Bulletproof?
In 2017 I was a pastor in New York, and one Sunday I preached a sermon called “The Hardest Commandment.” That week I was at the very end of preaching a series of sermons on Jesus’ teachings from the gospel of Matthew, commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount. As I prepared for that sermon, I just happened to read an article in the New York Times Magazine about a group called Narrative 4, committed to bringing people from different perspectives together to share their stories.
“Love your enemies,” Jesus taught us. So how does the owner of the largest online gun trading platform who sold the gun used to kill Trayvon Martin, hear the story of Carolyn Tuft, a mother whose daughter was murdered in a mass shooting incident? And how does Carolyn Tuft hear the story Todd Underwood tells about why he sold George Zimmerman’s gun and why guns and the ability to own and use them are so deeply important to him?
The point of my sermon that Sunday was to explore that idea that when we define people with intractable preconceptions we will never be able to learn to love them. “Loving your enemies” means living determined to looking for the humanity in even the people whose positions challenge our own…or even touch some of our deepest pain. The hardest commandment, see?
I preached that sermon and didn’t give it much more thought until I received a call at my office one day from Todd Underwood, the man who was mentioned in that New York Times Magazine article I referenced. He wanted to talk with me.
I didn’t want to talk with him. I imagined in my head a white good ‘ole boy in the middle of the country, a man with non-negotiable opinions about everything, a life defiantly seen through the lens of white patriarchy, and a person adept at and committed to mansplaining most things. I set an appointment to meet a good three weeks out, putting off our conversation.
When we finally spoke, our conversation launched right into the many things that stood between us. However, the reason for Todd’s call, he told me, was to ask if I thought of him as an enemy. I was startled by the question because, well, I didn’t know Todd. I hadn’t given much thought to whether I’d call him my enemy or not. I’d done what so many of us do: hear a quick summary of a person’s position and place them neatly in a category for easy classification.
Not enemy, exactly, I told him, but certainly someone with social, political, and religious ideas that stood in stark contrast to mine. As the conversation unfolded it confirmed what I thought about our differing views on most things. But I also heard a winsomeness in Todd, a kind of vulnerability that pulled me toward him even as the words he said pushed me away.
We discussed a wide range of topics and finally, at one point in our conversation I asked Todd in frustration: “Todd, how would you summarize your faith in one sentence?”
“Love God and love your neighbor,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation. Startled, I thought: that is exactly what I would say. Exactly, like, word for word.
And that’s how it began, a strange friendship that has ebbed and flowed with the ups and downs of life. I have written about our friendship in articles, and I write about it in an upcoming book.
Once, Todd came to visit me at my church in New York; we debated the issues in person. But when I met him in person I learned that Todd lives with Muscular Dystrophy, a condition that makes it more difficult for him to walk and navigate life in general. I didn’t know that about him when we had only disagreed by text or by telephone.
More years passed. Our own individual lives were punctuated by the pain of being human, but we still stayed in touch. Sometimes I would read what he posted on Twitter and text him, asking him to take his post down. Sometimes he’d send me articles about gun culture, or race issues, or other topics we debated. Sometimes we would just check on each other.
In May of 2022, after the school shooting in Uvalde, I texted Todd and asked him to think about his three little girls…and shootings in schools…and access to firearms…and toxic masculinity...and try to explain to me again why easy access to powerful weapons was so important to him. At one point in our conversation Todd said, “You liberals sound so stupid when you talk about these things. You don’t know a thing about gun culture. You’ve never even held a gun. You don’t understand why I feel I need guns to protect myself and my family.”
And I thought he had a good point.
“If you just came to visit and even spent a day or two with my family, learning more about who I am and what I do, getting exposed to gun culture, you’d sound a little more intelligent.”
Todd, I think, knew me well enough by now to know that daring me to do something was one sure way to make me do it. As one of my upcoming trips called for travel to Kansas City, I basically invited myself to his house.
I write all the time about how relationships change us, and I am still thinking about how I have been changed by the 24 hours I spent with Todd and his truly lovely wife Nicole and their three little girls. They prepared a comfortable guest room for me, made every effort to make sure I had what I needed, and welcomed me, literally, with open arms.
Their spacious home was bright and beautiful, inspirational quotes and Bible verses in every room. And, Todd showed me with pride, a bathroom-sized gun vault where rifle after rifle hang neatly on one wall, a collection of hand guns on another, and boxes of ammunition stacked on the floor lining the whole little room.
As Todd and Nicole prepared an amazing meal of fried chicken and okra, mashed potatoes and gravy and homemade carrot cake, I read some books with the girls, admired ballet moves, and heard about the adventures of their start back to school.
And after the girls went to bed, Todd, Nicole and I sat in their comfy living room and shared more of our stories. I learned about the faith they practice and why it’s important to them. Todd told me about a childhood filled with abuse and violence and shame, the fear of danger around him all the time, and the tremendous work he has done and continues to do to build a life that looks different than his father’s. I told them about why I am a pastor (even though I’m a woman) and how I can justify that with what the Bible says about women speaking publicly. I also told them the story of my own pregnancy loss, a late term abortion that I chose, and why.
As we talked and listened wrapped in the hospitality and kindness of a good meal and a lavish welcome, I knew their stories had begun to sink into my soul, to soften the edges of the hard lines I so easily drew to categorize people. I thought I could feel them experiencing the same. I could hear in my head what Todd tells me all the time, “Amy, I think we have more in common than we think we do.”
The next morning after getting the older girls off to school, Todd, Nicole and I got ready to go to the shooting range. Todd asked for my help loading bullets into the ammunition cartridges of the rifle we were going to shoot—it’s a bit tricky for him with the way the muscles in his hands work. Nicole lent me a soft gray t-shirt to wear, as I hadn’t come prepared with shooting range attire. The shirt had on its front a blue heart and the letters KC. Love. Kansas City. 3 year old Kennady, who stays at home with Nicole most days, tagged along to the shooting range too.
I shot a rifle once or twice a very long time ago in a high school ROTC class, but that’s the full extent of my experience with guns. And the gun I remembered was nothing like the sophisticated gun I watched Todd carefully check to make sure the ammunition was cleared out, then placed in a carrying case for our trip to the range.
We drove a few miles then pulled into the parking lot of a warehouse-like building with a bright yellow sign outside; the sign reached high into the air and read in large black letters: Guns.
A strange new world. But I kept thinking of Todd’s request that I learn about gun culture before making judgments, so I followed his lead into a store stocked with so many guns I couldn’t begin to count them. We wove our way through the displays of protective vests and night vision scopes and gun enthusiast gear; I felt like I’d entered an alternate reality.
I soon learned that there was quite an extensive preparation process required to fire a gun in the firing range: an instructional video, a valid ID, a long list of warnings and waivers to sign. Finally we were ready. I borrowed Nicole’s bright pink ear protection, and the gentleman in charge of the gun range lent me some eye protection to wear. Watching Todd as he moved the target into place and loaded the gun, I felt a surreal sensation wash over me again and, surprising me, a respect for his skill that I’d never known or even imagined before. Even with the challenges his disability presents, Todd easily managed the weapon and shot straight and true, hitting the paper target, over and over. Then it was my turn.
Keep your finger straight and the safety on; make sure the gun is pointing down range. Hold the butt of the gun against your shoulder; look carefully through the spotting scope toward the target. Move your finger to the safety and turn it off; place your finger on the trigger, and shoot. I reviewed in my head all the things I’d learned.
The first few times I pulled the trigger I’ll admit I hit the ceiling, but Todd didn’t even laugh. He patiently helped me position the gun correctly while Nicole and Kennady cheered from behind bullet proof glass. I tried again and I hit the target, finally, then over and over again until all the bullets in the magazine were gone. The whole experience took maybe an hour, and then we were done: remove eye and ear protection; wash the lead off your hands; roll up the target. And then we made our way to the parking lot.
I had to leave then, to go to my planned conference, and Todd was needed at work, so we said our goodbyes right there.
The man in front of me then was, again, different person than the man I’d read about in the magazine…or the man who’d called my office, or the man who told me he believes we should love God and love our neighbors, or even the man who invited me to stay in his home. He and his family were now my friends, friends who listened and heard my story; friends who shared theirs in return; friends for real.
We’re all human, and like Todd perpetually insists, so often we have more in common with each other than we thought. I think a lot of people in our country these days prefer to pretend that people who hold different views from their own are people whose opinions matter less; it’s easier to ignore them. That strategy makes sense, of course, because it costs us something to listen with open hearts and to offer our own stories with a vulnerability that builds connection.
The thing is…ignoring each other only pushes us to place each other in rigid categories that build and strengthen walls, divisions, between us. Maybe Todd is right when he says that most of us do want the same things, and do share much in common. We just didn’t know each other, so we didn’t know that. And there’s no way to get to any solutions as long as we build those walls and keep that distance.
Love God and love each other. That’s how I’d sum up my faith–the same as Todd says he summarizes his own. The morning I left, I put on that soft, gray t-shirt with the heart and I sent a picture of myself wearing it to Todd and Nicole. And as my plane taxied down the runway in Kansas City, I felt wrapped in the love their family so generously offered to me.
I’ve believed for some time, and now I believe it even more: that it’s a tenacious love–bulletproof, you might say–that keeps inviting us to the hard conversations. And it’s only love that will help us find our way toward each other, until our hearts begin to heal, little by little, and we believe and behave like we are, truly, better together.