.net
Mon Oct 31 09:15:27 PDT 2022
Thank you, Ellie!
Peace,
James
> On 10/31/2022 9:04 AM Ellie Stock via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Folks,
>
> Below is: A Reflection: PACHAMAMA PONDERING, 2022, on the 10/24 mass shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis.
>
> Attached (if you can get them) Photos: CVPA Vigil, Balloon Release, Town Hall Meeting
>
>
>
> PACHAMAMA PONDERING, 2022
>
> One more time the alarm shrieks!
> (Ironically, paralleling folks’
> being attracted to Halloween week’s
> scarey, shriek-filled haunted houses and horror flicks,
> and faux death skeleton and ghost yard décor,
> while, simultaneously, shying away from engaging
> with life’s real scarey issues)
> Another mass school shooting!
> This time, it happened (well, it doesn’t “just happen”)
> in Central Visual Performing Arts HS,
> St. Louis, MO (still dealing with implications
> from Michael Brown’s death, Post WW II radiation waste
> contaminating Jana Elementary School and other places,
> and having one of the highest murder rates in the U.S.):
> 3 dead: a 16 year-old girl, a teacher and
> an isolated 19 year old shooter, a former graduate,
> plagued by mental health issues;
> 7 others injured,
> mostly young life,
> facing the unexpected real horror of : “YOU are going to die!”
> by long gun—acquired via lax state regulation,
> maximum capacity cartridge,
> 600 rounds of ammunition—
> now a long crimson line of school terrorism
> stretching from here to Uvalde, Parkland,
> Sandy Hook, etc., etc. etc. to Columbine.
>
> The next evening, I look around
> the intermingling, interracial Vigil crowd,
> gathered under moonlit shadows, outside the school
> a place of learning, growing, enjoying the arts,
> a place of discovering, developing and deploying
> the gifts of young talent;
> now a crime scene of bullet holes and shells,
> shattered walls and windows and scattered belongings
> abandoned as panicked, shrieking students quickly ran for safety,
> barricading doors and jumping out windows;
> now mostly calmly quiet with an occasional sob or wail
> or car revving by, honking in solidarity,
> black, yellow and white balloons reaching skyward,
> tethered to lit candled hands,
> flames flickering in the wind,
> cascades of wax tears,
> dropping to the asphalt covering PACHAMAMA
> as she also weeps.
>
> PACHAMAMA pondering . . .
> Preachers and others invoke the name of Jesus,
> (or whatever other name or tradition may be present)
> praying for comfort, healing, peace, justice,
> words of accountability
> for the litany of gun violence in this nation,
> for impotent politicians and a public
> that choose guns and death over safety and life,
> for the sickness of this society—enough, already!—
> words spoken about being community and
> supporting one another,
> interspersed songs, lamenting—How long, O Lord?—
> words lifting up the name of each person killed and injured,
> and those who heroically rushed to the scene to stop the shooter,
> sad and angry words of hurt, broken, and traumatized souls,
> mothers grieving from the depths, echoing PACHAMAMA’S lament for this Pandemic of Empire and Colonialism:
> violence and racism,
> nationalism, autocracy, aggression, and greed
> that fabricate lies and threaten to destroy
> the fabric of families, communities and nations:
> Mother Emanuel AME, Tree of Life
> El Paso, Las Vegas, and Boulder,
> Iraq, Afganistan, Yemen, Syria,
> Somalia, Sudan, Ukraine, Russia, etc., etc., etc.—
> their predecessors and successors.
>
> PACHAMAMA pondering . . .
>
> The loud speaker bleeps off and on,
> muffling some words, making others unintelligible,
> yet one does not have to hear them to know what is being said.
> Candles melt down as balloons perk up,
> earnestly alert for the signal to be launched heavenward
> where some hope their loved ones are waiting.
> And, finally, in a cathartic expression of memory and hope—Lift Off!—
> a cluster of sparkling dirigibles, airborne, gently separating,
> filling the sky and fulfilling their mission, dancing with stars,
> temporarily escaping the bonds and suffering and pain.
>
> PACHAMAMA pondering . . .
>
> Humanity’s violence spills beyond itself—
> seeping into the land, water, air—
> destroying ecological systems and irreplaceable Beings while
> fossil fuel and other invasive mining,
> contaminate, infect, poison, and suffocate,
> heating the planet, melting glaciers,
> causing erratic storms, drought, and fires and increasing the wealth-poverty divide,
> conflict and warfare.
> Climate refugees flee homelands for an uncertain future;
> carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane gas erupt,
> food and supply chains are disrupted and disrupt,
> shortages abound as fields become barren
> and mighty rivers run dry—
> another Pandemic of devastation
>
> PACHAMAMA pondering . . .
>
> But wait, there’s more . . .
> COVID and other deadly diseases
> continue to evolve and mutate,
> killing millions, many in their prime,
> rooting where protocols are not honored,
> where vaccinations are neither
> welcomed nor equitably distributed,
> a Pandemic tide of germs, surging and ebbing,
> perhaps waiting for a more opportune time
> to discretely emerge and merge with a populace
> that defends individualistic freedom over vigilance,
> the Common Good and the well-being and freedom of All.
>
> PACHAMAMA pondering . . .
>
> The next night, the Scene segues
> from the school grounds to a Town Hall Meeting
> on gun violence and schools and bullying,
> hosted by a U.S. Representative, where
> more words are intoned and gods invoked
> in a citizen-filled room—
> school administrators, teachers, preachers,
> politicos, students, first responders,
> parents (including the mother of the girl killed),
> feeling powerless,
> trapped in a cycle of unrelenting violence
> and unraveling of civilization,
> looking for answers, for wise and bold leadership.
> A panel of speakers portends business as usual
> until a young lady on the dais, a senior at CVPA,
> rises to her feet. Incredibly poised,
> she passionately and prophetically reads her Truth to Power,
> a letter of proclamation to the Representative,
> and demands that something be done: Control the guns!
> Stop the killing! Enough is enough!
> No more excuses! No more thoughts and prayers and vigils!
> No more political posturing, postmortem speeches, and funeral eulogies! No more Cross and Stars of David memorials,
> stuffed animals, votive candles, and balloons.
> DO SOMETHING to create SAFE SCHOOLS and
> SAFE NEIGHBORHOODS with equitable resources,
> SAFE COMMUNITIES and A SAFE NATION!
> DO SOMETHING! NOW!
> And a child shall lead them . . .
>
> PACHAMAMA pondering . . .
>
> And, finally, to close the gone-overtime,
> anxiety-fraught meeting,
> more words are spoken and then,
> a Word Benedictory:
> we are all connected and are all called,
> for such a time as this,
> to live into our connectedness and interrelationship;
> words of gratitude for those who came and who care,
> who show up day after day, year after year,
> who have a vision of working together,
> who overcome paralyzing fear, despair, and powerlessness,
> who bridge polarizing politics
> and passionately and compassionately
> pour heart, mind, soul, and strength into creating
> resilient communities and a world of
> equity and justice for all our relatives—
> animal, vegetable, and mineral,
> who carry within and elicit from others
> the unfolding adventure of
> an ever wondrous Creation Way of Possibility,
> Hope beyond hope and Love unconditioning,
> Truth consistent with Earth’s Truth,
> Peace, Wholeness, Shalom,
> turning swords into plowshares,
> instruments of death into tools cultivating Life.
>
> As the crowd exits and trickles into the night,
> into separate domains and spheres of influence,
> many wonder: just mere words,
> their urgency and agency eventually fading and fizzling
> or real change this time?
>
> PACHAMAMA pondering . . .
>
> ejhs
> 10/29/2022
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