Today was spent mostly feeling shell-shocked about the shootings and stabbings in Connecticut and China. Facebook was littered with opinions. Newspapers and the internet had stories upon stories. I did not want the pictures in my head, which has an ability to hold such images for long periods of time, replaying them more than CNN does. I hunkered down, not wanting to talk to anyone or enter the world as I knew it.
I could not help but think of the perpetrators and how something must have gone horribly wrong for them at some point in their lives to create such a wound that would lead them to commit such horrific acts. My mind wandered to their families and wondered how they were today as they woke up. I am much more familiar with the morning-after moments of grief of those who lost loved ones yesterday. I do not know if the emotions are the same. I suspect that shame and horror collide with the usual emotions of grief and loss.
The world can be a broken place at times. After reading too many accounts and opinions, I grabbed my camera and went for a walk in the neighbourhood which was covered with hoarfrost on this dull day. I needed to capture beauty. I needed to restore my soul to a bit of sanity in a world gone temporarily insane.
Or is it temporary? Advent reminds us that we are waiting...waiting for wholeness and healing. We are waiting in a world that is not yet free of darkness. We stand not yet able to deal with our own brokenness or that of the other. We do not welcome the stranger or the strange. We exile them and make them feel worse than they need to. When I go out to the federal penitentiary, I know that the men inside those walls are broken...and have shattered the lives of other people with their inability to function as whole people.
It is not easy to comprehend what happened yesterday. Seeing innocence snuffed out is reminiscent of Rachel's weeping. What I and all of us need to do is recognize that we are all wounded and all in need of Love. I want to recommit to being an instrument of peace in this world so that there are less moments of violence on every level. I want to be an agent of healing. Can we all try to be kinder and gentler so that those around us feel safer and less threatened? Do we all yearn for the moment of redemption that will allow us to stand healed and whole? Is the time for no more weeping and sorrow arriving any time soon?
Broken people have choices too. I realize this. As much as my wounds limit my ability to function some days, I pray that I would never harm myself or others physically. I do remember though one Christmas at a family gathering being surprised at the intensity of emotions that swept through me when I thought my then brother-in-law might be beating my sister in the basement of our family home. I am not sure what I might have done had I discovered that he was. He was not a well man. I am not proud of my emotions at that moment but I learned a valuable lesson. I think we are more capable of reacting in violence than we would admit, especially when we want to protect ourselves or our loved ones.
During Advent, we wait but not without hope. Tomorrow we enter week three and light the pink candle for joy. The stories of bravery and courage are starting to come out today from the school staff and students who survived the Newtown tragedy. We are meant to be people of Light, not of the darkness. These stories will evidence that reality and will balance the terror of what reigned yesterday in the man who committed the mass murders.
I pray for all of those who died yesterday, including the shooter. May God have mercy on all their souls and may perpetual Light shine upon each of them.
Peace,
Suzanne
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