Harsh Trills and Liquid Crystal Displays
(A Story of God’s Children Filled with Holes)
“Trauma Team Activate. Level 1 (GSW). ETA 10 Minutes.”
The shrill sound of the pager rang out from the clip on my belt. The kind of message I never like to see flashed across the dim, liquid crystal display. GSW… gunshot wound. The pager sounded again.
“Trauma Team Activate. Level 1 (GSW). ETA 10 Minutes.”
It wasn’t a repeat of the previous page. Another person with a different wound was on the way to our emergency room. I walked hurriedly to the elevator and down the long carpeted hallway. I passed the familiar paintings on the wall. I always look at the beautiful, soothing purples and whites on large, square canvases that line the wall just before the entryway to the emergency department. They help me breathe a deep taste of beauty and peace before I step into a space where I never know what I will see. As I swiped my badge to unlock the entry my pager sounded one more time.
“Trauma Team Activate. Level 2 (GSW). ETA 10 Minutes.”
A third person?! Three people?!
Three children of God made in the image of God and loved completely by God were on the way to our hospital with holes torn through their bones and flesh. They were wounded by the hands of another human — another child of God made in the image of God and loved completely by God — wielding a weapon meant to steal and kill and destroy.
My job is to be a calming, non-anxious presence in situations just like this. I hate that things like this happen. I wish I’d never get a page like this again. But I’m also thankful for the opportunity I have to serve people when things like this DO happen. And they do happen… more often than many people realize (this was our 4th gun-related incident in as many days.) I’m thankful for the opportunity to help reconnect hurting people with their loved ones. I love watching the hardened face of someone surrounded by violence begin to soften, even if just a little, as we pray together (yes, I pray with my eyes open). I’m thankful for the opportunity to help people know they are not alone. I love the opportunity to remind people they are children of God, made in the image of God, and are loved by God immeasurably.
Ellyn Sanna says, “Each of us is a one of a kind expression of the divine.”
I know I’m an idealist, but I wonder how different the world might be if we could learn to look at one another through such a lens.
How might our world transform if I (we) could recognize the human who I’ve made the object of my harsh and harmful words is an expression of the divine?
How might our world transform if I (we) could recognize the human who I’ve made the object of my violence is an expression of the divine?
I wonder if it would help change how I (we) resolve conflict.
I wonder if it would help change the way I (we) navigate the times we disagree.
I wonder if it would help change the way I (we) think of and treat myself (ourselves)?
I am a child of God, made in the image of God.
I am loved and made in the image of love.
I am an expression of the divine love who created the world.
Love is who I am.
God,
May I live this day as the expression of the divine that I am.
AMEN