March for Our Lives

As many of you know, I was at Stoneman Douglas High School in the hours after the shooting on February 14.  Being there changed me.  I met frightened and helpless family members desperate to get news, former students whose hearts were breaking as they watched and waited for word about friends and former teachers/coaches.  I saw the courage and focus of first responders, and felt the darkness that covered an entire community, an entire country.  In the weeks that followed I went to the memorial and watched the pain come forth in the tears of students who had to grow up far too quickly that February day.  I shed my own tears as I looked at the candles illuminate the markers for each of the students killed. 

That is why I am called to walk with the students of Stoneman Douglas High School and people of Parkland in the upcoming March for Our Lives.  I don’t ever want to see such sights again, in my community or anyone else’s.  I don’t believe God wants that either.

Gun violence is a complex issue that must be addressed on multiple fronts.  It will take Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals working together.  It includes how we care for the mentally ill, how law enforcement can better identify those who pose a serious threat, and how to better secure our school facilities.  There is also the spiritual question.  We cannot legislate people’s hearts.  As long as our hearts are filled with hate, anger, and violence, there will never be peace.  People need faith, spirituality, and God now more than ever.  Yet, as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.” 

For me, reasonable and sensible gun laws are one way that we can better “restrain the heartless” and work towards ending gun violence.   On March 24, 2018, in Washington DC, Parkland, and many other cities across the country, people will march to call for reasonable reforms to our gun laws:  1.  To ban the sale of assault weapons like the AR-15 (limiting use of such military grade weapons to military and law enforcement, not civilians); 2.  To prohibit the sale of high capacity magazines; 3.  To enact universal background checks on the sale of firearms (closing loopholes on sale of guns at gun shows or online).

I will be joining the students and families marching in Parkland, Florida that day.  I do so in the name of Jesus, who called his disciples to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9) and to seek security in a spiritual power greater than weapons.  He once said, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”  (Matthew 26:52) 

I will march to stand with the families of those who lost children and those who are still recovering from injury.  I will march to stand with a community that is still hurting and will never be the same again.  I will march to stand with students who in the face of grief have found a way to call our country into a new way of being.  I will march so that future students and families will not know the terrible pain of such violence.

I invite you to join me on Saturday, March 24^th, at 9:00 a.m.   If you would like to be included on an email list of those marching and receive latest updates about the event, just email me at bopalinski@christchurchfl.org and I will include you in the updates and details.   Address for the March:  Pine Trails Park, 10555 Trails End, Parkland, FL  33076

If you live in another place, I encourage you to find a march in your community or a nearby city.

Even if you are unable to walk that day, or if you have a different opinion on gun laws and ways to reduce gun violence, I invite you to pause and say a prayer for the Parkland community and the students of Stoneman Douglas High School.  May God’s peace and healing rest upon them and all of us as we strive to make God’s love visible in a broken and hurting world. 

Together we are the hands and feet of Jesus,

Brett