Year End Replay: What Is A Human Response To Mass Shooting Violence? How Does Responding In Community Give Us Power?

This show was recorded in October 2019.

What In God’s Name has a conversation with Mark Koyama, Tina O’Neil, Sarah Ellis, and Mona Brooks of the United Church of Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Our conversation: their community’s religiously anchored response to the number of Americans killed by gun violence in 2019.

In this second part of our conversation, visual artist Mona Brooks talks about the physical, tactile dimension of this project and how that physicality made the people who have died in mass shootings more real, more human. Sarah Ellis reminds us that no society will last long without courage and love.

Part One of this conversation can be found in last week’s show, released on October 3rd.

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What In God’s Name approaches current events and culture not from a partisan political angle, not from a money and economics angle, not from a technological and scientific angle, but from a theological and philosophical angle.

Be in touch. Our email: whatingods@ribeye-media.com.

Learn more. Our website: www.whatingods.com

Here are timecodes to help you navigate through today’s show:

01:10     Chris and Shayna recount how they met and what draws them to co-create What In God’s Name

03:00     Chris shows some love for the What In God’s Name audience. Our show asks people to think seriously about public questions. 

04:10     Chris recounts this local New Hampshire church’s response to the mass shootings this summer in El Paso and Dayton.

05:57     Mona Brooks shares her participation in the project. How is the question Do I make a difference? one of the questions that gives rise to religion?

09:12     Mona shares an invitation she makes to anyone who walks into her gallery, and the reason for the invitation. Does her reading of our human need ring true to you?

10:26     Can the exercise of human creativity unwind the life-denying power of destruction? What kinds of teaching do elders need to engage in, to help young people understand the human capability for both creation and destruction?

16:54     Shayna talks about the physical dimension of making the crosses, and planting them in the ground. Why is the physicality of these acts important?

18:20     Sarah Ellis shares that she was motivated by words that conveyed hope and resolve. How important is it for us to encourage one another?

20:22     Sarah observes that the culture of fear might be new to those who have lived in relative privilege, but that for many people of color, living with fear is not new.

22:09     Sarah emphasizes the importance of making way in the world that is grounded in love. Is that possible? Even if it’s not possible, could it still be worth making the effort?