It has happened again.
Dear God it has happened again.
The reports coming out of Oregon are just horrifying and gut-wrenching. My heart has been in knots as various (and sometimes conflicting) stories of what happened there at Umpqua Community College. Thirty people have been shot. At least nine people have died. Countless lives have been shattered. A community is in tatters. It has happened again.
Not long after reports of the shooting began to break, memes bearing the words, “Prayers for Oregon” began appearing across social media. This makes sense, after all, when we, as people of faith, don’t know what else to do, we pray. This is what we’ve been taught. This is what we do. But this time, as I watched post after post flow across my News Feed something didn’t feel right. It’s like the same memes keep getting passed around from tragedy to tragedy. First it was “Prayers for Aurora” then it was “Prayers for Sandy Hook,” now it’s is “Prayers for Oregon.” It’s like somewhere there is a meme generator that sits around and waits for the next shooting in order to just fill in the blank and recycle the same empty words across the interwebs.
Is this the best we can do? Is this the most faithful and life-giving response that we as a people can muster in the wake of yet another act of senseless and horrific violence? I am sick and tired of simply sending prayers to my brothers and sisters who went to school today hoping to pass a test and instead wound up in a body bag. So today, I am not sending “Prayers for Oregon.”
I am not praying for Oregon because I already know that God was, is, and will continue to be with that community. God was there when each one of those students woke up and exchanged words, hugs, and kisses with their cherished ones. God was there when each of those students walked into their classrooms. God was there in the chaos that soon enfolded that space. And God was there in the aftermath while holding the victims and weeping. God will continue to be with that community as they attempt to heal and begin to piece their lives back together. God is with Oregon. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.
Oregon does not need our prayers, because God is already working in that place and with those people. Right now, I am praying for the rest of us. Me. You. Everybody. I am praying for us because WE are the ones who are in desperate need of God’s grace and forgiveness. WE are the one’s who have allowed this senselessness to happen again. WE are at fault. So God, please be with us and forgive us.
There have been forty-five mass shootings this year. We have begun to treat these things like we would a tornado or wildfire. Tragic, horrible, but altogether unpredictable or unpreventable. As each shooting scrolls across our consciousness and as we learn of each victim and as we hear the stories of each shooter we allow ourselves to devolve into the same pointless political debates. Gun Control. Mental Health. Family Systems. Violent Media. All the talking heads pick their position and their potion and the dig their heels into the turf and we as a society are treated to a couple weeks of yelling and arguing and heated blog posts and then…..
Nothing changes. Life get’s back to “normal” for a few weeks or maybe even a month until the next one occurs. Then it’s rinse, wash, repeat. The same cycle turns over on itself time and time again. There comes to a point where we begin to ask, “what can we do, other than pray?” So we make memes, design ribbons, and allow our hearts to break time and time again. And nothing changes.
So what will we do this time? Oregon does not need our prayers. The victims of this maddeningly repetitive violence need our actions. They need something to change, quickly. Now. Will this finally be the time when our hearts break just enough to allow a bit of humility to flow out from us and cause us to step up and say that in this land in which we live these kind of things are absolutely unacceptable?
Pick your cause and your culprit. I don’t care. But pick something and get passionate about it. Guns? Get ’em off the street. Mental Health? Work to end the stigma surrounding mental illness and to provide funding for diagnosis and treatment. Family Systems? Work on strengthening family units through counseling, coordination, and education. Violent Media? Lobby Hollywood and the Gaming Industry to end the fascination with gore and violence.
If none of these work for you, find your cause and do it quickly. But whatever we do, we can no longer just say, “There’s nothing we can do.” This is no longer an acceptable response.
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