This post was written a few days after the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut.
~
In the past five days, much of the world’s
eyes have been focused on a small American town in the state of Connecticut.
This quaint ethereal landscape otherwise known by its community to be a
friendly, loving and safe haven, has become the centerpiece of perhaps one of the most
devastating and heartbreaking events in our nation’s history. It was just five
days ago that a broken and confused young man walked into his mother’s bedroom
and shot her in the head while she slept. He then proceeded to the Sandy
Hook elementary school, forcing himself through the main entrance,
and with automatic weapon loaded began firing on students and staff members of
the school. Within minutes, this gunman had shot and killed twenty six people
including twenty tiny children ages six and seven, the beloved principal of the
school and five courageous teachers and staff members. Two more adults were
wounded during the shooting rampage and remain hospitalized presently. Standing
in the hallway, moments after the needless slaughter of innocent lives, the
gunman then put a gun to his own head, ending his life as he knew it.
For the past
three days, grief stricken families and community have watched in numbing
silence as tiny caskets are carried out of churches, temples and synagogues to
be taken to their final resting places. And we gasp in shock and disbelief,
trembling hands covering our mouths asking ourselves what so many are asking,
“What is going on in our world?” “What kind of monster could do such a thing to
defenseless innocence and their caretakers?”
What
is going on in our world? Who
or what is to blame for these atrocities?
We could forfeit our personal
responsibility simply to pass the buck onto further scapegoat reasoning;
however, we must find the courage to stand up and face the music. We, all of us
on this tiny planet are responsible for the role we have or have not played in
the lives of those that Jesus referred to as our “neighbor”. We have fallen
short of compassion and understanding. We have crossed our arms in silent
isolation and rejection, rather than opening them in welcoming embrace. We,
each one of us has turned away from the very ones we are cautiously admonished
to uphold; the same ones who’s charge it is to do the same for us. We have
crawled into our own windowless basements surrounded by our self-centered
rubbish pickings we somehow have believed to define us, and we have forgotten--
Love.
“Too big of a
task?” you might ask. “Too much of a personal sacrifice?” you might
reason. Like the
Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, we
“could while away the hours,
conferrin' with
the flowers,
consultin' with the rain…”
on the decomposing stench of our
flailing planetary home-- and yet still come up empty and wary in our delusional
thinking. Aside from tossing out years
of “I”, “Me”,
“Mine", we remain a skeletal shell.
“You have to take care of
yourself first.”
“I need to take
care of me.”
“I need to find
the child in me.”
When we turn
away from the debilitating counseled thinking that brainwashes us into
believing and accepting that “I” am the center of
“My” universe, then
We might just find out, like
the Scarecrow so hoped on his journey along the yellow brick road:
“I'd unravel ev'ry
riddle
for every
individ'le
in trouble or in
pain…”
and
we just might finally find
ourselves closer than we think to understanding who our neighbor
really is.
God’s arms hold you now, little ones and big
ones alike.
You are
Safe
You are
Loved
You are Eternal
~
You are Eternal
~
This is my
command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to
love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you
do the things I command you.
John 15:13 The Message
(MSG)
~Cordelia
Darlene~
