Amazing. It looks to me like they accomplished what the grief counselors tried to. The God who loves has the infinite wisdom to be able to make use of the worst that is in man as well as our best.
I wasn’t going to write about them. Silence–the act of turning one’s back on them and walking away without a word–was the most they personally deserve.
But our children deserve more. Our children deserve to know that the adults in their lives stood up for them, and so I add my voice here to the crowd.
There is a group whose name will not sully my blog who fancy themselves Christians. They support themselves by screaming their hate, trying to provoke people into confrontations, hoping to be able to sue to make money.
As one reporter noted, zero degrees windchill factor in January where the group lives, or California sun, well, now, hey, let’s go on vacation.
So they came here. They filed a report with the police. They intended to protest at our high school and then over at Stanford University’s Taube Hillel House: to wave placards and yell at our children at their school that they were all going to hell for being tolerant of Jews and gays, and that the loss of their friends at the railroad tracks was very much what they rightfully deserved by the wrath of God.
The high school immediately announced school would start late today. No child had to go through that. No child had to face pain deliberately inflicted by those who sought power over them in their most vulnerable and most painful moments. They encouraged people to have the thugs speak to the wind alone.
Sage advice, that.
And yet.
Silence can also, at its worst, convey assent. And that absolutely could not be.
Children from other schools came, even from as far away as the other side of the Bay. Parents came. Teachers came. Grandparents came. Children of our own town came. Signs were hoisted in peaceful counter-protest, with most folks staying on the high school’s side of the street, avoiding any possible charges of physicality with the haters (remember, assault means fear of being hit, battery, actually being hit; they could claim fear simply by someone coming close.)
On our side, placards read “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” “God loves everybody, even hatemongers.” And one sign later at Stanford asked, simply, “Got Love?”
Listen to one of the thugs’ ugly response:
“You’ll be in front of the train next! God laughs at your calamity!”
No, He doesn’t. And you, ma’am, don’t know what any one of those children at that school believes–but if you notice, they were preaching and exemplifying the best Christian values to you. Love. Tolerance. Understanding. Again, “God loves everybody, even hatemongers.”
Who were facing them across the street.
Our students: “After all we’ve been through, it’s wrong for them to be here.”
“It really helped pull us together. There’s a real solidarity at our school.”
Our children saw human faces that were evil. That took satisfaction in their suffering and hoped there would be more.
Thank you dear God, I think our train tracks just got a lot safer.