The To-Do List Is Outrageously Familiar

One mass murder after another. I don’t have to name them; you know every one of them.

The Mass Murder Response List:

The President speaks, deploring the violence, sympathizing with the families. (Assistants check out speech from the last mass murder in order to avoid excessive repetition.)

Presidential visit is planned ASAP.

FBI goes to work: Is the shooter on any lists? What did his mother/girlfriend know? Was he an isolate? What kind of toothpaste does he use? Was he bullied in the seventh grade? Drug user? Connected to terrorists on the ground? On the Internet? Sexual identity issues?

We are familiar with the FBI moves by now. In all likelihood they arise from a file: “Mass Shooting Investigation Protocol.”

Community groups:

    Organize sympathy parade.  Make “LOVE NOT HATE “placards

    Organize fund raising for families: Create bank account and local team for equitable distribution.

.   Organize a group to supervise flowers and memorials.

.   Organize food for those who need it.

    Organize transportation for incoming family members.

    Plan community –wide memorial services with local clergy

The Mayor of Orlando calls the Mayor of San Bernadino to ask for support and assistance? “How did you handle . . .?”

OK. So all of the above is good and thoughtful response stuff. Right?

According to The Dallas Morning News, June 19, 2016, there have been 353 mass shootings in the United States this year. A mass shooting is defined by the deaths of four or more persons. 1,312 persons have been injured.

 All America now knows the drill for mass shootings. Protocol lists and files exist everywhere; no doubt including files at-the-ready in major cities where a mass shooting has not yet occurred.

We know how to mourn. We’ve become good at that, too. We wring our hands, say our prayers, send our cards and our money and kneel at candlelight memorial services. We do it all.

What we do not do? WE DO NOT CHANGE OUR GUN LAWS!  

We do not demand background checks or waiting periods. In this country it is much more difficult to get a driver’s license than a gun. It is laughable; it is disgusting.

The United States? A country adept at mourning: a country heartbroken by these frightening killings: a country nearly IMMOBILIZED by mass shootings. Does that explain the inability of Congress to ignore the power/money of the NRA? Does that explain our government’s failure to collaborate across the aisle to create legislation that could ameliorate this appalling situation?

 I doubt it. 

We should be ashamed.

 PS: Maybe, just maybe, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy’s recent heroic filibuster will spark some movement within our seemingly indifferent Congress. I pray so.

Forget Despair: It's a God-Orchestrated Time Of Life

My first three phone calls this morning were—all three--with women of a certain age who have various forms of active cancer.

How could this have happened, I wonder? And yet it’s not as if I haven’t felt this stage of my life coming. Certainly I have. Time passes. We get sick and/or our parts start to fall off like so many parts of an old car speeding down the highway. “Where did the side mirror go? It was just here yesterday!”

I know this territory.

Still, this morning, after the last call, I put the phone down and slumped into a chair. OK, God. This is the deal now, right? Here we are: biopsies, surgeries, complications, memory loss, cancer, scoliosis, and macular degeneration—just to name a few. Walkers, canes, heart monitors and oxygen are common among us.

There is no getting away from it or escaping it. As my brother used to say, “It’s better than being on the wrong side of the grass!” But it isn’t easy either.

Various forms of frailty assail us: from niggling nuisance—contact allergy dermatitis—to frightening, gut wrenching serious—a tumor on the spine which may not be operable. And what do we do? We deal with each problem, one step at a time, in hopes that we can get ahead or at least stay even with whatever ails us. We engage; we learn doctor/ medical talk; we line ourselves up to be treated in good faith and pray like crazy that the outcome will be the best possible.

We are a brave lot.

Slumped into the chair this morning, I pondered: what can possibly be good about any of this? What is the God-orchestration of old age? It’s not so fun! No one could say that it is, but, still, I thought, there is something about this period of time in my life . . . something . . .

For example, never before in our lives have we needed each other more: to drive the car, to bring food, to make us laugh, to join us in consultation rooms with notebooks, to pray together, to celebrate success with us, to mourn with us, to struggle with us to remember the name of that movie Tom Hanks was in when he played that guy who was, well, you know, what is the word we are supposed to use nowadays for someone who is disadvantaged in that way? We laugh hysterically and wonder of wonders, someone comes up with Forrest Gump and we all cheer.

We understand each other. We are connected.

And that is the good stuff: the connection. That, and the forgiveness that can arise: forgiveness of whatever in the past may have caused us to judge one another. Forgiveness grows, nourished by our profound understanding of our mutual frailty and the humor we are able to share over our limitations.

  To my way of thinking, this is our chance to free ourselves from the weight of whatever axe we have been grinding: to drop our story lines about how life and people should be and, instead, become available to love others and ourselves in the most all-encompassing, compassionate manner we may have ever experienced.

As physically and emotionally challenging as this part of our lives can be, how can we say that it is useless or wasted? It is not. If one is willing, it can be similar to the heart blasting- open experience of when that first baby was born and, looking into her/his eyes, you realized that you had, to this point, no concept of how profoundly  you were capable of loving.

 It occurs to me that, if we choose and if we dare to seize the opportunity offered by this period of our lives, we can be in that heart-open state again. We can complete our time here on this earth in a landslide of compassion for one another.

It cannot get any better than this: A chance to become who we were meant to be.