Dear People of St. John’s,

     In a time before time, but not so long ago, a man was brought before the King for making derogatory, judgmental remarks about his neighbors.  The King decided not to have the man beheaded since he promised to never do it again.  The man said he would do anything to make things right with his neighbors.  The King instructed the man to place a feather on each of his neighbor’s doorsteps.  The man did as he was told and returned to the King.

     “How many feathers did you place on your neighbor’s doorsteps,” asked the King?

     “101, sire,” said the man.

     “Now I want you to go back and collect all the feathers and bring them to me,” said the King.

     The man left and returned the next day with his head down.

     “How many feathers do you have,” asked the King?

     “None, sire, the wind blew them all away in the night,” said the man.

     “So it is with your careless remarks and your callous words,” said the King.  “Remember this lesson well in the future.”

     It was Samuel Johnson who said, “We have no more right to speak slanderous words about another than to hit them in the face.”

      We live in a culture where words are tossed about casually and we seem to care less about who may be hurt by them.  Recent events in our national life appear to bear this out.  How very sad and what an indictment on the state of humanity.  We seem to have a careless disregard for truth, even less for what this teaches our children, and earmuffs when it comes to noticing the heightening rhetoric and increasingly loud volume all about us.  We seem to have lost the ability to engage in civil conversation, genuinely listening to the views and opinions of another, and expressing our own without profanity-laced helpers.

     I had just finished writing the above when the violence and mass killing at Virginia Tech came spilling into our lives.  It is always so shocking and we struggle to get our minds and hearts around such a tragic event.  We hardly have time to grieve and reach out to those who are hurting, those who have suffered such devastating loss, and those who have such deep questions about how something like this could happen, when we hear careless words and callous remarks.  Fingers are pointed at those who didn’t do enough, responsibility is assigned to those who did the wrong thing, decisions are second-guessed, and headlines proclaim that perfect 20/20 hindsight could have prevented it all.  Enough! 

     Now is the time to put your arm around someone and hold them up until they can stand again on their own.  Now is the time to ask those who are suffering such loss we might do that would be most helpful?  Now is the time to come together in mutual love and genuine affection.  Whatever might be learned from all this can come later and only after honest discourse.  Scattering feathers on tender doorsteps only serves to add pain to the already wounded and grief-stricken.  It is my prayer that we refrain from early judgment, easy answers, and careless words. 

     This is a time to remember how much we need each other when the call comes in the middle of the night or on a breezy early spring day and we know that life will be forever changed.  Handling that change in a way that allows room for something positive will take all of us, loving and working together.  Otherwise, scattered feathers turn into fiery darts that kill, maim, and destroy.  “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

                                                 Peace,                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                           Tom