Dear Caldwell,
All weekend long I thought about Myra and Richard Harrison Sr.
As the news of the horrific act of terror in Buffalo developed, all I could think about was how our late member Richard Harrison, through the powerful influence of his parents, Myra and Richard, helped change Buffalo for the better. Richard, as you may recall, integrated the high school he attended, helping build a bridge that still connects that community. Buffalo was where Richard and his family took their own stand for equality and equity. Richard was a civil rights pioneer in his own right and his courage there isn’t forgotten.
When I called Myra Monday morning to express my sadness (and outrage), she shared news that reminds us how interconnected we all truly are – how we are one people, called to build one community. As you may have surmised from the news coverage, the Tops grocery store the gunman selected was known as a community center for the black community in Buffalo. The neighbors there had fought for it to be opened and it serves as a hub of life and community energy. Out of the white supremacist evil that lived in his heart, that is why the gunman chose it, driving three hours to target its patrons and employees.
Sighs too deep for words. That’s a phrase we’ve become far too familiar with in these last years. Pain that is unspeakable. Anger that threatens to take over our souls. Perhaps, even for a moment, hopelessness that the forces that sustain gun violence and neglect the nation’s mental health crisis may even be unstoppable.
Myra went on to share news that brings us all even closer to the tragedy. Her and Richard Sr.’s nephew, Craig Gadley, works as a security guard at that Tops store and had just been called in to work a shift; he was to relieve the security guard, Aaron Salter, who died trying to defend the store. Craig feels survivor’s remorse, Myra said. I promised we would pray for him.
What’s more, Myra told me her goddaughter had worked for years for Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, who has spoken so poignantly and compassionately about his city’s pain and our city’s gun violence cancer. After speaking with Myra, I recalled the statement by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Birmingham jail missive:
“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be… This is the inter-related structure of reality.”
I know that some may be unable to watch another minute of this news of not just one shooting but several this weekend, including one late Sunday at a California Presbyterian Church. It is too much. The evil seems too great. The pattern too indelible in the life of a society bent on tearing itself asunder. I dare not try to offer any trite explanation or distraction that would risk dishonor the sheer weight of the oppression we all feel, but especially our siblings of color. Something is deeply, deeply wrong in the heart of our nation and I fear there are the worst has yet to come.
If you do want to act, click here to read a call to action by our denomination against gun violence.
What I also know is that God draws near to us and connects us in that web of mutuality to the people of Buffalo and at Geneva Presbyterian Church and wherever else sin threatens to seize the day. Perhaps it is the very mystery of how God works, in all of its seeming impenitribility, that might assure us that the God of love as shown to us in Christ has won in the end. After all, that is our claim as Easter people, even when, just as the disciples must have felt when they came under attack for following Jesus, all we can see is tragedy and terror.
There are immediate prayers we can offer. Please keep LaWonder McDowell in your prayers. She has rushed to be with her son in Wisconsin after he suffered a heart attack Monday morning. Chris and Marion Idol ask for prayers as Chris recovers from a heart procedure. We lift up Richard Campell, Baby Staber and Whit Akinson. There are so many other situations, as noted in other communications, that call for your prayer and God’s healing.
Another thing we can do is get out and vote in Tuesday’s primaries. Important decisions are at stake.
In closing, perhaps Richard Harrison’s spirit is there in Buffalo, drawing near to those in pain and loss, lending them courage, faith, hope and love. That would be just like him. And may he be with us in spirit, too.
Amidst such troubling times, receive this ancient and timeless blessing from the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians:
“Finally, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”
In Christ, John