The President of the United States delivered a monumental speech last night during a vigil in Newtown, Connecticut. He was emotional. He seemed real. And he somehow was able to get back that old aura like he had during speeches in the past. He is a great orator. During this tragic situation, we need that. Sure, we need action, too.. but since action is so debatable, right now oration will due.. He invoked Jesus and children going to him.. then went on to name all of the children, by first name, who were gunned down by shooter Adam Lanza.
The world is beginning to know a little more about Mr. Lanza, and his mother. One story in UK media accuses his mom of being a hoarder worrying about the end of the world coming, or at least some type of end of the world-lite crisis. We don’t know much about him just yet, besides the occasional news media story of him being in a high school tech club, having emotional issues, playing video games. We do know, from various reports, that his mother took him to shooting ranges allowing him to practice his shots. Shots that would eventually change a small town and perhaps the nation…
I think there was a certain shroud of sadness across the Christmas landscape this weekend. I wrote about my trip to my local mall last Friday night. It was quiet and silent.. in parts you can hear a pin drop. I went, again, to another shopping center last night. While the crowd was in its typical rush for last minute gifts, there wasn’t much fun in the shopping experience. We all know what we are all thinking, We all have those children’s souls in our minds. I think there’s a strong change that many across this country had nightmares. Perhaps the President himself.
We may all disagree on gun control issues. We can all have a certain point of view regarding mental health and how state and federal governments should deal with issues relating to it. And we may also all have varying beliefs when it comes to the national ‘morals’.. But suddenly we all have one thing in common: We weep for the souls who perished last Friday in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Stories of heroism among the faculty make our eyes water.. but those awful stories of children being gunned down by a maniac in the school make us tremble in sadness and be silent in grief.
While Obama may have a master orator, there are still few words that can do much healing. Instead it the healing will come over time. It may never actually happen.. but families will come to grips with the scope of their loss. This Christmas has been ruined. I am guessing for hundreds of people, future Christmases will never get better. So many families that were planning happy and peaceful Christmases. Now they are planning somber funerals for lives gone too young.
The Lanza family will now be greeting this Christmas with loss, and perhaps shame. Their name now forever marked by the horror that were perpetrated and saddened by the loss of another…
We may have all been forever changed by this tragic shooting. But we don’t quite yet know how we’ve been changed.
A range of emotions has taken over … but we don’t know what is flowing through our veins more: Anger, sadness, or a melancholy feeling that something has been lost in this country–what? we don’t know yet. It’s too soon to understand the blaze of feelings ..
I cannot even imagine the pain, the ungodly pain, facing these families right now in Connecticut.
I despise any person who steals the innocence of another. This situation is all the worse. Not only was innocence taken of the deceased, but the living will now keep this horrid memory in their minds for a lifetime …
We all may feel sadness and anger.. But we also collectively feel disgust. Disgust that someone can do this. Disgust that it happened.
We may have all cried out to God this weekend. Maybe some of us lost faith, or others were comforted by it. I don’t know.
It’s too soon to know.
We just know that something is different. And Christmas will never be the same.