For 36 hours I had been avoiding the news. I didn’t want to hear about one more tragedy like this.
When I became aware of what I was doing, I realized that I had started down this path of non-engagement some years before. It took very little time for me to pinpoint the exact time and place – Sandy Hook Elementary School, December 14, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut.
For years, with each new tragedy, I had been telling myself that when things got bad enough, things would change. I signed all the appropriate petitions focused on banning assault weapons and on funding more help for the mentally ill, contacted members of Congress voting on anti-gun legislation, and sent money to the courageous people at the vanguard of the fight.
But when those innocent young children died, something in me died with them.
So, now in Orlando, so many beautiful young people have left us, taking their promise, their creativity, their openness, their diversity, their joy, their youth, and their future with them. This is our latest sacrifice made at the altar of fear, of greed, of gun violence, of racism, of misogyny, of homophobia.
There is an Arab proverb, “Trust in God, but tie up your camel.” This is most assuredly a time for prayer and a test of faith. One wonders what it will take to wake us up to the reality that we are all interconnected, cells in the single body that is humanity, with all the differences and diversity required to ultimately and completely know the human experience. What will it take? There is no answer yet to this question and so we pray.
The second part of the proverb “…but tie up your camel” is our part, my part, our responsibility, my responsibility. Here I find myself traveling from the most inward examination of my own psyche to taking action in the world.
It is easy to say from the sidelines, “I can’t identify with this killer, with this kind of violence,” intimating that there is no potential for violence in me. But, I believe, we all have some of every potential in us, given the right circumstances. Fifteen years ago, I was sound asleep with my small children on the tenth floor of a hotel in New Orleans and was awakened by the deafening sound of multiple fire alarms. In the surreal experience of making our way in the dark, down a narrow, concrete stairway, in the stifling heat, with children in pajamas, alongside hundreds of people attending a gospel choir convention, also staying at the hotel and moving very slowly, I was desperate to find a quicker way down. Suddenly I realized I could understand those people who climb over the bodies of others to flee a burning building. I didn’t do it, but the realization startled me. I didn’t know I had it in me.
Violence exists on a continuum from the very small to the most extreme and in “tying up my camel” I need to look at where violence lives in me. Does it take the form of unkindness, of harsh words, of support withheld, of unforgiveness, of unsolicited criticism? What is the intention? Is it meant to do harm? Or, is it unconscious in its intent? What am I thinking, saying, or doing that adds to the “violence quota” of life on this planet?
Beyond my own efforts at not doing harmful things, I need to step into doing more meaningful, helpful things. I need to be more pro-active about what I believe in, and yes, it will take extra time and effort. Where the time will come from, I can’t say. But I know it will come, because our world needs and the universe will support all of us working together toward love.
Creating a world driven by love is a responsibility meant to be shouldered by all of us. To be intimately involved in and fully experience all that is happening in our lives is what truly being alive is all about. Disengaging is not an acceptable option. I don’t think any of us want to leave this world, wondering what might have happened, if only we had been more fully and actively engaged in making the changes we knew were for the good of all and we so dearly wanted to see.
It’s all about waking up to the fire alarms.
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