Wednesday December 19, 2012

Parents everywhere pictured their own child caught in the volley of gunfire and grieved deeply and helplessly for those moms and dads whose lives were shattered. A frenzy of facebook posts suggested that every mom was feeling that same primal instinct to hug tightly and never let go.

Almost before the smoke cleared, the usual debates and finger pointing began. We want answers. I did the same thing … desperately checking the news the next morning. Surely they had a motive by now. What I found instead was murky water and dark, heavy questions.

Why are the same people who lobby for increased gun control the same people who lobby for abortion? Why is the same president who sheds tears over twenty children ordering masses of children (and adults) killed in other countries? Why would it help to have armed weapons for self-defense everywhere? Why is the answer to violence more violence? And why is one murder a nation-stopping tragedy and another murder is a “slightly off-color joke“?

There are people desperately looking for better gun control and just as many people loudly demanding more guns so they can be armed and ready. There are people who insist this is a mental health issue citing insufficient funding and lack of proper therapy while others take a different twist and mention the sometimes violent side effects of Ritalin. Some people claim government conspiracy is at the core and that the issue goes much deeper than the lobbying for gun control. Others attack Hollywood and violent video games.

For me, the emotional aftermath was deeply personal. After the initial I-am-feeling-guilty-that-I-got-soooo-irriatated-with-Adam’s-dawdling-around-in-school-today-when-I-should-just-be-grateful-I’m-not-burying-him emotions ebbed, I felt such an intense call to action. Since Thanksgiving, I’ve been warring a hard internal battle with living here at camp. I’ve fought this battle off and on since we’re here, but it’s been particularly intense since then. When we were in our home area over Thanksgiving we drove in to see our old place just because we finally had time. I shopped places I’d shopped when I was home, enjoyed a nice breakfast out with friends and family, devoured wings and pizza that got ordered in just because, and in a dozen ways experienced startling personal reminders of how comfortable our life really was. Is it fun to downsize significantly, haul drinking water, heat bath water, and deal with typical thirty year old house issues like a furnace giving up the ghost in the middle of the night and sink cabinets that are rotted out and closets that smell bad? Not particularly. Have we really learned what it means to sacrifice since we live here? No. A thousand times no.

The inconveniences are just that … inconveniences that mostly surface when the bigger problem shows up. Isolation. Loneliness. Lack of purpose. There is no conscious purpose, as far as I can tell, for my being here. Even the tiny ways that used to feel like they were part of my ministry to the larger world look like something compared to living here and doing nothing. I’ve never been the person who did well with keeping the sidewalks swept outside during a conference inside. Yet, here I am. Sweeping sidewalks so David can work at camp.

It was high time for revival in my heart and the events on Friday began not only an emotional catharsis, but a spiritual cleansing. Finally, it really felt okay. Just because it feels like the desert, doesn’t mean God isn’t here. Just because it feels like my life doesn’t have much of any real purpose right now, doesn’t mean this is wasted time. I was finally ready to say yes to God again. To believe Him when it meant that this part of my journey was purely a walk of faith.

As the fingers pointed on Friday and we lamented the terrible anguish twenty-six families will suffer this Christmas season, one unspoken message danced across every news page, every blog, every facebook status.

We must live intentionally. What if instead of saying, “THEY need to ______________”, we’d buck up and start saying “I need to __________________.” It doesn’t matter if you’re a mental health nurse or the person who gently but firmly brings your friend to the reality that her kid needs professional help (being with someone dysfunctional for a long time can blur your reality of normal more than you realize). It doesn’t matter if you’re writing research papers about the harmful effects of playing violent video games or a stay at home mom teaching your children that life is sacred and because it is, we never shoot anyone … not with a real gun, not with a video game, not even with a stick.

It doesn’t matter half so much what the driving force was behind the school shootings as it matters how we live our lives from here on out. What really matters is how I parent two little boys who can simultaneously frustrate my last nerve and turn me into a liquid mush of prejudiced adoration. Whether I only settle squabbles or teach them the ways of Jesus is a big deal. It matters when I see glazed pain in someone’s eyes and I choose to ignore it or gossip my own conclusions about her instead of reaching out to help. It matters whether or not I pray for the safety of our children and the spiritual depravity of our nation.

We can’t change the history of Christmas Season 2012; but what we do with today could change the destiny of 26 people some Christmas Season future.

A few hours later I ran across this blog and my stomach literally churned and I felt muscle after muscle inside my body contract in one desperate silent yell. I know that mental illness is real. I am not in the least trying to downplay that fact. I am not saying that her child definitely does not have a mental illness or that she is wrong in pursuing psychiatric treatment. I’m only crying inside because her description of him is like a composite of five boys in our tiny camp right now. ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Autism spectrum … those are not strangers to our applications. A slew of antipsychotic and mood altering drugs? They are not strangers to the applications, but they become strangers to the boys after they live here. Eyes that change color?  Happens with the kid David interviewed this morning.  Families being threatened with knives and needing to lock up every sharp object in the house? Even that is familiar territory. I want to cry. Not because I am convinced camp would change Michael, but because he looks like a perfect candidate and instead, he’s being locked into a mental institution and drugged. I wish I could talk to his Mom. Not in a thousand years do I think she is making a bad choice. You can hear her love and anguish in every word. I just wish every mom knew they had this option … just in case she wanted to pursue it.