The seminal moment
establishing the enduring connection between God and the children of Israel was
hearing their suffering as slaves in Egypt.
The children of Israel “were groaning under the bondage and cried out;
and their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God. God heard their moaning, and God remembered
his covenant with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. God looked upon the Israelites, and God took
notice of them … and was mindful of their suffering.”
Now our
children are crying out to us about their suffering, their need for help, their
entrapment in unsafe schools. Having
brought them into this world we must remember our sacred covenant with them to nurture, protect and make them feel safe and secure.
For too long,
as a nation, we have not acted to make our children safe and secure. With each
school massacre, platitudes of blame along political fault lines trotted out. Democrats blaming guns and advocating for
increased gun control measures. Republicans
blaming the shooters and advocating for guns in the schools to stop the
shooters. Lost in the blame game, politicians’
lack of attention to what our children are saying.
Now, for the
first time in the long history of school violence, our children’s cries are so
loud, so forceful, and so eloquent they pierce through the platitudes and diatribes -- impossible to ignore. A small sample of powerful remarks by students at
Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School:
Senior
student Delany Tarr
“This
movement, created by students, led by students, is based on emotion. It is
based on passion and it is based on pain … The only reason that we’ve gotten so
far is that we are not afraid of losing money, we’re not afraid of getting reelected
or not getting reelected, we have nothing to lose. The only thing we have to
gain at this point is our safety.”
Senior
Student Emma Gonzalez
“The
students at this school have been having debates on guns for what feels like
our entire lives. AP Government had about three debates this year. Some discussions on the subject even occurred
during the shooting while students were hiding in the closets.”
Junior
Student Alfanso Calderon
“Everybody
needs to remember, we are just children. A lot of people think that
disqualifies us from even having an opinion on this sort of matter…This matters
to me more than anything else in my entire life. And I want everybody to know,
personally, I’m prepared to drop out of school. I’m prepared to not worry about
anything besides this… so that kids don’t have to fear going back to school.”
Senior David
Hogg
“My message to lawmakers and
Congress is, “Please, take action. What
we really need is action. We can say, ‘We’re gonna do all these things.
Thoughts and prayers.’ What we need more than that is action. Please. This is
the 18th [school shooting]. We're children. You guys are the adults."
Action requires going
beyond the inevitable blame that happens when looking for the causes of gun
violence. The why did this happen
questions shifts the focus from ourselves onto others. Yet when bad things happen to good people our
minds ask why in order to feel in control when tragedy strikes. The why question is so ingrained, such a
reflexive response to tragedy, that the famous book about bad things happening
to good people is misremembered as: Why
Bad Things Happen To Good People. The
actual title is "When Bad Things Happen To Good People".
This “when mindset” allows
for a call to action. What do I do now
that this happened? The answers to “what
do I do” flows through mindfulness.
Looking into ourselves to be aware of how we see ourselves and others
involved in the tragedy. Mindful
of what we and others are capable and not capable of doing, and mindful of what
we might do to lessen the likelihood this tragedy recurs.
Our President made a good
start to mindfulness with his listening approach. Gathering people directly involved in school
massacres to hear their stories, their needs, their pain, their anger. To listen to what others did to lessen the
likelihood of another shooting at their school.
Just as important, televising the session so the whole nation could hear
the multitude of voices crying out to be seen and listened to.
Hopefully many solutions are
put in place, some at the national level. Many more at the state and local
level crafted to the needs and desires of the communities where the schools
exist. It is a complex and multilayered
issue with no single magical solution.
I want to give a shout out
to one solution that started locally and is gaining national traction – Rachel’s
Challenge. The program started by the
father of Rachel Scott, the first victim of the Columbine shooting. After her death, Darrell Scott heard from so
many classmates how his daughter had touched them deeply with her kindness and
compassion.
Darrell developed a
program to add kindness and compassion learning as an antidote to student
alienation and school bullying and violence.
His insight, schools used to, but turned away from, including character
development in the school curriculum. The
heart of the program, mindfulness. Being
aware of yourself and others in your daily interactions.
Similarly, Russell Simmons,
the hip-hop mogul, started a program for reducing youth violence through the
transformative power of meditation. Practicing
meditation changes the mind from busy to quiet. Only a quiet mind is an aware
mind, capable of apprehending self and others.
Violence stops when you truly see the other, not as an “other” but as
someone with feelings and needs just like you.
God, through his actions, teaches
us the importance of mindfulness. Now let’s teach it and practice it.
Until next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment