Today might be America’s most controversial holiday, Columbus Day. The holiday was created 100 years ago in Colorado and later became a National holiday. We now know that Columbus was an African slave trader according to his own writings and began the centuries of killing millions of Native people…genocide in the name of Christ. Yet there is still a holiday to celebrate his legacy.
The annual Columbus Day parade in Denver has a history. Native American groups, community groups, and faith groups band together to protest what they call a “convoy of conquest.” The parade organizers celebrate under a guise of Italian-American pride but in reality is far from representative of the great Italian Americans in Denver…or anywhere. The organizers are a small group and some have ties to white-supremacy groups. Very few Italian Americans watch the parade.
Greta Leach, Convener of The Beatitudes Society Chapter at Iliff School of Theology in Denver.
On this sixth anniversary of a terrorist attack on America we think back and remember where we were and how we felt. We think about how our lives and country have been transformed about those events. We remember the victims in our prayers and we hope and pray for peace.
Last year I traveled to New York City with my mother and sister. We visited ground zero and we also paid a visit to a place I was previously unaware of, St. Paul’s Chapel. This Episcopal church sits across the street from where the twin towers stood and amazingly was not harmed in the destruction. As I walked through its doors I felt like I was truly standing on holy ground.
When we hear news of heartbreak, tragedy, despair, untimely deaths and senseless acts of violence how should we respond? Ministry folks are supposed to be the doves, the lambs, right? We pray, we mourn, and we sit with the victims and that is appropriate. We speak exhortations of hope and mercy and we try to come to terms with the senselessness of such destruction to humanity. And in doing so we become more aware of own humanity, of the beautiful creation of God within us. And if anything beautiful can come out of destruction it is that.
But for me in the midst of this contemplation of my own humanness and search for peace and truth, an “inappropriate” emotion keeps bubbling up: anger. Are ministry folks supposed to be angry about something like these recent Virginia Tech events? At our theological schools we could deconstruct the social and religious structures of that question to figure out if we have permission to feel this way, particularly if we have permission to feel angry with God. But our analysis is not particularly important to me, because regardless of what our answer would be, I am angry.
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