Sandy Hook Elementary School Slaughter

Like all of you, I wept as I reflected on the horror story of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown , Connecticut. Having spent the majority of my young adult life working with young children this story resonates deeply. I did not know the twenty children who were mowed down without mercy. But I have known thousands just like them. As a former teacher, I am also familiar with the kinds of people the brave women were who died trying to save those children. Vivacious and loving, committed to the education and formation of those youngsters, they spent their last moments of earth trying to do what was beyond them, "stop the killer" and yet, by their actions, saving other children. The carnage, awful as it was, could have been much higher. (I hope the radio talking heads spend some time praising teachers.) In the darkest hour their true colors were revealed. Sacrifice of self. There is no greater love than to give your life for another. We saw great love here.

I also worked ten years at Youth Villages. Our job was to reach, teach and help heal emotionally troubled youth. All were victims. Most were perpetrators. Any of them would have some similarities to the troubled young gunman (gun-boy). I have known and loved such children, too. At least one of my kids did become a murderer. I still remember seeing his name in the paper. Angry and low functioning, he also had a sweet side. I failed to turn him. Someone died because of it.

I live in Collierville, Tennesse. We are a half hour drive on the interstate from downtown Memphis. Memphis is regularly awarded the top spot, or near the top spot, in most "worst city" lists for a variety of maladies. Among the things with which we are too familiar is murder. While the nation mourns the senseless murders of the 26 in Newton, we, here in West Tennessee, are hearing the story of a Memphis police woman. She was the mother of four; a public servant who was shot by a teenager as she served a warrant. Her death was also senseless, unwarranted, a grave evil; but her story is not national news. Probably, in part, because we are used to such stories. Young black men frequently shoot and kill others. Statistically speaking, it is one more case of the same old thing. It is the reason why places like Newton, Conneticut, and Collierville, Tennessee are popular destinations for people who want to raise their kids in a better kind of environment.

One of the tragic ironies, of course, is the fact that our violence riddled inner city has never had a mass shooting of this sort. Fact is, and I am aware of this most every day, Colllierville schools are much more likely to be on national news for this sort of thing than inner city Memphis schools. That, too, is a fact. And it is horrid to contemplate. Predominantly White, middle and upper middle class, suburban, with a large rural population nearby, my neighbors are people just like the mourning victims of Sandy Hook. Our teachers are just like the teachers there. We know it and as we weep for the 26 the tears are more copious because we know, in a real sense, they are us. And we are in terror that we will be them some day.

I had planned to write on apocalyptic today, using a Disney story to explain the literary type. Instead, I find myself driven to reflect on what has consumed me these last two days. One question which will never be answered to anyone's satisfaction is "Why?" I have an answer. Evil. Sin. But most people refuse to accept that as sufficient. Surely, they say, we can know so we can keep this from happening again. And truth be told, we have learned some things and because our schools practice and prepare for things like this, many dozens of young lives were spared, many teachers and kids still walk among us today. They locked their doors and scurried into "safe" places and they avoided their doom. But in the end, really, we all know that there is a fragility to life and even the best laid plans fail to meet every contingency. If you can shoot a President, you can find a way to kill defenseless kids. I have seen two Presidents shot and a third narrowly escape because of an inept gun-woman. I have seen far more schools invaded and the resulting deaths to think we can ever perfectly solve the problem. And while guns are an issue lets be honest. A truck of fertilizer and gasoline also littered our streets with young corpses in Oklahoma City. Evil finds a way....

I am now a priest. A man immersed in Sacred Scripture, a preacher and teacher. It is my task to provide some insights from a faith perspective. As I pondered what I would say, walking my dog in the dark, misty morning, I knew that I must ask God for His message. In my experience God does not talk to me, much. I think He talks through me, or so many people report, but I am not a guy who hears voices, sees visions, or experiences some absolutely certain communicaton from the Creator. I believe God speaks to me through His Word and through the Tradition (the authentic and authoritative teaching voice of the Church). My own interpretation of the Word is Spirit-led, but I test it against the Orthodox Faith. In other words, I try to avoid making it say what I want it to say. With that in mind, I offer, in all humility a few things which have come to me (and I make no certain claim God initiated any of this).

First, the words from Matthew 2:16-18. We just reflected on this a few days ago on this blog. Herod sent and killed all the boys under two in Bethlehem. A murderous rampage with sword and spear, just as effective in horror and evil, it echoes what we saw at Sandy Hook. The Scripture, a NT use of an OT verse, has a chilling resonance. "A voice in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled because they are no more." It breaks the heart to read and pray over the text. There are 26 Rachels connected to Sandy Hook, mothers bereft of their babies (be they 6 or 56). And many more of us feel like Rachel, mourning and weeping, wailing and unconsoled, for they are no more. And as I walked in the dark I reflected on that, over and over. And I found that I realized how full of violence and loss our Bible is. Anyone who reads it knows. God-lovers and Jesus-followers are not surprised by evil and death. We pray for its redemption.

In our Morning Prayer I read Psalms 79 & 80. It begins: "O God, the heathen have come into your inheritance; they have profaned your holy Temple; they have made Jerusalem a heap of rubble. They have give the bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the air, and the flesh of your faithful ones to the bessts of the field." Elementary schools are our sacred space. We demand that they be a safe place. And to see our babies, lifeless corpses, we cry out with the (Holy Spirit inspired) Psalmist "How long will you be angry, O Lord? Will your fury blase like fire forever?"

Is the massacre God's act? Well, Jesus' words about children are many and all positive. He loved children and still does. He calls them near and blesses them. Had Jesus been in that school He would have given His life to protect them. (He did, already, give His life to save them!) The shooter was not praying a rosary, quoting Scripture or singing hymns. He was not God directed. God's law includes, numerous times, "Thou shalt not murder." Killing those people goes against God's will. It is our world, we make our choices. It is our act. It is not God. And we do well to remember that this same God cannot be addressed in our schools. Did they pray, huddled in their closets as the shots were fired? Probably, but not officially. It is against our social will to invite God into our schools. And many have pointed out, in His absence, the void has too often been filled by demons. Demons with guns.

The only thought I feel I might have received from God in my prayer was these words. "He was my child, too." This is a horrible thought, but true. The shooter was once a little boy in that same school. According to some stories, he was socially inept and rather timid. What turned him into a cold blooded killer? The world, the flesh, the devil, those three are a deadly combination. And God did not create him to be a killer. That choice was against God's will. And the boy's problems are connected, to some extent, to rage and self hatred.For really, was he not killing himself, symbolically, as he shot, again and again those cowering, frightened children? I think so. They were him, at least a part of him. And so was his mother, the person we are closest too since birth. And the teachers were all mother symbols. And killing his mother, again and again, he was also killing himself. And in the end, he consumated the symbolic suicide, projected on other innocent people, by killing himself. And all of it a tragic waste of God's gift of life. And did God weep at such waste and carnage, such evil? human language cannot capture God, but I think the idea is closer to the reality than not.

So why did God allow it? Well, here, I think, is where our blindness is apparent. Our president wept as he told us his thoughts about this event. He was deeply touched. Yet God allows him to be our president, and God allows the majority of voters who elected him president, to live and choose and decide, even when the president supports, champions and energetically declares he will make sure a woman can abort her baby. Face it, killing innocent children is an American right and privilege which we have demonstrably embraced as a society. And lest this appear to be a political rant, truth be told, all of us are radically indifferent to starving children the world over. We live our lives, even well off middle class types, focused far more on our own pleasure than other's pain. We build schools to house our kids and shelter them but do very little to protect and nurture other children. We are not murderers like him, but our hands are not clean. Like the Australian DJ's whose radio prank with the the royal family was tied to a tragice suicide, for which they were blamed, we live in a place where many people are connected to this tragedy. Regular people go to work, they create guns and bullets, they transport and sell them. Lots of finger prints are on this shooting. (I am not an anti-gun guy or a pro-gun guy. I think guns and the right to bear arms are a reality with which we live. But while there is truth that guns don't kill people, people do; it is also hard to deny that guns make it alot easier to do hte killing).The media also has its role: asking some awful questions, abusing victims with cameras, intruding and demonstrating a hunger for story which often outstrips human compassion. And we watch and watch and watch; motivating the media to be more outrageous and feed our appetite for information. And our attention to every detail inspires other evil, sick fiends to make there own grab at national attention. So they plan their raid and load their guns and await their moment of twisted power and demonic destruction. Who is to blame?

Last night at the altar I lifted the victims of this latest shooting to God. We await deliverance and healing. We await a Kingdom ruled by Jesus, a kingdom where children are blessed and cared for. We await, knowing that when it comes, all of us will need to be made clean. Knowing none of us is worthy. And praying for forgiveness. I suggest there is need for all of us to pray, for them and for ourselves, and for the evil among some of us who do such things and the evil within all of us which allows any of us to do our own evil.