Hear Our Voice

Yes, our Founding Fathers  saw fit to formulate the Constitution with forthright freedoms about firearms;

And it is oh so inconvenient to try to interpret their words for our day, when some insist you can only look at them through theirs–Except when it is convenient for them to look at them through ours.

Look, I’m all for the Constitution, just so we’re all clear,

But I’m also a Jew.

And as a Jew, I am a member of a thousands of years old dance company: Waltzes, tangoes, merengues, tribal dances, rain dances, tantric dances, and free expression…

We fully recognize and embrace both the power of historically rooted verse

And simultaneously the critical need for update and revision and reimagination.

And so did our Founding Fathers, 

Breaking with England,

Reimagining the broadest frameworks possible for what it could mean to be born and to live and die free–in LIFE.

What  a revolutionary thought that was!

And even they, I firmly believe, understood that their imposed limits on the rights of women and most anyone not white were ironic, at best– and at worst, a play for the haters to remain on board.

But these out of sync limits had a “sell by date,” one that they would nonetheless restamp, claiming that the milk was still good long after it had curdled and soured.

But as long as they could muster their strength, manipulate the vote, and manage to not lose their lunch…ever accompanied by the stench of that which could no longer be considered even “stinky cheese,” myopic views of what “they must have meant”have continued to determine our course.

 This is what has come up for me this morning as I reflect on Sandy Hook, ten  years and one day later, and those children and their teachers and their parents–

Hearts torn and broken, generations to come that won’t be–

All because a kid could buy a big gun to release his own pain and anxiety;

because the advocates for the most illogical and irrational rationales, for hundreds of years, have been using that Second Amendment in ways that would make our forefathers blush.

“You call that a militia?”, they would ask… 

Today, as we remember Sandy Hook, I invite us all to make a contribution to Sandy Hook Promise.  Even a small donation is so important.  Just to tell them all, “I see you.”