Is This How We End?

Is this how we end? With bibles as bludgeons? With bumper stickers that say Jesus Is Lord, Pass The Ammo? With proud boys raising flags like middle fingers; and “Patriotism” synonymous with segregation? With Justices who sow nothing but salt; and Neros who fiddle while Rome burns and children fragment under semi-automatic Right?

Or, are there more angels who feather among us than devils who fury above? I believe so. Regardless of the unhinged narrative that bloods into our every day, I believe most of us hold life as precious, and fragile, and deserving of our honor; and our world as sacred, and stunning, and deserving of our devotion. And so I pray (as only an ambivalent apostate can pray) that we can transform our shit into manure; and from this manure we can grow as something better. What, I don’t know. Just something that maybe helps tilt our world towards a greater compassion for our shared humanity. Just something that defibrillates us into a deepened sense of humility and grace.

Yet, though I hope, I remain atomized by Uvalde. Children should live from joy to joy to joy as if death was nowhere behind them. So when death harpies into their schoolrooms shaped like a child with an AR-15, it renders language speechless. And I don’t know how to metabolize it. At all. All I do is keep thinking of these beautiful children I photographed in Mexico; and how, during Lent, they pretend to be devils in their magical belief that, by doing so, they keep real evil at bay. If only. If only.

(Images from an extensive project on the Devils of San Martin de Tilcajete, Mexico.)

“If Jesus is coming I don’t think he’s going to be proud.” - Shawn Colvin