There really aren't any words to effectively respond to the tragic and senselessness of the massacre yesterday in Uvalde, Texas, USA.
As I continue to read, somewhat reluctantly, the ongoing investigative journalism surrounding the insanity, there is a growing urge to fling something at the wall across my office, but I won't. I step away and do some housework, or I pray. My latest urge came when I read: "What we know about the victims of the Texas school shooting in Uvalde so far..."
What we know? We know that their families, their lives and their community, not to mention the world as we know it will never, ever be the same.
Forgive me, I understand perfectly well the intention behind "the news" as well as the proclivity of the masses to want to follow the families and community at large, for many reasons.
But this ...
... this is not a planned or otherwise riot staged by a few or many citizens that turned into a surreal disaster.
... this is not anything we can or should "plan" for. However, each time we send our children off to school these days we have more to contend with than the bully, the "mean" teacher, the social politics or the caste system of the hierarchal pecking order.
When I went to elementary school in the 1970's California, USA, we had earthquake drills, fire drills and then "nuclear attack drills".
I was the student that was sent to the principal because I wouldn't take part in rushing under my desk covering my head while waiting to be obliterated into dust from the Big Boom. I didn't see the need. It didn't make sense to me.
As an adult at the tender age of almost 57 this doesn't make sense to me either. What will "gun control" laws do to protect our children and their children? If someone is going to lose their mind to drugs, mental illness or whatever element is provoking another human to go on a murderous rampage ... what can we truly do? There is no "bad guy" we can point to at the top of it all though, because this is not an isolated, horrific and rare incident. We're so interested in finding a villain every time so we can wrap some sort of reasonable story around "why".
Something is incredibly broken "out there" and it's terrorizing all of us.
This is why I find myself in my place of prayer more often than not these days. I pray for a rise in consciousness, communication and solutions.
In my opinion, we need more self control, not more laws to control those of us who would not be compelled to break those laws anyway.
My deepest condolences to all who have been traumatized by the recent ongoing senseless acts of violence, and those who live in perpetual fear of it.
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