Like many, I write about the events at Sandy Hook Elementary last Friday with great trepidation. The grief and pain of those who lost a child or a loved one is not mine to borrow. Yet I think we all, in our own way, share in the horror and pain of such a senseless tragedy. The heart cannot comprehend the depth of sorrow felt as families honor and bury their loved ones this week in far too many funerals for one small community to have to hold.
Like Jeremiah, we ask why our pain is perpetual and our wounds incurable. (Jeremiah 15:18). WHY? and there is no answer. Its another tear-stained question written in heavy strokes on the list I carry, the list I will someday bring to God when it is my time. Until then, as Paul instructed in his epistle to the Romans, I will weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15).
We are having a national conversation now. We are talking about guns – and we should. We are talking about mental health and the holes in our systems for treating and healing those who suffer. We are talking about how to protect our children. We don’t have a collective agreement on the solutions to those problems, but with any provenance we might find ways to make inroads, so long as we don’t let the politicians and the power brokers usurp the conversation to their own ends.
We cannot beat our tender wings to tatters against the hard, hot lantern of violence and hatred. We must instead smash it to smithereens and let those flames sputter out. We must replace them with the brilliant shining light of love, because love is the only answer there is and will ever be to the tyranny of evil and hate. Love, immeasurable and immutable, to conquer hatred and indifference. Mercy, infinite and timeless, to conquer violence and suffering.
Love is the only way. It is what we are called to do and to be.
As we hug our own loved ones tight, grateful and entirely too aware of our own good fortune, let us surround our brothers and sisters in Newtown and all around the world with the pure light of our love. Then let us send that love into the world at large
Click here to donate to the United Way Connecticut Sandy Hook relief fund to help offset the expense of funerals and help those families afford time for healing.
This link will take you to the Sandy Hook Victim’s relief fund, set up by a former student to raise money for the Sandy Hook PTA.
Funds for individual victims:
(If you know of more, email me the links)
