Lent 1 - Tuesday - Now that this has happened, what are we going to do about it?

Chardon High School is about a forty minute drive from my home here in Hudson. It is a beautiful little community located up in the “snow belt” and away from the lights of the big city. Yesterday, the community of Chardon had their fifteen minutes of fame due to the actions of one young man who decided to make a poor choice.

I listened to the television stations and radio broadcasts for as long as I could stomach the sensationalism of the news. In a rush to be an “exclusive”, the media caused much angst by reporting at one point that there were two gunmen instead of one, that four students were injured instead of five. In this media crazed social network driven society in which we now live, I wonder if less news is actually more. What if all the facts are available before the sensationalizing begins to unfold? Is it impossible to imagine a time when news outlets might simply say, “There has been a shooting at Chardon High School. When we have all of the correct information, we will be back on air with a detailed summary.” Is that asking too much of the “mainstream” media?

Now that this has happened, what are we going to do about it?

I was living outside of Charlotte, North Carolina the day the Trade Towers and Pentagon were attacked. In the days following 9/11, the public television station in Charlotte replayed a lecture given by Rabbi Harold Kushner which he had delivered a few years earlier at one of the universities in Charlotte. He spoke about troubling events, horrifying experiences that happened in our world. Then the good Rabbi reminded his listeners that the Jewish people had a way of dealing with troubling events. They would simply ask: “Now that this has happened, what are we going to do about it?”

In this simple statement of faith, one could hear an acceptance of what was and a call to do something, to make things better, a call to attend to the wound. It was a poignant and compassionate reply to the act of terrorism and one of the few reflections following that eventful day that focused on a spiritual response to violence.

There has been a shooting at Chardon High School, what are we going to do about it?

There seems to me to be two choices the day after the tragic events in Chardon. The first is to bury our heads in the sand, hoping that this incident will go away, and get back to our regular daily routine. Tell that to the mother and father who lost their sons yesterday; who saw their boys leave out the front door of their home certain that they would return by supper. I cannot even begin to imagine their pain and suffering at this moment. I fervently pray that they will cast their grief on God and that God will shower them with grace and mercy.

The second choice we have is to roll up our sleeves, put down the remote, turn off Facebook, close the laptop, and get involved once again in our communities and with our families. Moments like this and the events at high schools in Colorado and Mississippi, on the campus of Virginia Tech and the shopping center in Tucson, Arizona should make each one of us pause and reflect about how the world in which we live is out of sync. When a young man believes it is okay to walk into school with a gun, sit down to breakfast with peers and then open fire at short range because he is angry with them, something is dreadfully wrong with our culture.

This second way is much more difficult because it demands that we take responsibility for our actions. It demands that as a community we enter into conversations about the root causes of violence in our society; about the responsibility of parenting; about the desensitization of our world to aggression, hostility and bloodshed; about the pressures that young people are experiencing in day to day life that are real and tangible; about how a person deals with their emotions, especially their anger; about the effects of social media; about young children playing video games that randomly kill hundreds of people with no concern about the effects those games have on the psyche; about guns and gun control; about recovering the belief that every life is sacred; and a host of other concerns as yet to be discerned.

Sure, nobody wants to take the time and engage in those difficult issues because there are no easy answers. To solve such matters will require all of us to accept some responsibility for the culture in which we live and be willing to make sacrifices for the good of the whole. In reality, very few persons want to make those sacrifices because we are living in a time of heightened self-interest and self promotion where “me” is the only thing that matters. Our culture has become narcissistic to the core.

Now that this has happened, what are we going to do about it?

Only the church, synagogue or mosque can be the place where such a conversation can take place with any integrity. The Church has yet again another opportunity to engage the culture and find ways to solve the difficult challenges facing our country. The spiritual lessons of Jesus can liberate our society from the excessive emphasis on self and lead us all to a greater truth about loving God first and loving neighbor as much as we love ourselves. This, I believe, is the only way to healing the world’s wounds.

Just before lunchtime yesterday, a man called the local radio station and poised a question that made me pause. While he was concerned for what had happened in Chardon, and offered prayers for those young students injured, he reminded the listening audience that in the inner city neighborhoods of Cleveland last week five persons were gunned downed in mostly random acts of violence, two of those killed were young teens. He asked why the media did not give 24/7 coverage to such news as they were giving to the events in Chardon. Good question.

Now that this has happened, what are we going to do about it?

Love One Another - Brian