notes in the wake of Newtown 14th December–on

You don’t want it to go away– you want it to stay enough to mean something. But then those days you forget for whole periods of time, and this too is of some kind of importance.

And then the sadness that I know full well in a few months, or even weeks, we will have mostly forgotten. We mourn for this too.

Also worn with having to explain things to children that I could never have imagined I would have to explain. Like conspiracy theory or why somebody might snap or why are some worried about copycats and why would our schools go into lockdown when there isn’t actually anyone there.

The churches are full and the streets are empty. People are in their homes, walking around, wondering where God has gone. Suddenly, and maybe only for a little while, are some serious questioners out there. What do they say to each other? How do you back out of this still in some kind of faith?

Somewhat similar to 9/11 but also not– maybe because 9/11 changed our lives in terms of our imagination, we now take in what happens and put it into a different box of our heart. Maybe this is what we have learned to do, yet we don’t want to compare the two- we can’t quite let go of what we already (now) know we are capable of and yet each time this horror gets renewed we want to have our hearts renew cause we think that is the only way we will be saved. Saved enough to settle back into who we were before. But the media keeps going with its huge splash across our eyes– everywhere we walk and every screen we pass and each radio in our cars– until we turn away or down and in the meantime I cannot help but wonder at every human that goes by, wanting to look into their face and ask do you think what I am thinking, what is your heart doing with this; how to just go ahead and drive your car to pick the child up from school, to the grocery store, to the library to bring the old books back– I want to stop each one and I am not even sure what I would ask or say but I want to look into each face. Even as I drive I slow to look into any that I can, and though I am not quite sure what I am looking for I look anyway.