November 1, 2024 - Dominican Convent, Sparkill, NY
Once a year, a quiet, harrowing ceremony takes place in Rockland. The names of those who died in mass shootings in the past year are read aloud, and a ribbon with their name on it is tied to a string of white holiday lights. Simple. But the length of the list gets longer every year. This year, it was almost 600 people out of the 44,000 dead from gun violence in America. And to hear just the date, name, location, and age of the dead person, one after the other, for over two hours, is a remarkable, haunting experience.
As it starts, it is sobering, sorrowful, and infuriating. Name after name, so many of them young people in their twenties, losing their futures, leaving their families, loved ones and those who were “merely” wounded, to pick up the pieces of their lives. November, December, and it starts to become hypnotic, in the rhythm of the reading. At the end of every month, there are blue ribbons for the law enforcement officers killed. And the Sisters of the Convent lead us in part of a hymn about God being wherever charity and love bring us together. It may seem antithetical to the relentless steamroller of the names of the needlessly dead, but then you look at the patient presence of the nuns whose part it is to take each batch of ribbons and tie them to the lights. That’s where the love is, and it does bind us together. We humanize the horrifying statistics by remembering these individual human beings we never met and saying their names.
By then, we are a bit dazed, and when the reading for the January victims starts, it’s hard to fathom that we’ve only gotten that far. Though, in fact, December and January have such long lists—over 70 mass shooting dead in each month-- it jolts you back up again. Holidays, parties, family gatherings, the pressure on mental health, must contribute to the madness of gun violence. For these deaths have many stories behind them: lone gunmen with assault weapons, children playing with unlocked weapons, suicides, murder-suicides, drive-bys and innocent bystanders. Schoolchildren and teachers. All over the country. No one in this country is untouched by gun violence, since it can happen to anyone, any minute, anywhere.
By April or May, there is the danger of becoming so used to hearing about it, that we stop listening. Even here in this chapel, you can feel the attention wandering, the mind glazing over. But, again and again, there is a new shock; someone too old for this, someone far too young. Whole families wiped out. The crazily long list from the 4th of July, the start of 64 mass shooting deaths that month. And not just in one location. Places become notorious: from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Waianae, Hawaii; from Forest Park, Illinois, to Syosset, Long Island. The readers-- from Moms Demand Action, some of the Sisters’ Anti-Gun Violence Committee, and members of other religious communities through Rockland Interfaith Social Action-- take their turns, several times each, to get through the list at last. The Ribbons of Remembrance display may be loaned to other organizations during the year. For more information, contact Sr Eileen Gannon (egannon@sparkill.org).
After some silence and some thanks, we walk out to the terrace garden, where the Sisters have strung the lights and tied the ribbons. Night has fallen, and the lines of lights of hope bear the fluttering ribbons of white and blue. Here in the Dominican Convent garden, in the middle of the strings of lighted ribbons, there is a statue of their patron saint, St. Dominic, looking up with clarity and purpose. On the ground, written out in mosaics on the pavement, you can read his Last Will and Testament:
Behold, my children, the heritage I leave you: Have charity for one another; Guard humility; Make your treasure out of voluntary poverty.
May we learn from the Sisters to make our treasure out of voluntary action, doing what we can to care for the safety and sanity of others.
Emily King
Rockland County, NY
Emily King became a member of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, in memory of Ben Wheeler, Dec. 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary, Newtown, CT, age 6.