When tragedy strikes, my immediate inclination is to try to find some meaning or purpose or reason behind it. There is a sort of desperate portion of me that wants to make sense of that which is senseless It gives me a feeling of control and a sense of peace. It makes me feel safe in an unsafe world.
I haven’t immersed myself in much of the coverage of this morning’s shootings because, quite honestly, I’m not emotionally prepared for it, but I have read reports and I know the basics.
I know that lives should not be shot down randomly. I know that people should not have to wait up for lovers who will never come home. I know that mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers should not be buried because one person was unable to feed their brokenness without breaking the bodies of others.
One message I have heard over and over again today, however, is of the need for hope. Hope in an eternal future where peace will reign. Wherever you find hope and meaning, I hope you are able to find it amidst dark days such as these.
However, before we try to heal our wounds and our fear with a hope eternal, I think we first need to heed our very human inclination towards grief. What happened today broke our hearts. Today we were brought in touch with the absolute darkest forces alive within the deepest depths of broken humanity. Today we saw evil unleashed on our world.
And while it’s important to look to the eternal and to look for God, however we perceive Him, we also need to look within ourselves and feel the depths of our sadness and suffering because we cannot heal that which we will not acknowledge. We need to seek the eternal while still honoring our very natures. We need to approach human suffering through human emotion and human understanding.
In the face of the darkest of human possibilities, we must fight back with the light. We must live that which makes humanity redeemable. We must honor what we know even when what we know is sadness. We must grieve for the innocence that is lost with each new, senseless tragedy. And then, perhaps, we will have a chance of becoming more whole.