Thoughts on Newtown

"There will be many explanations but none will fully explain."

It is a different experience living so close to such a national tragedy.  Sure, I mourned the victims in Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, and elsewhere, but here and now I feel like I know them.  At most I am two degrees of separation from the victims, survivors, and first responders. Friends of friends.  A friend's brother-in-law was on the scene as a firefighter; another friend's sister-in-law was one of the school psychologists working with the families at the firehouse on Friday; our teacher knew the teacher who died while hiding and protecting her students; yet another teacher texted a friend who teaches at Sandy Hook and reached her during lockdown unsure of what was unfolding.  It's not just national news here; it's local and personal and immediate.  

I went to church yesterday, looking for some time and space to sit with my thoughts and feelings.  It was the music service, with some additional readings and meditations.  And while I had perhaps looked forward to a whole, thoughtful sermon, the music was perfect, allowing me the chance to sit, hug Sis and Bud, put my arms around Mama.  Once the kids went to class, the assistant minister rose and spoke briefly, giving a uniquely Unitarian Universalist take on the Newtown shooting.  She said that there would be many explanations but none that would fully explain why Adam Lanza killed so many people at Sandy Hook.  And then she talked about the shooter, how he was so divorced and disengaged from comprehending his own worth and dignity that he couldn't begin to perceive it in others.  His only answer to the precious gift of life that he could not understand was to end it for others and then himself.  

We can't know, ever, I believe, what triggered him that day to shoot and kill people, to go to the school of all places and end young lives just at their very beginnings and those of the adults protecting them.  And for me, the specific "why" of Lanza's motives doesn't matter because it doesn't change what happened (and beyond that, I accept the fact of human suffering, in all it's incarnation, even the most incomprehensible and tragic; it's not rational, it just is).  I have compassion for him, for the isolation he must have experienced that led to his separation from his humanity.

And I have compassion for his victims:

Charlotte. Daniel. Olivia. Josephine. Ana. Dylan. Madeleine. Catherine. Chase. Jesse. James. Grace. Emilie. Jack. Noah. Caroline. Jessica. Benjamin. Avielle. Alison.  Dawn Hochsprung.  Mary Sherlach. Vicki Soto. Lauren Rousseau.  Rachel Davino.  Anne Marie Murphy.

These are the names to remember, the lost children and teachers.  

But I do believe change needs to happen.  Change in our treatment of people with mental illness (for a touching essay on this, see here).  Change in our laws controlling guns and ammunition, and I hope Obama follows up and is able to help us change our answer about protecting our children from "no" to "yes" (see here for President Obama's speech at the memorial service; here for a thought-provoking essay on widespread and public gun ownership as the antithesis of a civil and free democracy.)  Change in the sensationalist media that thrives on such news (and some believe--though NOT Morgan Freeman originally--that the media is one of the culprits by canonizing evil-doers and creating one-upmanship.)  Even change in our support (financially and morally) of teachers and schools.

I have to admit to some pessimism that we will reach a compromise on these issues, particularly when FB is full of posts quoting Mike Huckabee who believes the removal of prayer in school led to the uptick in school shootings, other posts saying we deserve it because of abortion deaths, even others saying that if there weren't laws banning carrying guns in schools those teacher would've shot back and no one but the shooter would have died. I'm waiting to see the quote that says Connecticut deserves such murders because we have same-sex marriage (Falwell said something similar about Florida and Hurricane Andrew).  Of course, the liberals have their posts (and can be just as intractable as conservatives) about gun control stating guns do kill people (as opposed to the Chinese school tragedy, where the 22 children stabbed all lived) and the importance of mental health initiatives.  Clearly we are a house divided, very much along the same geographical lines at almost 160 years ago.  

But we'll try, in memory of those named above and in honor of our children and teachers and first responders still living, so that perhaps no one will go through this again anytime soon.

Because today, right now as I type, they are burying Noah Pozner.  I don't know Noah or his family.  When I first heard about the loss of the kindergarten class, I thought, "If it were our school, our family would be gone," because our twins are in the same class.  And I hoped twins weren't killed.  Well "twins" weren't, but one twin was.  Today as Noah Pozner is buried, his six-year-old twin sister Arielle will be at his funeral.

And so I make prayer shawls and huggable monsters, sign petitions and make donations, hug my children and pray:

May the souls of the victims be at ease.
May their family members and friends be comforted.
May the survivors be comforted.May the firefighters and other first responders be comforted.
May their Newtown neighbors and community be comforted.
May their fellow Nutmeggers be comforted.
May those who have lost loved ones to gun violence be comforted.
May those who have been survivors of gun violence be comforted.
May other people who suffered loss, pain,and  illness during this holiday be comforted.
May people who suffer loss, pain, and illness be comforted.
May the people who help and care for them be comforted.
May those who struggle with the challenges of mental illness be comforted.
May those whose loved ones struggle with mental illness be comforted.
May we all be at ease and come to the end of suffering.