Guns In Your Heart

As a high school sophomore I played timpani in the orchestra. The finale of the spring concert with combined chorus and orchestra was a medley of Vincent Youmans’ favorites built around the theme of his song Drums in My Heart. The climax was a rousing timpani solo that I struggled to learn. The night before the concert I was still trying to get it right. I was totally focused when the performance came, and I got it. In the applause, I collapsed on my stool and heaved a sigh of relief that I had not messed it up. Then someone in the choir behind me shouted, “Stand up drummer boy. They’re cheering for you.” Dazed, I stood up and saw that the audience was standing too, but I still did not realize I was getting the only standing ovation of my life.

This introduction may seem totally extraneous if not spurious to what follows, but as I hear and read the assertions that “we do not have a gun problem; we have a heart problem,” I hear the Vincent Youmans refrain “drums in my heart” echoing as “guns in your heart.” In the 50+ years since I was in high school, I have grown to aspire to experience life as a Christian contemplative. I have heard my spiritual directors ask me the same few questions that I have also asked those who have sought spiritual direction from me. “What does this tell you about what is in your heart?” And “Where can you identify the presence of God in this?”

Not About Public Gun Policy

We have heard gun rights and gun control advocates hurl invectives and statistics at each other that seem only to polarize rather than find a way forward. It has become a zero-sum-game in which to compromise is to lose, and winning requires vanquishing the other side. I have nothing to add to this political-cultural dialog and debate. Invoking issues of the heart stimulates my Christian contemplative aspirations. I am intending to explore a spiritual direction approach to the place of guns in the hearts of both gun rights and gun control advocates. I have neither ambitions nor illusions about swaying political opinions. That is not my point. Rather, I hope to be something of a writing spiritual director whose questions can help anyone who has any thoughts about guns to spiritually discern what those thought suggest about what is going on in and the place of God in their hearts.

Personal Presuppositions

All of us bring presuppositions to every issue in life. None of us start with a blank slate of objective information. For me to suggest that I am bringing objective neutrality to the questions surrounding guns, specifically the place of guns in our hearts, would be disingenuous. I played with toy guns with the neighbors when I grew up in Oakland, California in the 1950s. Though others had BB-guns and some pistols that shot plastic bullets, my parents did not allow me to have guns that shot any projectile nor was I allowed to play with others when they brought those guns out. My grandmother lived with us through those years and was definitively opposed to guns, so even though she knew my friends and I played with toy guns, I made an effort not to do so when she was around. This was the heyday of TV westerns, and those with a lot of gun play were off limits when Grandma was watching, except that she liked “The Rifleman,” perhaps because of the father-son angle or she just liked Chuck Connors. Otherwise we were pretty much limited to Roy Rogers, Rin Tin Tin, Wagon Train, Bonanza, and a limited dose of The Lone Ranger who could shoot a gun out of the bad guy’s hand without hurting him.

In junior high, I remember feeling torn at a summer camp where I had to choose between riflery and archery classes. I chose archery rationalizing it was more of a sport, and actually worked on my archery skills for some time after bringing a bow and arrows home from that camp experience.

While not routine, gun accidents and crimes among relatives, friends and neighbors were known in our neighborhood and among our family’s friends. Some were minor and near misses, but several were tragic. I do not remember any anti-gun lectures from my parents, but I did hear plenty of head-shaking, tongue-wagging questioning of the wisdom of having guns around the house. My parents had friends who hunted, but my father’s interest was in fishing, perhaps with much the same rationalization I used with archery. Yes, we killed and ate the fish. Yes, we bragged about the size and number we caught. But whenever hunting and fishing were discussed together, my father consistently eschewed the guns.

With this background, I can say I have no particular moral objection to hunting per se, though I have never gone hunting myself. I would suggest that eating the meat of hunted animals is almost morally indistinguishable from eating the meat of farm animals. Humane practices and conservation rules should apply to both. I am ambivalent about friends who engage in trophy hunting without compunction, but I do have reservations about personal ego interfering with ethical thinking. Having said that, I would not condemn all trophy hunting.

I have never been a gun owner and have no ambition or expectation of becoming one. But I would not impose my choice on others as a moral obligation or even preference. For centuries firearms have been vital tools in agriculture and sustenance. I recognize the legitimate role of firearms for law enforcement and military purposes. Exploring the proper societal and spiritual implications of these careers is a significant issue beyond the scope of what I am exploring here. Because I believe our attitudes about law and self-defense are heart issues, I will leave that for those spiritual explorations, but suffice it to say that I am not intending to suggest a legal proposal about guns one way or another.

Window into the Heart

Twenty-some years ago, while on a four month sabbatical in the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Ontario, I had the privilege of weekly spiritual direction/companionship conversations with Henri Nouwen.  Once I was bemoaning that I had snapped at then seven year old Erik and spoken too harshly. Henri quoted Jesus in Matthew 12:34, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Henri and I talked for some time about what my words to Erik indicated about what was going on in my heart. He told me, “If you want to know what is going on in your heart, listen to what you say when you speak before you think.” I have amended that to include what you manage to stop yourself from saying by thinking at least a little. Henri also told me that being more vigilant and disciplined about what I speak doesn’t solve the problem. The solution is to change what goes into and feeds my heart.

So I hope to explore how what we think and say about guns reveals what is going on in our hearts. Whether you consider yourself a gun rights or gun regulation advocate, particularly if you are vocal about guns, what does that tell you about the overflow from your heart?

Speak Only for Yourself

An essential principle of spiritual direction and spiritual companion conversation (and therapeutic counseling and court testimony for that matter) is that you can only speak for yourself. You can talk about your own experiences and emotions. You may not speculate about, affirm or critique what may or may not be going on in someone else’s heart regardless of how obvious it seems to you. Jesus understood this well when he said, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Luke 6:41-42; Matthew 7:3-5)

Writing and Talking about What You Find in Your Heart

As we are all prone to rationalizing and passing over uncomfortable insights into our hearts, I suggest that you write out answers to these questions. This may be a generational thing, but I do believe we are more likely to connect with the realities in our hearts when we hand write with pen and paper rather than typing on a computer or some other mechanical/electronic device. Rather than editing and honing answers, I suggest letting the words flow freely as you probe ever more deeply into your heart.

Even more beneficial is finding a trusted spiritual companion with whom you can have conversation about what you are finding in your heart. This should not be someone with whom you have made common cause or with whom you have had disagreements about public policy and guns. Rather, this should be a sensitive, objective spiritual guide who will not inject themselves into the issues but guide you in exploring and responding to what you discover in your heart. This will be most beneficial when you are on a journey of spiritual discovery. Choose someone whose relationship with God you respect and whose spiritual discernment you trust, someone whom you consider to be farther along the path with Jesus than you are. If you can find an experienced spiritual director, so much the better.

Juxtaposing Our Hearts with the Bible

We are used to Bible studies aimed at life application, practicing principles we learn from the Bible. This is a different process of bringing our hearts up next to the Bible to listen for God in the spaces between them. This is not about citing proof-texts to say what you should think or do about guns. Rather it is a means of gaining insight into the often hidden or ignored recesses of our hearts. The point is to allow the Holy Spirit to aim the Bible to shine God’s light into our hearts. In that way the issues are about our hearts not guns.

I have framed several questions around some important themes. You do not have to respond to every question. Choose those that you sense give you insight into your heart. Generally, these will be the questions that make you most uncomfortable or that you least want to answer. A few Scripture passages follow the questions. Answer the questions before you read the Scripture passages. No answers are right or wrong. What matters is the accuracy and completeness of the picture they give of your heart.

Once you have given your answers, read the Scripture passages and see if they modify your answers in any way. Do other Scripture passages seem relevant to you? If you are having conversation with a spiritual companion, ask if they have any Scriptures to suggest. Ask if they can make connections between things in your answers and between your answers and Scriptures that you have not mentioned.

Questions for Your Heart

Do you own a gun or guns? Why or why not? If so, what do you use them for: collecting, target sport, hunting, protection, agriculture, military or law enforcement? What effect do you think owning or not owning guns has on your heart?

Have you ever shot a gun? Have you ever shot a gun at a living creature (hunted)? Have you ever pointed a gun at a person? For what purpose? Have you ever shot a person? With what result? What light do your answers to these questions shine into your heart, especially places you have not looked before?

When you think or talk about guns for protection and self-defense, what are you counting on for security? Your training and skill? Someone else who is trained and skilled? The technical features of the gun? Law enforcement? God’s guidance? Divine intervention?

What fears arise in your heart when you think or talk about guns? Fear of random criminals? Fear of terrorists? Fear of your own government? Fear of angry neighbors, friends or relatives? Fear of otherwise responsible gun owners? Fear of accidents? Fear of suicide?

Have you ever been injured in a gun accident? Do you know anyone who has? Does it matter if this was an adult or a child? How does your heart respond to injuries and deaths from gun accidents?

Have you ever had a gun pointed at you? By whom under what circumstances? If so, what responses did that evoke from your heart? What rises in your heart when you think of this person?

Have you ever been shot at? Under what circumstances: crime, rage, military, law enforcement? Have you ever been hit by a gunshot? If so, what was the nature of the injury? How do you think that has shaped your heart? How does your heart respond to the person or persons who shot at you?

Do you personally know someone who was a shooting victim? Under what circumstances? What is/was their relationship to you? How does their experience influence your heart?

Do you personally know anyone who has shot another person? Under what circumstances? With what result? How has their experience and relationship to you changed your heart?

Scripture as a Window into Our Hearts

Of course, firearms had not been invented until centuries after the Bible was written. They did have knives, swords, spears, arrows and even some rather inventive weapons. Making direct correlations to modern firearms is tenuous at best. Jesus was much more concerned about the workings of human hearts than rigid rules of behavior, and in a broad sense that is true of God’s relationships with people in the Hebrew Scriptures too. I reiterate that my purpose in this is with our hearts and not with public policy. These passages are not correlated with specific questions, and I do not offer them as proof-texts for gun laws. I offer these as starting places. You and a spiritual companion may well think of many others. What I hope is that as you bring your answers to some of the preceding questions up against Scripture, you will find your heart being reshaped to become increasingly congruent with the heart of Jesus.

In the fourth century Abba Poeman said it this way. “The nature of water is soft, that of stone is hard; but if a bottle is hung above the stone, allowing the water to fall drop by drop, it wears away the stone. So it is with the Word of God; it is soft and our heart is hard, but those who open their hearts the Word of God often, open their hearts to the fear of God.”

Deuteronomy 8:17 Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.”

 Joshua 24:12 I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove out before you the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow.

1 Samuel 2:9 “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail.

Psalm 33:16-17 A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save.

Psalm 44:3 For not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm give them victory; but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your countenance, for you delighted in them.

Zechariah 4:6 He said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

Matthew 26:52 Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

Luke 22:35-38 He said to them, “When I sent you out without a purse, bag, or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “No, not a thing.” He said to them, “But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.” They said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.” He replied, “It is enough.”

1 Corinthians 4:7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?

1 Peter 3:14 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated,

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.