“There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable…”
—Lin-Manuel Miranda
There was another school shooting yesterday. The eighth school shooting to result in injury or death in just the first seven weeks of 2018.
Being off of Facebook (and having listened to a podcast on the way home from work), I only heard mention of it in passing before heading to church to sing in the choir for Ash Wednesday service, and the only mention I heard said nothing about fatalities, so I foolishly assumed it was nothing serious. (And dear God, how many of these does it take for me to think that ANY shooting at a school could be “nothing serious”? God have mercy…)
I was sitting in the choir when my pastor stepped forward and asked that we begin the service in an attitude of quiet and prayer for the seventeen victims, both students and staff, of the day’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
It was the first I’d heard of any fatalities, much less so many of them.
An audible ripple went through the congregation. Ash Wednesday is already one of the more somber days in the church calendar (at least for United Methodist Christians), but with Rev. Philip’s words it felt as if the air were sucked out of the room in one swift breath. The sanctuary went silent.
There are no words for this.
I mean, there are words. But they’ve all been said before.
We said them after Columbine. We said them after Newtown. And nothing has changed. Not one. Damned. Thing. Has changed.
And nothing will change.
Nothing will change until we surrender the selfish idea that says my “right” to own an automatic weapon trumps a child’s right to go to school in safety. (I put “right” in parentheses in the first part of that statement because I do NOT think it was the Founding Fathers had known about automatic weapons, they might have been a bit more specific; I think they’d be appalled at the state of things now.) Nothing will change until the greed that invites lawmakers to accept donations from the NRA is countered with either a change of heart (unlikely) or strong legislation addressing campaign finance reform–even less likely than Certain Legislators spontaneously growing a heart, spine, or both. Nothing will change until we start talking about mental health, and proactive measures, and properly funded public health systems that allow for screening, early intervention, medication, counseling, and yes, even quality in-patient treatment for ALL who need it.
Nothing is going to change.
In Florida tonight, seventeen families will never be whole again. Still more are sitting vigil at the bedsides of their critically injured children, praying for hope and for a miracle. Dear God.
“They are going through the unimaginable.”
Valentine’s Day falls on Ash Wednesday this year. Ash Wednesday begins Lent. Lent is the season when Christians are called to remember Christ’s sacrifices for us.
And at the end of Lent comes Good Friday, when Jesus of Nazareth was executed on a cross. He died. He was buried. Scripture tells us the whole sky went dark that day–for those who were there, it was a day of darkness on both figurative and literal levels.
And then comes Easter. Then comes resurrection. Then comes HOPE. It’s not over. Death isn’t the end anymore.
“There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable.”
God of Resurrection, in the midst of evil we don’t understand, we lift up all those who suffer under the violence of this broken earth tonight. Pour out your peace upon them, and even in the midst of their grief, allow them to hold on through the darkness long enough to see the light of Resurrection your love has given to us.
Sonnets & Spreadsheets 