Event Details:
During National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Wear Orange Weekend, join us as we honor survivors of gun violence. Central Church will host blacksmith and pastor Corey Simon. Friday night, June 2, he will bring his forge to our downtown parking lot will melt a gun and fashion a gardening tool instead. This is a great event for the whole family, offered in conjunction with Moms Demand Action-Traverse City.
“We Wear Orange to demand a future free from gun violence. Orange symbolizes the value of each person’s life and we wear it to honor victims, survivors, and those impacted by gun violence, and to call for an end to this crisis.”
This in an open-house style outdoor demonstration event. Please come and go as you are able.
From the Disruptive Disciple Blacksmithing website:
Throughout the Hebrew Bible, we find repeated this image of the Day of the Lord when the people “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” We don’t have many swords or spears in our modern arsenals but we do have a lot of guns.
A hunter and a gun owner himself, Corey takes guns that people donate (his first was his own handgun) and converts them into garden tools. He does this not with the intent to support any efforts to “take people’s guns or rights away” but rather to offer a space to imagine a world with less violence and to mourn with those who have lost loved ones to gun violence. The desire is to break the idol of the gun we cling onto in our hearts rather than purely the gun itself.
It is our effort to provide a space where anyone can come together to find a moment to grieve, to imagine, to dream dreams and have visions. Whether you’re a 2nd amendment lover or strict pacifist, the hope is that this will offer space to imagine and dream of a better world.