2020 ECW Province V Annual Meeting

Speaker Profiles

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The Rev. Rosalind Hughes Church of the Epiphany Euclid, OH

Responding to Gun Violence

O God whose Name is love and whose Word is welcome: You have made each of us in your own image. You have given us breath so that we can contemplate the climb out of the valley of the shadow of death. You have connected us in ways beyond our imagination, threading us together with your Spirit so that even when we are apart, our lives support one another; so that your love, unbound, may grow between us. Even as we shelter from a different kind of harm, we pray that you will continue to comfort and console all who grieve the gun violence that besets us. We ask your inspiration for those who act on your command to love your children, to care for your creation, to heal this nation. May your will win out here as in heaven. Deliver us from the evil of gun violence and all evil ideas and ideologies that inspire it. Let your Spirit of life and truth be our only fire power. Let your love be our only temptation. Let your presence be our protection and our provocation in this and at all times and in all places. Amen

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Bishops United Against Gun Violence is a network of more than 100 Episcopal bishops working to curtail the epidemic of gun violence in the United States.

Bishop Steven Miller, Diocese of Milwaukee – one of 3 conveners

Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, Diocese of Indianapolis

Bishop Tom Breidenthal, Diocese of Southern Ohio

Bishop Wendell Gibbs (retired), Diocese of Michigan

Bishop Mark Hollingsworth, Diocese of Ohio

Bishop Whayne Hougland, Diocese of Western Michigan

Bishop Jeff Lee, Diocese of Chicago

Bishop Bonnie Perry, Diocese of Michigan

Bishop Rayford Ray, Diocese of Northern Michigan

Bishop Cate Waynick, (provisional) Diocese of Eastern Michigan

Four leaders of Bishops United Against Gun Violence have published an op-ed in Religion News Service expressing concern about the increase in gun sales during the coronavirus pandemic.

"As our nation struggles to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, gun sales are surging," they write, "Such sales are always seasonal, but according to the FBI's analysis of data from licensed gun stores, Americans bought 1 million more guns last month than are normally sold at this time of year."

Bishopsagainstgunviolence.org

3 Pushing guns during a pandemic

April 8, 2020 Bishops United Against Gun Violence Religion News Service (RNS) religionnews.com

Semiautomatic handguns are displayed at Duke's Sport Shop on March 25, 2020, in New Castle, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

(RNS) — In the midst of one plague, we are sowing the seeds of another.

As our nation struggles to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, gun sales are surging. Such sales are always seasonal, but according to the FBI’s analysis of data from licensed gun stores, Americans bought 1 million more guns last month than are normally sold at this time of year.

Indeed, the nation’s licensed gun sellers moved more merchandise in March than in any month in recent his- tory, save for January 2013, the month after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and the month in which President Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term. According to a Newsy/Ipsos survey, 1 in 20 households has purchased a gun in response to the pandemic.

As bishops of the Episcopal Church, we are concerned that the proliferation of weapons in our society will result not in greater safety, but in greater violence.

The reasons for this surge are easily understood, but they are troubling, nonetheless. People fear a breakdown in the social order. People fear that virus-depleted law enforcement agencies will respond more slowly to calls for help. People fear that nonviolent offenders released from prisons where the pandemic is spreading rapidly will turn to crime when they are free.

But every gun purchase comes with attendant risk, especially during this time when most U.S. residents are being asked to stay at home.

A 2014 review in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded that having a firearm in the home, even when properly stored, triples the risk a resident of the home will die by suicide. This is a particular concern at a time of social isolation and economic uncertainty.

People protest the National Rifle Association’s influence in national gun control policies. (Photo by Josh Lopez/Creative Commons)

4 About 4.5 million women report being threatened by a partner with a gun. Abused women are five times more likely to be killed if their abuser has a firearm. These numbers suggest that women sheltering with gun- owning abusers are in greater danger than ever.

A 2015 study in the Journal of Urban Health estimated as many as 4.6 million children in America live in homes with unsecured guns, and children are home all day now because schools are not in session.

Bishops United Against Gun Violence, the network we represent, supports a number of commonsense gun reforms that enjoy high levels of bipartisan support. Our agenda includes background checks on all gun pur- chasers, handgun purchaser licensing, restrictions on gun ownership by domestic abusers and safe storage of firearms.

Our country would be a safer place today if these policies were in effect. Yet in this moment of mutual need, we are troubled to find the National Rifle Association stoking fears of social disintegration to sell more guns. The NRA’s aggressive lobbying to keep gun stores open while other businesses are closed, coupled with its litigious response to governors who have not granted them this privileged status, makes it clear, once again, that it values the interest of gun manufacturers over the safety of our country.

Legislation that could help protect lives is long overdue but unlikely to be enacted while Congress is rightly occupied by the COVID-19 pandemic. So, we write today not only as advocates, but as pastors, imploring you to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.

Just as you take care to protect yourself against infection in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, so we urge you to protect yourself and your loved ones from circumstances in which gun violence is likely to oc- cur.

If you have a gun in your home, is it properly secured? If your child is visiting other homes, do you know whether a gun is present and whether it is secured?

Are you aware of someone forced to shelter with a potentially violent family member? What can you do to help this person stay safe? Do you know someone suffering from depression that might be heightened by the sense of powerlessness that affects us all during this pandemic? How can you help to ease this isolation?

As advocates, we remain committed to revising our country’s appallingly lax gun laws. We lament the cur- rent surge in gun purchases, and we urge you to join us in mitigating the violence that accompanies it through small but courageous acts of attention, compassion, and concern.

(Bishops Ian Douglas of Connecticut, Daniel Gutiérrez of Pennsylvania and Steven Miller of Milwaukee are co-conveners of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, a network of more than 100 Episcopal bishops that advocates policies and legislation to reduce the number of people in the United States killed or wounded by gunfire. Bishop Mark Beckwith is a founding co-convener. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

5 SOJO.NET WHY I'VE MADE 100 ORANGE STOLES ADDRESSING GUN VIOLENCE BY ROSALIND C. HUGHES

SEP 26, 2019

Outside of the Ohio State House on Sept. 18, an eclectic group had gathered to demand that the legislators #DoSomething about gun violence. Across the square, I noticed an orange stole draped across a deacon. I have been making orange clergy stoles for gun violence awareness and sending them out to friends and strangers alike since 2016, when a colleague seeded the idea of bringing the #WearOrange movement to church. The #WearOrange movement began with a group of teenagers in Chicago whose friend, Hadiya Pendleton, was shot to death in a park near her school in 2013. Hadiya was 15. Her murder made the headlines because she had played with her school band at President Obama’s second Inauguration celebrations only the week before. First Lady Michelle Obama attended her funeral. A few weeks earlier, the world was reeling from the murders of 20 small children and six of their trusted adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Three months after Hadiya’s missed 16th birthday, a man with a fake pass killed 12 people and injured eight more at the Washington Navy Yard, a military facility replete with guards and guns. In May 2014, a man killed seven strangers and himself after failing to gain entry to a sorority house in Santa Barbara, Calif. Two weeks after the first National Gun Violence Awareness (#WearOrange) Day in June 2015, a young man intent on igniting a race war sat quietly through a Bible study at Mother Emmanuel AME church in Charleston, S.C., before murdering nine Christians during their prayer. President Obama sang “Amazing Grace” at the pastor’s funeral.

When publicity began for the second national #WearOrange Day, my friend and colleague, the Rev. C. Eric Funston, posted on Facebook that if he had an orange stole, he would wear it to church the next Sunday. Later, he told me that while we may not think of orange as a standard liturgical color, once it was an accepted alternative to the green of “ordinary time.” What’s more, “amongst those who assign symbolic or allegorical meaning to colors, orange is considered the color of warning and prophecy.”

6 I heard Eric’s call to raise up the awareness of gun violence within the church that preaches peace and life and offered to make us an orange stole each. In a minute, I had offered to make one for any member of clergy in our Episcopal Diocese of Ohio who would join us. A little sprig of the #WearOrange movement was born. By June 5, 2016, the Sunday after the official National Gun Violence Awareness Day, I had made around 40 orange stoles. Most stayed in Ohio, but some were sent further afield. A week later, a gunman entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., to murder 49 people and injure dozens more. I added a rainbow backing to the stoles I made during Pride Month. The stole factory is an amateur operation. My sewing machine sits on the dining room table. Most of the stoles go out with one or more cat hairs sewn between the layers. The shade of orange has varied with the availability of fabric at my local stores. The constant is a children’s painted handprint pattern at the ends of each stole. Last July, I packed a handful of orange stoles and visited the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas. That Sunday, the Schentrup family from Parkland, Fla., addressed the masses gathered for a public witness and prayer in the park opposite the convention center. Carmen Schentrup was one of 17 people murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day, 2018. Against a backdrop of bishops in red chimeres and orange stoles (most much more professionally made than mine), Carmen’s mother, April Schentrup, with a courage that surpasses understand- ing, challenged us not to wait to grieve with her, but to do something to change the trajectory of our country’s gun violence, concluding, “With God’s help, and with those here today, all things are possible.” The United States has mourned more than 2200 mass shootings since December 2012. It is be- yond me to discover how many children, young people, residents like Hadiya Pendleton have died since January 2013. I am not a researcher. I am not an activist. I am not an organizer. I am a preacher, and a priest. In the next week or so, I will make my 100th orange stole. I asked Eric what he thought might happen when this idea began. He responded, in part:

I never thought about or anticipated starting an “orange stole move- ment” amongst the clergy of the church. But that is what happened. ...Recently, I saw a picture of the Bishop of Washington wearing an orange stole in the halls of Congress! In three decades of ordained ministry, I’ve preached thousands of sermons, prayed more prayers than I could number, sat at numerous kitchen tables and by too many bedsides, and attended more meetings than I care to remember. The orange stole as a symbol of standing against gun violence and in favor of reasonable gun sale and owner- ship regulation, simply a little idea for a gesture of witness in my local congregation, seems to have had more far reaching effect than anything else. There’s an old church camp song that reminds us, ‘It only takes a spark to get a fire going.’ I guess the orange stole was my ‘spark’ to help light up the church’s prophetic witness against gun violence.

7 Too many lives have been stolen since the orange stoles began but I do not have the luxury of losing hope. No. If the Mothers of the Movement, and the Moms [Who] Demand Action for Gun Safety, and Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), and Rev. Sharon Risher, and Philip and April Schentrup, and if Hadiya Pendleton’s family and friends can keep the faith that we can change the future for one another’s children, then I should be ashamed to stop now. Last month, after shootings in Dayton, Ohio; El Paso, Texas; and Gilroy, Calif., our congregation began sending condolence cards to our cousin churches in communities devastated by gun violence. The illustration is a cross formed from orange stoles. They include our pledge, “with God’s help, to work toward the elimination of gun violence and its causes.” It’s not much to make 100 stoles when up to 100 people die each day in this country from gun violence. It was not even my idea. Thank God, it is not all that I can do. But it is something, a thread that I hold from one prayer to the next, until the chain of gun violence is broken.

8 2015 General Convention Resolution: Decreasing Gun Violence

Resolution Number: 2015-C005 Title: Implement Laws to Decrease Gun Violence Legislative Action Taken: Concurred as Amended

Final Text:

Resolved, That the 78th General Convention on the 50th anniversary of the murder of seminarian Jonathan Daniels, urge all legislators at federal, state and local levels to help decrease gun violence by implementing laws that; 1. Require permits to carry concealed weapons and criminal background checks for every gun purchase, including those made at gun shows; and 2. Except for the use of military and law enforcement agencies, ban the sale, transfer, importation and manufacture of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; and 3. Ban the importation and manufacture of Full-Auto Conversion kits that convert guns into automatic weapons; and 4. Tighten laws against gun trafficking, and increase penalties for those who engage in "straw purchases" of firearms for ineligible persons; and 5. Prohibit persons from purchasing guns without evidence of gun safety training; and 6. Recognize the impact of existing inheritance laws on the transfer of gun ownership; and 7. Promote funding for research into the prevention and causes of gun violence.

Other websites mentioned in the Rev. Hughes’s presentation: https://www.godbeforeguns.org A reflection from the Unholy Trinity conference, April 2017: https://www.episcopalcafe.com/unholy-trinity-in- review/ More from the Schentrup family at General Con- vention 2018: https://www.episcopalcafe.com/sunday-at-general- convention/

9 Little Justice Leaders Shelby Kretz

Shelby’s dream is to help kids grow up with an awareness of social justice and acceptance of all people.

She is working on her Ph.D. in Urban Education, and she’s passionate about education and social justice. Shelby has spent more than a decade working with kids and families to facilitate fun learning experiences.

Each month, subscribers to Little Justice Leaders receive a box of carefully selected resources to help children learn about a social justice issue. The resources use arts and crafts, projects, books, and other activities to help children understand complex issues. This box is made specifically for kids in grades K-5, so the content is fun, educational, and age-appropriate.

A team of people who are directly impacted by that social justice issue to select the best resources for the subscriber’s families or classrooms. The products are sourced from socially conscious, small businesses owned by women and people of color. A portion of the money from each box sold is contributed to a non-profit working on that issue.

littlejusticeleaders.com

10 Making it easy to learn about social justice.

Our mission is simple: We want to make it easy for you to teach your child or students about social jus- tice. We created Little Justice Leaders because we know it can be hard to talk with young children about these issues. We want to make it easier for parents and teachers.

Fun, educational activities every month.

With a package that arrives each month, your child or class can get excited and look forward to learning about a new social justice issue. It will also help make sure that these issues become a regular part of your family or classroom day-to-day lives and conversations. The resources are selected specifically for kids in grades K-5, so they include arts and crafts, projects, and other creative activities to keep them interested.

Options to fit your lifestyle.

Each physical subscription box may include a book, a game, or an activity, and it will be packed with lots of information to learn from. The digital subscription for parents includes just the information and none of the physical products, so you can still get all the knowledge at a more affordable price. The sibling pack includes everything in the physical box, plus more resources for multiple kids to learn and play. And the teacher ver- sion is perfect for the classroom.

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Her Way of Love The Rev. Kay M. Houck Trinity Episcopal Church Lexington, MI

The Rev. Kay Houck is an Episcopal priest whose aspiration in life is to become her most loving self and to provide encouragement and resources for others to do the same. During her formative years, Kay intended to enter the field of medicine; but through the wisdom of her best friend (Danielle!) she discerned a call to nurture and support healing in a different way. She is a graduate of Seabury Western Theological Seminary (now Bexley-Seabury) and was ordained to the priesthood in March 2012. Her leadership style and spiritual life may best be described as contemplative. She enjoys yoga, gardening, and taking day hikes with her husband Matthew, and their beloved Australian Kelpie, Vivienne.

The mission of her organization is to provide a community of support for women to seeking to cultivate an intentional life of prayer and action by committing themselves to the Way of Love.

The Baptismal Covenant reflects the core of her relationship with Jesus; and she is fiercely committed to growing in maturity as a disciple by following the Way of Love. herwayoflove.com

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13 14 15 16 HER WAY OF LOVE

Beloved one, welcome.

It's possible you've been searching for a digital space to deepen your spiritual life and create lov- ing friendships. If that's the case, you've come to the right place and we're so thankful you've found us.

Her Way of Love is an online community full of women from all walks of life. Our beloved space is centered around The Episcopal Church's Way of Love.

You may have questions so let's start with the big ones.

What's the Way of Love? During the 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, Presid- ing Bishop Michael Curry encouraged Episcopalians to adopt the Way of Love as a "rule of life". The Way of Love includes seven practices for living a Jesus-centered life: turn, learn, pray, wor- ship, bless, go and rest.

Do you have to be Episcopalian to be a part of this? Absolutely not. We are a group of women (including those who identify as women) from all different walks of life and religious back- grounds.

How did Her Way of Love begin? Once upon a time, there were two best friends (since infancy) who always knew they were meant to do something big in the world together. Their names are The Rev. Kay M Houck and Danielle Hendrickson. In March 2017, Danielle felt a call in her heart to approach Kay about the possibility of starting something together for Episcopalian women. With the inspiration of "The Way of Love" and time of discernment, in October 2018 Her Way of Love was founded.

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Affiliated Women’s Ministries

Maryfran Crist Church Periodical Club Province V Representative www.churchperiodical.com [email protected]

Gail Donovan United Thank Offering Province V Representative unitedthankoffering.com [email protected]

Kathleen Schultz Daughters of the King Province V President www.doknational.org [email protected]

Jan Goossens National ECW Board Province V Representative ecwnational.org [email protected]

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