June is, among other commemorations, gun violence awareness month. As part of the work of addressing and redressing gun violence, my parish hosted a Guns to Gardens: National Buyback Day event on June 11th. While we are still mentally and spiritually processing the ways in which God has called us to confront gun violence, I found myself reflecting on the experience of standing before the forge that afternoon, physically processing gun parts into garden tools …
Starve a fever, feed cold
steel barrels into the forge
Beneath scorched earth cool clay
the kiln at earth’s core;
creation’s heart of stone
Beneath the concrete floor
reverb of the hammer starts a rumour
– revolution, evolution, healing –
over the anvil, fever breaks
swords into ploughshares
long guns into garden tools
threat into the promise of
life grown from a mustard seed …
