The Rt Rev Dr John Armes, Bishop of Edinburgh, joined hundreds of people last night (15 June) in a vigil to ‘Stand with Orlando’ held in St Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh.
Bishop John reflects:
“It is hard to estimate numbers. There must have been 500 or more of us, including a redoubtable band of Episcopalians, gathered in the rain in St Andrew’s Square last night. Many more in Scotland and around the world have stated their solidarity with the victims of the outrage at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It was the worst mass shooting in the USA, a macabre record in that land of the gun. 49 dead, 50 injured, families traumatised. A gunman professing some kind of extremist faith – a depraved sense of ‘divine’ vengeance persuading him to impose death on LGBTI human beings enjoying life.
“Our world feels ugly at the moment. Foul rhetoric demonising difference. Lust for power without responsibility. Tunnel-visioned ignorance masquerading as idealism. Walls dividing ‘us’ from ‘them’; barriers bequeathed to our children and children’s children. Fear on fear; fear breeding fear. None of this peculiar to the USA, even if their daft gun laws seem to invite mayhem.
“All these thoughts weighed me down last night. We sang of solidarity; of not being overcome by evil. Names of the victims were read; silence was kept. Politicians and others spoke of the need to stand together, of love being love, of love always winning in the end. As I looked around at the bedraggled crowd sheltering under hoods and umbrellas, I caught a glimpse of the goodness God saw in creation – the determination and resilience in the human heart made in God’s image. All ages, all faiths, many nationalities, delighting in our differences as God does, looking each other in the eyes and daring to find hope there.
“Yes, love may win in the end but, as our gospel tells us, it is a costly process. Light can only shine out of darkness, Easter comes only after Good Friday. For oftentimes it is not easy to love; compassion, empathy, forgiveness are hard won in the face of fear. Our love is rarely perfect enough to cast out fear. But God’s love is. And if this love means that God never gives up on us, never accepts the barriers we build, we know what we must do.
“That’s why we stood in the rain last night, making present a world that, in God’s purposes, has yet to be and looking for the rainbow.”
