by Elaine Ayala
Express-News, 13 August, 2019
Despite a searing noontime sun bearing down on the stone pavement between city council chambers and San Fernando Cathedral, about 100 people gathered Monday for prayer.
The service drew Christians, Jews and Muslims. Among them were city workers, a couple of elected officials and activists at work on the city’s domestic violence crisis. Ordinary San Antonians joined in, as did a well-known retired caterer and a celebrity chef.
They were brought together by two mass shootings still fresh on their minds.
While some have been driven to protest and anger at the government’s inaction to the massacres of civilians, the latest in El Paso and Dayton; others have been driven to prayer and peacemaking.
In such charged times, it might be easy to see prayer as fruitless, even naive in a country that’s both exceedingly prone to violence and intensely divided. In such a climate, the “thoughts and prayers” offered by lawmakers unwilling to protect us from dangerous men with high-powered guns are both meaningless and insincere.
But the people standing in the hot sun Monday don’t see prayer that way. Their prayers were part of a global event. San Antonio joined 471 Sister Cities and 440 Compassionate Cities all over the planet to proclaim peace as “the only way” — end of sentence, no preposition needed.
Peace is the way to live and die, work and play, lead and follow, agree and disagree.
At high noon throughout the world, hundreds of others — people probably much like those gathered in San Antonio — were part of a virtual 24-hour global prayer meeting.
It was somehow reassuring. They prayed that compassion could be the means to end violence. They prayed for us to lead by example, because children learn from our words and actions. They prayed for those whose lives have been lost.
It was fitting that Monday was also International Youth Day, and their prayers were dedicated to “our children and our children’s children.”
Several volunteers passed out small, white business-size cards. “Treat others as you wish to be treated,” one side read. The other depicted the image of a broken heart and listed the name and age of someone killed in a massacre.
Mine said “Maria Eugenia Legarrega Rothe.” She died Aug. 3 in a Walmart store in El Paso. She was 58.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg read aloud a joint resolution of the International Charter for Compassion, Compassionate San Antonio and Sister Cities International. He chairs the latter.
The resolution called for a day of reflection and re-envisioning the world. It called for remembrance, though I don’t know a soul who has been able to not think of El Paso and Dayton.
The document said that in the United States alone, 2,180 mass shootings have killed more than 2,400 people and wounded 9,125 since December 2012, when a lone shooter went into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., and killed 26 people.
Twenty of them were children between the ages of 6 and 7. At the time, I remember so many people felt Sandy Hook would be the turning point in the gun control debate. That it would loosen the gun industry’s hold on Congress and spur action.
It didn’t happen. After Sandy Hook came Fort Hood, Charleston, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Sutherland Springs, Parkland and Gilroy, among way too many others.
2of3A woman watches from under an umbrella as leaders in the San Antonio community speak during the wake of a heat advisory Monday, August 12, 2019, at the Main Plaza downtown San Antonio. Temperatures are expected to high throughout the week. Sister Cities around the nation gather together at noon to speak up and out about the recent shootings Photo: Rebecca Slezak, Staff photographer
3of3Mayor Ron Nirenberg speaks to community members and those watching a live broadcast about the recent violence seen around the nation, Monday, August 12, 2019, at the Main Plaza downtown San Antonio. Sister Cities around the nation gather together at noon to speak up and out about the recent shootings and the violence seen throughout our Photo: Rebecca Slezak, Staff photographer
Despite a searing noontime sun bearing down on the stone pavement between city council chambers and San Fernando Cathedral, about 100 people gathered Monday for prayer.
The service drew Christians, Jews and Muslims. Among them were city workers, a couple of elected officials and activists at work on the city’s domestic violence crisis. Ordinary San Antonians joined in, as did a well-known retired caterer and a celebrity chef.
They were brought together by two mass shootings still fresh on their minds.
While some have been driven to protest and anger at the government’s inaction to the massacres of civilians, the latest in El Paso and Dayton; others have been driven to prayer and peacemaking.
In such charged times, it might be easy to see prayer as fruitless, even naive in a country that’s both exceedingly prone to violence and intensely divided. In such a climate, the “thoughts and prayers” offered by lawmakers unwilling to protect us from dangerous men with high-powered guns are both meaningless and insincere.
But the people standing in the hot sun Monday don’t see prayer that way. Their prayers were part of a global event. San Antonio joined 471 Sister Cities and 440 Compassionate Cities all over the planet to proclaim peace as “the only way” — end of sentence, no preposition needed.
Peace is the way to live and die, work and play, lead and follow, agree and disagree.
At high noon throughout the world, hundreds of others — people probably much like those gathered in San Antonio — were part of a virtual 24-hour global prayer meeting.
It was somehow reassuring. They prayed that compassion could be the means to end violence. They prayed for us to lead by example, because children learn from our words and actions. They prayed for those whose lives have been lost.
It was fitting that Monday was also International Youth Day, and their prayers were dedicated to “our children and our children’s children.”
Several volunteers passed out small, white business-size cards. “Treat others as you wish to be treated,” one side read. The other depicted the image of a broken heart and listed the name and age of someone killed in a massacre.
Mine said “Maria Eugenia Legarrega Rothe.” She died Aug. 3 in a Walmart store in El Paso. She was 58.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg read aloud a joint resolution of the International Charter for Compassion, Compassionate San Antonio and Sister Cities International. He chairs the latter.
The resolution called for a day of reflection and re-envisioning the world. It called for remembrance, though I don’t know a soul who has been able to not think of El Paso and Dayton.
The document said that in the United States alone, 2,180 mass shootings have killed more than 2,400 people and wounded 9,125 since December 2012, when a lone shooter went into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., and killed 26 people.
Twenty of them were children between the ages of 6 and 7. At the time, I remember so many people felt Sandy Hook would be the turning point in the gun control debate. That it would loosen the gun industry’s hold on Congress and spur action.
It didn’t happen. After Sandy Hook came Fort Hood, Charleston, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Sutherland Springs, Parkland and Gilroy, among way too many others.
In communities all over the world Monday, the resolution was read aloud. Reading aloud can be powerful. “Whereas,” Nirenberg said as the start of each declaration. Several of the declarations hung in the air.
“Whereas, research reveals that empathy is found in human DNA,” one said. “Whereas, peace will never be achieved by guns and wars,” said another.
Chef Johnny Hernandez was there to pay his respects to the shooting victims. In moments of need and sorrow, San Antonians often go into service mode, he said. Others open their wallets. A city of ultimate hospitality opens its heart and bows its head.
“It’s the city we are,” he said.
At the end of the service, several people made their own petitions — for those who’ve died at that hands of their abusers; for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender San Antonians; for first responders who carry their own wounds; and for faith leaders who speak truth to power.
After each one, the group responded in unison, “For them and for ourselves, we cry.”
That, too, is the city we are.
