I Know Gun Trauma
I have witnessed gun violence in the face of my colleagues
The Reverend Mary Marguerite Kohn and Brenda Brewington. I know what gun trauma
feels like. Each time there is yet another mass shooting in this country, there
is an uncontrollable reaction deep inside of me that has yet to go away since
that tragic day at Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, Ellicott City, MD: Thursday,
May 3, 2012. Call it PTSD, call it Gun Trauma. It’s real. I spent much of the
following couple of days by Mary Marguerite’s bedside in Shock Trauma as she
was kept alive until organs could be harvested for transplantation. I spent
Friday evening gathering our congregation to begin the grieving process and
comfort one another. I struggled to find the words on Sunday morning that might
help us all to make sense of what had happened in the church office a few days
before:
“We will never understand it. We will never understand it no matter how many reports come out of the Howard County Police Department, who have served us all faithfully and well, we will never understand it. But we do understand this. We come from love, we return to love, and love is all around. Brenda and Mary Marguerite have returned home. They have returned to the heart of Love, the eternal center of God’s very Being.”
I have lived with the knowledge that on any other Thursday afternoon, I too would have been in that office. It was only a random scheduling change that kept me somewhere else until shortly after the shooting had been reported. I learned quite soon that, yes, there is something real about Survivor’s Guilt. Like the trauma itself, it never really goes away. I’m only here because I wasn’t there.
The events at Utah Valley University triggers all of this
like a slow-motion instant replay in an NFL Sunday game. I had already planned
what I might say on this 14th Sunday after Pentecost which greets us
with the words of two poets, one called Jeremiah, the other an unknown Psalmist:
"For my people are foolish,
they do not know me;
they are stupid children,
they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil,
but do not know how to do good." [i]
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’
All are corrupt and commit abominable acts;
there is none who does any good.
Every one has proved faithless;
all alike have turned bad;
there is none who does good; no, not one.” [ii]
Wisdom going back over 2,600 years describes how many feel about things today. It appears that retributive and redemptive violence has been with us all for as long as we can imagine. The “foolishness” expressed by our poets is kidding ourselves that we can stand on our own. We can keep a stiff upper lip. As one commentary observes, “Our culture considers autonomy one of the highest virtues. To be a functioning adult, one must be self-sufficient, self-directed; and the goal of life is often understood to be self-fulfillment, or self-actualization… namely, we don’t need other people, and we don’t need God! Such a conclusion does not deny the existence of God, but it does effectively eliminate God as an essential, functioning aspect of our daily reality. For us, in effect, “there is no God” [iii] It’s the gospel of Ayn Rand and the Marlboro Man that has so infected much of the heart and soul of America. Rugged Individualism reigns in a land that often pretends that we are a “Christian nation,” which would mean that we love God and love our neighbor – with Jesus defining neighbor as everyone, everywhere, all the time, no exceptions.
This week I am grateful that ours is an Episcopal Church –
which simply means we have bishops – from the Latin episcopus, and the
Greek episkopos. The 12th Bishop of the Diocese of Utah has
responded with words of faith and wisdom that hopefully help us understand
“understand” just who we are, and whose we are, and where we find ourselves
here, in America, today:
Episcopal Diocese of Utah Reacts to Shooting of Political
Commentator Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University September 10, 2025 SALT LAKE
CITY, UTAH —
The Episcopal Diocese of Utah stands in alliance with all who deeply lament the shooting that occurred today just north of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church at Utah Valley University in Orem. Twenty minutes into an event, conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk was shot, and was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
Our prayers are with Mr. Kirk’s family and friends as the shock of this news settles upon them. We hold in our prayers the victims of emotional trauma who were present at today’s event and the entire Utah Valley University community. We give thanks and ask for protection for all law enforcement and first responders.
Christ stands with the victims of violence and challenges us to build a society rooted in compassion, dignity, and justice. As people of faith we believe Jesus Christ calls us to confront injustice and ideological differences with integrity and truth but never through the use of physical force or intimidation. Violence is an unacceptable response to disagreement.
“We often say that we will pray for the victims and their families, and pray we must. But our faith demands more from us. We must guard the hatred in our hearts and on our lips; it is hatred and righteous indignation that leads to violence. Jesus said plainly, ‘it is that which is on our lips and in our hearts that defiles us.’” said The Rt. Rev. Phyllis A. Spiegel, 12th Bishop of Utah.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we hear again his commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). In this love our prayers were not ever intended as passive vessels, but active. We are called not only to intercede for those affected but also to stand together against violence.
As the Episcopal Church of Utah, we recommit ourselves to the way of Christ: praying fervently, speaking truthfully, resisting violence, and strengthening communities across differences. When we tolerate rhetoric of division or language that turns neighbors into “others,” we erode the bonds of community and create conditions where violence becomes a part of the narrative.
We as a church, and as a society, must change the narrative.
Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. Phyllis Spiegel,
12th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah
As a Rabbi, Hillel, living around the time of Jesus famously said: If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am for myself alone, who am I? And, if not now, when?
May our Christ and Savior Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, bring us back into communion with the household of Love that is the very heart of God, so that we might this day forsake our foolish ways and bear the very image of God we have been created to be so that we might represent God’s love to all the world: to every person, every creature, and all of creation itself. If not now, when? Amen.