Senseless Attacks, Not Even For A Deranged Cause
I had a bad night. Nightmares about a shooting in a medical clinic and trying to escape and protect my family. I woke to the even worse horrors of the Las Vegas shooting. I remember how I felt about Columbine, 9/11, the 2004 Tsunami and it was sheer horror and a sense of the devastation manifesting in me, my own storm of emotions that crushed me, but let me know I was still alive. I wept, kept watching for survivors, and grieved.
But this morning, after the nightmare and then the reality, I felt instead an absolute cold, empty void,mhallowed out and sterile, and somehow, I was unsurprised. It was the last part that scares me. Have I given up? Am I desensitized? Doesn't it make me as bad as the monsters among us? No grief. No outswelling of feeling. Nothing.
I feel sympathy for all those connected with this tragedy, but I feel like my soul has so diminished, my faith in humanity is gone and hope for the future of civilized life is just a dwindling ember winking out. My nightmare world is real. I don't know a word for this feeling.
To all those out there who are harmed, in harm's way, have loved ones in danger or just escaping it: I will put a light in my window and I encourage others to do the same. I am a safe harbor in anyway I can offer. We must rekindle our communal humanity and be the ones who listen to every word spoken to us. Sometimes what people are saying isn't the message we assume is being said. We speak for them in our own minds to speed things along and jump to conclusions. The shooter's brother and woman he lived with had no idea what was going on with him.
Assume everyone is hurting, angry, lonely, scared and listen for that hint of a message, and then ask, "How are you feeling, really?" "You look unhappy. What is it?" I swear in this day when we are so bombarded by a constant stream of noise, alerts, shows, games, BEEP-BEEP-BEEPing how can we really hear one another? It drains us of the energy we need to have compassion. We need to block out some of this noise and talk more, really truly talk more, not this meaningless blather we spew all day. Few speak about things that matter. They are busy succumbing to the hate of the day. Politics, fear of war, hate groups, institutional brutality, terrorists while terrible and something we must all stand against, are we forgetting those around us?
When the election results came in back in November, I nearly fainted (no turn of phrase there). But I was devastated to learn that my boss and one of my best friends voted for him and agree with him. I could never look them in the eye again. I felt I could never trust them somehow. I wondered if there were pointy white hoods stored under their beds. That was when I started to notice what I completely overlooked before: subtle racism, tiny looks looks or a lip twitch when reading a magazine about social issues showing disapproval of people protesting the pain of American life, subtle hints at the underlying personalities I had no idea were there. How did I miss it? They say the election was polarizing and I think that statement whie sad and true is also a sign. It is a sign to us that the moral compass is splitting. That should not be happening. We should be more alike that unalike. We have been so etched by horror that the soft spots have crumbled leaving valleys between the sharp outcroppings of resentment. It can't end this way.