Not there yet, but... | measurable progress

read it yourself | Remarks by the President on Common-Sense Gun Safety Reform 01.05.16

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

January 05, 2016

Remarks by the President on Common-Sense Gun Safety Reform

East Room

11:43 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Thank you, everybody.  Please have a seat.  Thank you.  (Applause.)  Thank you so much.

Mark, I want to thank you for your introduction.  I still remember the first time we met, the time we spent together, and the conversation we had about Daniel.  And that changed me that day.  And my hope, earnestly, has been that it would change the country. 

Five years ago this week, a sitting member of Congress and 18 others were shot at, at a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona.  It wasn’t the first time I had to talk to the nation in response to a mass shooting, nor would it be the last.  Fort Hood.  Binghamton.  Aurora.  Oak Creek.  Newtown.  The Navy Yard.  Santa Barbara.  Charleston.  San Bernardino.  Too many.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Too many.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Too many.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Too many.

THE PRESIDENT:  Thanks to a great medical team and the love of her husband, Mark, my dear friend and colleague, Gabby Giffords, survived.  She’s here with us today, with her wonderful mom.  (Applause.)  Thanks to a great medical team, her wonderful husband, Mark -- who, by the way, the last time I met with Mark  -- this is just a small aside -- you may know Mark’s twin brother is in outer space.  (Laughter.)  He came to the office, and I said, how often are you talking to him?  And he says, well, I usually talk to him every day, but the call was coming in right before the meeting so I think I may have not answered his call -- (laughter) -- which made me feel kind of bad.  (Laughter.)    That’s a long-distance call.  (Laughter.)  So I told him if his brother, Scott, is calling today, that he should take it.  (Laughter.)  Turn the ringer on.  (Laughter.) 

I was there with Gabby when she was still in the hospital, and we didn’t think necessarily at that point that she was going to survive.  And that visit right before a memorial -- about an hour later Gabby first opened her eyes.  And I remember talking to mom about that.  But I know the pain that she and her family have endured these past five years, and the rehabilitation and the work and the effort to recover from shattering injuries.

And then I think of all the Americans who aren’t as fortunate.  Every single year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns -- 30,000.  Suicides.  Domestic violence.  Gang shootouts.  Accidents.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost brothers and sisters, or buried their own children.  Many have had to learn to live with a disability, or learned to live without the love of their life. 

A number of those people are here today.  They can tell you some stories.  In this room right here, there are a lot of stories.  There’s a lot of heartache.  There’s a lot of resilience, there’s a lot of strength, but there’s also a lot of pain.  And this is just a small sample.

The United States of America is not the only country on Earth with violent or dangerous people.  We are not inherently more prone to violence.  But we are the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency.  It doesn't happen in other advanced countries.  It’s not even close.  And as I’ve said before, somehow we’ve become numb to it and we start thinking that this is normal.

And instead of thinking about how to solve the problem, this has become one of our most polarized, partisan debates -- despite the fact that there’s a general consensus in America about what needs to be done.  That’s part of the reason why, on Thursday, I’m going to hold a town hall meeting in Virginia on gun violence.  Because my goal here is to bring good people on both sides of this issue together for an open discussion. 

in the wind | tweets from the space ending 12.31.15

the year in gun violence | If you're OK with things as they are for a little longer, no action is required http://buff.ly/1RkjFXx 

"Take the redemption of the ungodly and the love of enemy out of the Christian faith, and you un-Christian it" http://buff.ly/1O93buU

2002–14 teen DUI-alcohol fell from 16.2 - 6.6%. DUI-alcohol+pot dropped from 2.2 - 1.4% http://buff.ly/1MioB7E

what would cool Jesus do? | a remarkable piece of writing in this season of longing http://buff.ly/1NZoaVf 

a bracing - and, I think, fair - commentary on male fragility in these United States - you … http://buff.ly/1QBmmnu 

Meet Your Second Wife | SNL (+ comedy) at its best http://buff.ly/1OHckve 

short + sweet | The Editorial Board of the Washington Post on the spirit of Jesus this Christmas http://buff.ly/1RKmhhy 

comfort + joy | "scaring people is a fantastic way to sell things" http://buff.ly/1U7NOHw 

Pastor: "my family of faith is wrong on guns." http://buff.ly/1JHiNot 

No father should ever have clear cause to feel this... but here we are. Let's get busy http://bit.ly/1UfcKgt  [h/t @EphremSmith]

Thanks, @InterVarsity, for affirming that #BlackLivesMatter. May your tribe increase http://bit.ly/1Oruroz 

think of it as video dim sum @ the closing of the year http://bit.ly/1PzZ52v  #

At $2, think of it as video dim sum.

All the video at thetinycompanycalledme.com me is now just $2 a serving - except the stuff that's free.

Under the Moon + Stars (feat. Mark Yaconelli)

The newest piece is called Under the Moon + Stars, featuring Mark Yaconelli telling a delightful story about something that happened the summer he was 13 years-old. It's a great way introduce a conversation about the future, about dreaming, about growing up, about being the person who believes in people + about the people who believe in us...

All the videos at thetinycompanycalledme.com are short, sweet, cheap and tuned to ignite reflection + conversation about faith + spiritual formation, about taking risks, going deep, growing up.

Know anyone who cares about things like that? Send them on over for a free taste, or an inexpensive meal, you know for... the soul.

Happy New Year.

jh

Meet Your 2nd Wife | SNL (+ comedy) at its best

As husband, father, brother, son, youth worker - all of me - I don't think it gets much better than this...

2015 | the year in US gun violence

The costs and benefits of cheap and easy access to firearms are written between the lines of this summary from the Gun Violence Archive.

You can find out how many people have been shot near you this year right here (one murder/suicide .57 miles from my home this year).

Click here to connect with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America — the movement birthed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut three years ago today. 

Use these links to communicate your passion directly to your US Senators and Congressional Representative.

If you're good with things as they are for a little while longer, no action is required at this time.

total embarrassment two | how it maybe came to this...

How did Jesus become an embarrassment to the Christian faith? Perhaps this snapshot tells part of that story…

My friend lamented, among other unsettling developments, the taking down of 10 Commandments displays in public spaces - as if most, or even many, of us care the tiniest bit about keeping those commandments personally or collectively. 

I said, “I think, if you care about the 10 Commandments, then live them out. Be the public display, carved in flesh and bone." I didn't mean to be glib... at least not entirely. 

If we were talking about taking down public displays of The Sermon on the Mount, I might have to think a little harder, but there's no danger of that. Nobody wants to be reminded of what Jesus said about how we are to conduct ourselves - the behavior and motives of those who learn his way. This is where Jesus is an embarrassment to the Christian faith. He prohibits exactly what most people seem to relish and demands exactly the sort of things almost no one likes or wants to do. He forbids retaliation and revenge, commands us to love our enemies and persecutors, and make peace with them or die trying. He calls us to be merciful, to forgive those who wrong us, to give up anger, to negotiate and reconcile, to settle out of court. Jesus commands us to love God as if nothing else matters, and he commands us to treat everyone we encounter with the loving kindness we want for ourselves. Christians hate this stuff so much we almost make it disappear by never talking about it, or talking about it only to explain it away. Most folks don't know how disagreeable the demands of Jesus are, because we've hidden them away where they can't do us any damage - or do us any good either... 

The rollup to Christmas has long been dedicated to considering and expressing our longings. What I long for this Christmas looks something like being the sort of person, and living in the company of people, who might be willing to love Jesus as Jesus is; not as we have attempted to remake him in our own image. I say "attempted" because the effort has failed so spectacularly that even a child - perhaps especially a child - can spot the fake a mile away (which is about as close as many of our neighbors want to get to anything like "church"). 

I want to welcome the embarrassing Jesus, and anyone he brings with him, to the feast of Christmas this year. To me, rest of it sounds like noise.

climate talks are... ahem... heating up in Paris

More than 100 countries have agreed to drive through a legally binding climate agreement in Paris.  China, Brazil, India, and South Africa are as-yet-uncommitted. For every 10,000 signatures to the petition linked below, Avaaz will will send an SMS to their delegates' phones inside the conference center. 

We're all in the same boat; if you want to know that everyone is rowing together, consider adding your name to the 42 million member Avaaz coalition petition. 

Thanks.

jh

total embarrassment | how did it come to this?

same song, another verse (a little louder? a little worse?)

It's not supposed to be like this.

No one has a right to walk into a concert hall, a cafe, a stadium, an office, a market, a grade school, and murder people. No one has that right.

The children must hear us say this clearly and with a whole heart. Who else can say it? Who else would? We are the ones sitting face to face with kids who question God, goodness, and self government, and all who represent themselves as being in charge of the world as it is 

It's not supposed to be like this.

The children must hear us say that the God who spoke through the prophets at many times and in various ways—who in these last days has spoken to us by his Son—this God takes no pleasure in the suffering and death of his creatures.

They must hear us say it's not supposed to be like this, and someday it won’t be—that the hope of the gospel includes a new heaven and a new earth where goodness is completely at home—we haven’t seen it, but in faith we see it coming. 

In the meantime, they must hear us proclaim that life is grace and horrible things happen; that the ground beneath our feet is prone to shift; that people are capable of breathtaking acts of love and self sacrifice, and staggering acts of violence and oppression; that the sun rises and the rain falls on the good, the ordinary, and the horrid.

They must hear us declare the mercy of God who promises the good news will one day prove to be as relentlessly good as the bad news is so relentlessly bad in these days. The children must hear us confess that life is hard and God is good.

But first, they must hear the active silence of us listening to them them. They must be convinced we hear their denial and fear and anger and confusion—that we have our own fear, and anger, and confusion.

They must see that we are not afraid of silence... not afraid to let paper and colored markers express what can't be spoken—knowing the children will almost certainly require more blue and violet and black and gray than yellow and green.

We must be prepared to talk when we believe they are ready to hear. Without glibness. Without talking down. Without bluffing.

Here's is a comprehensive list of things we can absolutely promise the young who live in our care:

1. We will do everything in our power to protect you each and every day.

2. ...(there is no 2).

We must not make promises we can't keep.

That said, we must not believe for a moment that being unable to do everything we wish, in any way disqualifies us from doing everything we can—or relieves our duty to wish and work in every way we must. Strength and goodness were never prerequisites for action. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?" the writer Annie Dillard asks,"or shall stand in his holy place?" 

There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead—as if innocence had ever been—and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is no one but us. There never has been. There have been generations which remembered, and generations which forgot; there has never been a generation of whole men and women who lived well for even one day. — Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm, Harper and Row, 1977 p 56-57

This is the spirit in which each generation of God's people ushers the next generation to that table God prepares before us in the presence of our enemies. None of us comes to this table because we are worthy. If we come at all, we come because we are hungry.

We must be present, ears and eyes and hearts open to what is before us and around us and inside us. We must push ourselves to remember and tell the truth as well as we can, and trust God to make that enough.

[This is adapted from from the silence of the lambs, posted December 14, 2012, following the massacre of children at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connencticut (which, in turn, was adapted from It's Not Supposed to Be Like This, posted April 16, 2007, following the slaughter at Virginia Tech). Here are some biblical texts that inform these thoughts and may be useful as you explore all this: the opening paragraph of Hebrews...2 Peter 3...Hebrews 11...Matthew 5:38-48...Psalm 24...Psalm 23...Isaiah 55]

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1 in 5 | man up

in the wind | tweets from the space ending 10.20.15

Where kids get the guns they carry + how to reduce the incidence of minors carrying firearms http://buff.ly/1OsoaOl 

Free 2015 National Bullying Prevention Month resources for teenagers http://buff.ly/1FIFjjW 

Sanitized for your protection|Is this a thing where you live? http://buff.ly/1N2OezB 

teenage tobacco use 2014 http://buff.ly/1N2P27z 

the price we pay for easing access to firearms just about all the time for just about anyone http://buff.ly/1L1QhOI 

States with informed antibullying laws reduce #bullying by 20% compared with other states http://buff.ly/1OiSOs7 

US teenagers by the numbers |annual death rate declined more than 1/3 from 1999 through 2013 http://buff.ly/1k0gIOb 

Digital Differences | Teenage Boys, Girls, Social Media + Romance http://buff.ly/1ZGvj1H 

The less $ parents made 2011-14, the more likely their children were diagnosed w/ ADD or ADHD http://buff.ly/1LcxUJb

US high school cigarette, cigar + marijuana smoking declined 1997–2013—% using pot but not tobacco rose http://buff.ly/1OGcKFI

fatal crash rates for teen drivers fell 56% 2004–13—but car crashes still kill more teens than all causes http://buff.ly/1NKdvPh 

Putin + Power | Food for thought from Fareed Zakaria http://buff.ly/1NMkIP1 

playing doctor | new report on how state lawmakers insert themselves between us + our physicians http://buff.ly/1LB4QsR