The husband and wife wandered through

Cabela’s on Sunday. He had seen an ad in

Sunday’s paper and even though they had

every outdoor thing imaginable with the big,

intentional, exception of guns, they thought

it offered a nice excuse for a Sunday ride and

the opportunity to stare at the hiking boots

and trail runners. He is the Amelda Marcos

of running shoes.  She found a great deal

on a base layer hoody for hiking and jogging.

On the way out, after the requisite tour of

the aquarium, he glanced at the area they otherwise

never gave a thought – hunting.  Did he bother

because of all the talk of gun control? He

wondered if they just sold hunting rifles

and small-caliber guns. What they saw

looked like a mob. The store was crowded

but the hunting section was jam-packed.

The ad in the paper didn’t mention great

deals on guns. Guns weren’t mentioned.

Winter clothes for the family were.

So, on this day, four years into Barack

Obama’s presidency, a week or so

before his second inaugural, about a

month after the Sandy Hook slaughter

and just another day when thirty-three

people will be mowed down by guns

in America times 365 days for 12,045

murders a year, the hunting section was

jammed.  Hunting animals is

down nation-wide.  Hunting humans

is up.  Were all these people lined

up to reverse the trend in declining

numbers of deer, bear, squirrel,

rabbit and bird hunting?  They

wondered as they wandered up

and down the aisles, excusing them-

selves as they squeezed among the

shoppers.  He looked over at the fishing

section and wondered why no one was

there except the clerks and salespeople?

As they made their way for the exit, they

realized on a Sunday afternoon where the

worship was happening – in the hunting

section of Cabela’s.  On a Sunday afternoon

they saw god in a glass case.  They saw

the golden calf in high-powered assault

rifles and $2000 handguns. They saw

the real, true, honest, disgusting,

abhorrent, shameful, sacrilegious,

heretical truth that America’s god

is a gun. Lord, have mercy! Christ,

have mercy! Lord, have mercy on

a Sunday afternoon in gun country.

Guns, guns everywhere

and so much blood

as we sit and drink our beer.

Guns, guns everywhere

and we can’t let the NRA fear

and not stand up for our rights.

No, it’s a religious quest —

something for which fights

are for the brightest (sic) and best (sic).

So we won’t give in to the State’s

demand.

We’ll fight because we believe

it is our Great God’s plan.

We sit, night after night, staring

dumbly and numbly — Boobs

staring at the tubes

and watch guns blazing on shows

and even on the news.

What fun we have watching

NCIS East and West

blazing away and making

jokes that are the best.

A Person of Interest’s enemy

chokes

while his genius boss makes

pretty bad jokes,

and the Hawaii 5-0 beach bums

kid each other while

the enemy croaks.

We get our thrill

vicariously

and watch and watch

religiously.

We need those guns to blast

our enemies as

they might come through our doors

with no delay

and the false laws will never

stand in the way

of our Second Amendment rights

and never, ever take

our good God, God granted,

Godly guns away.

Those big mag rifles are our lovers;

We love to stroke the barrel

Or me and my brother’s name

ain’t Darrell and Darrell.

Glocks are our salvation.

Without them there

is no redemption,

So, don’t worry NRA,

they will never, ever

take our guns away.

They cannot take God

away.

They will never take God

away.

Charlton Heston, God rest his

soul, was wrong.

Do you understand?

They cannot pry God

From a cold, dead hand,

Not even when all

Our hands are cold and

dead.

God bless America, land

that we militia love.

Yes, I’m a Yankee Doodle

Ding Dong, A

Yankee Wobble head,

do and die.

Shot fifteen times, clutching

his chest, he fell over the

the railing and tumbled into

the flower garden now brown

in the winter’s coldness. He

lay lifeless but still breathing

rapidly. After a few seconds

miraculously he arose from

the dead and without even

brushing off the wood chips,

somersaulted and swerved his

way around the next wave

of bullets. He jumped behind

the lone Maple in the front

yard, drew his gun and

unleashed a barrage of

bullets that no enemy

could ignore or survive. Smiling

and full of himself and his

virtue, he knew the good guy

had won again. The storm

door opened, his mother

called to him not to

get his “Going to Church

Clothes” dirty.  In her

hand she held a Sunday

School pin with the inscription

“Jesus Paid it All,” and said,

“Don’t forget your perfect

attendance pin.” Fifty-five

years later, a scrawny kid

broke a window, climbed

through, hauling his arsenal,

entered the classroom and

blasted the enemy – twenty

some first graders — to

smithereens.  His mother

wasn’t there to tell him to

get ready for church. She had

five bullets in her head. The

man who had had fifteen shots

to the chest years and years ago

and who had survived so many

battles between the Cavalry and

the Indians also taking place

in his parents’ front yard sat

in the coffee shop watching

a man on TV say that the

way to stop a bad man

with a gun is a good man

with a gun and

wondered.

He entered the sacred ground

Through the weather-beaten arch

And wandered among the graves

With native trinkets of plastic and

Tobacco at the feet of the chipped

Paint crosses.

He walked back through the arch

To the back of the pick up truck

With the tailgate transformed into

A communion table. He got into

Line and soon consumed the broken

Body and spilled blood of Jesus

In a Graham cracker and orange juice.

He walked over to the edge and stood

In the shadow of death in the valley of

Wounded Knee.  He stood perfectly

Still and completely quiet and heard

The heart piercing cries

And screams like arrows shot out of

The mouths of old men, women and

Children.  The summer sun beat down

On his head, but he felt the winter wind

Whip the snow around his feet.  He saw the

Rifle placed in the dead

Old man’s frozen hand and he wept.

Things For Which I Give Thanks In the New Year:

1.  God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ as best I understand that.

2.  My wife of seventeen years and a fellow member of the club to which no one wants to belong but which fifty percent of all married people will – the Widowed Person’s Club.

3.  Our children and their families.

4.  Boomerang, the twelve-year-old Chocolate Lab

5.  My true friends who, as they say, I actually can count on one hand.

6. Water, air and the environment as beleaguered as it is.

7.  Soap, toilets and the sewer system.

8.  PBS and NPR.

9.  Symphony, Theater, Ballet, Opera, Art Museums.

10.  Fiction and Poetry.

11.  Jogging, cycling, hiking, kayaking and camping.

12.  The re-election of Barack Obama, who, by his own admission, would have been considered a moderate Republican by 1980’s standards.

13.  All the other things I can’t think of at this senior moment.

New Year’s Resolutions:

1.  To get back to writing.

2.  To lose fifteen pounds by April 15.

3.  To suffer the bad drivers of Phoenix gladly.

4.  To stay out of the drama at the church to which I belong.

He has survived twenty-two days of a relentless virus, which has invaded his sinuses and descended to the weak link – his asthmatic lungs. War has raged and the old medicine barely touched that which under different circumstances would kill him.  Hold it off, he tells himself.

“Here is something stronger to inhale four times a day until the coughing stops and then twice a day to strengthen your lungs to ward it off the next time.”  — to ward it off the next time.  How ominous.  He remembers that another physician had told him years ago to spit out what he coughs up; don’t swallow it.

A day before, he coughs and coughs, spins, faints and lunges head first into a nearby wall.  At least the glass in his hand doesn’t smash cutting him to the bone and requiring another trip to the emergency room.  He coughs more carefully.

He has survived the war.  The virus wears down, retreats but doesn’t give up the ghost completely.  One day a cold will return and will descend again. The man thinks about the black plague, about the small pox that killed so many touched by European invaders, the pandemic of Spanish influenza and about his grandfather who died at thirty-nine of that particular virus in his lungs.

At sixty-eight, the man, without anyone saying it, knows how close he has been to not being here, if it had been another time, another location.  He is becoming aware of how vulnerable humanity is, not even counting all the ways humanity has of killing itself off.

He inhales the new medicine.  He breathes deeply and smiles for now and hopes that this medicine really is stronger than the last.  He thinks about the wonders of modern medicine
and laughs when he thinks most of the progress is in his bathroom — the cammode and a bar of soap.

As a little boy

I walked out of my

Bedroom and looked

At the little nook of

Books cradled against

A pale, blue background.

It was there I saw a copy

Of Les Miserables and

Knew enough even as

A nine-year-old that Les

Must be “The” and Les Miserables

Must mean The Miserable Ones.

Ever since those days

I’ve thought about how it

Isn’t just the French who

Are miserable. I’ve agreed

With Thoreau that people

Live their lives in

Quiet desperation and

How that surely is

A form of misery. And

Then I think about

The History of Mankind

On the History Channel,

And how humanity always

Seems to turn for relief from

The misery of quiet desperation

By realizing that misery

Loves company and so

Inflicts misery on other

Desperate ones by (in some-

What historical order) clubbing,

Bashing, spearing, slicing,

Dicing and shooting first

With rocks shot out off canons,

Then bullets out of muskets,

Then bullets in magazines

In high-powered rifles and along

The way atomic bombs dropped

From planes as a way to get

Out of their own misery, but

If it feels so good to vent all

That desperation by spreading

It around, how come desperate

Men in their teens, twenties and

Thirties once they have blown

To smithereens little boys and

Girls and some adults

In elementary, high school,

College, grocery store parking lots

And movie theaters, turn the Glock

9mm on themselves after all that

Spreading?  Surely, if that spreading

Is the answer, that would

Have done it.

Quiet, peaceful, still

Town Square, 1971,

he swaggered out of

the theatre, a twenty-six

year old, husband, dad,

university chaplain, preacher

of peace during Viet Nam,

reached into his pocket,

pulled out his hand with

index finger and thumb

cocked, pointed here

there and everywhere:

Blam, blam, blam,

“Do you feel lucky, punk?”

uttered years before he

had a “Go ahead,

make my day” kind

of a day

after watching Dirty

Harry

stare down

the bad guy.

The preacher of peace’s

adrenalin was pumpin’

flowin’. He, too, was

ready to pop the bad

guys just like a few

years before, he was

Steve McQueen in

Bullitt putting his

shoulder holster over

the arm of the chair and

looking at it in a pregnant

pause as if to ask if this

is the right way, the way

he made after the unbelievable

car chase that set the standard

for all car chases to come.

Was it Bullitt’s stare at his

gun that gave him pause,

or simply the still, small

voice that won out

and kept him from ever

owning a gun? And

forty-one years later

he remembers just

how he felt that evening

and he thanks God

that he never bought

that gun.

The following was written by CHAPLAIN [LTC] JAMES C. BERBIGLIA,USA,Ret.
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH USA in response to the tragic shooting yesterday at the elementary school in Connecticut:

Children, hands on shoulders ahead of them like little elephants trunk to tail,
Quick march, crying, terrified past slaughtered kindergarteners to the firehouse,
While Fathers and brothers play weapons and war games on X-Boxes
And White Male Congressmen vote for more guns and right-to-carry
And Jesus is born in a manger, challenging the power of Roman Rule.

It seems so distant

When he jogged the woodland trails

Before getting sick.

His lungs are now weak;

Coughing has exhausted them

And his head still spins

And every breath hides

A rumble deep within,

And he fears breathing

Which will send his head

Spinning round and round the room.

He sits down quickly;

He doesn’t get up

Let alone go for a jog.

The outdoors can wait.