A Prayer for FSU...

There was shooting at my alma mater on Thursday.  Two dead and six wounded.  I will, so long as I live, never understand what would make a person do this kind of thing.  I just do not get it.  I do not understand that kind of hate or that kind of delusion.  And I guess I should be grateful I don’t.

I lived in Tallahassee when there was a shooting at the library back in 2014.  I didn’t understand it then either.

It isn’t just FSU, this happens everywhere, far too often.  People with mental health issues, addiction, and hate have far too easy access to weapons and make the world, our classrooms and college campuses the place they sort out their shit.  Or rather rain it down all over us instead of working to see that perhaps their version of reality isn’t really all that reality based.

I feel terrible for the people who were killed and injured.  Their families and friends.  All the people who were affected.  My boss’ daughter is in her last semester of graduate school at FSU and was on campus teaching a class when this all went down.  She was fine and was not in imminent danger, but she didn’t know that and neither did we for several hours.  

I will never understand what makes a person do this kind of thing.  I will just never get it. 

I also feel absolutely terrible for this kids’ step-mother.  The first reports listed her as his mother and that he used her service weapon in the shooting.  She is his step mom and the service weapon used in the shooting was not an active service weapon but one she decided to keep when the department upgraded weapons.  I can’t imagine how awful this would have been as a parent, then to have the press misinform us about the details.  It was clear from the first reports that the press believed there was some dereliction of duty on her part in that the kid had access to her service weapon...when, in fact, that was not true at all.

My heart goes out to the families that lost loved ones and to all the people injured both physically and mentally.  These events scar people for life and the road to recovery is slow and not easy.

Can you imagine having to go back to school on Monday?  Walking the campus where, just a few days earlier, shots rang out and people died?  How do we ask people to do that?  I mean life goes on and all but fuck that seems like a lot to ask from our young people, or really any people. 

After the Oklahoma City Bombing, I had to go into federal court house for a couple of court cases and I will tell you that I did not ever walk into that court house without surveying my surroundings and feeling uneasy.  I knew it was not likely that it would happen again in a building I was in, but that didn’t stop me from thinking about it every single time I had to go to court there.

I guess my point is that these events reshape the lives of those who are still here living.  All of us, whether we were there or just heard about it on the internet.  There is a collective grief experienced in our social fabric and it is lasting.  When the shooting happened in 2014, I remembered how much the library was used especially at final exams and how often I walked by that building in my time as a student.  I thought of all the times I was in that library and how that act of violence changed the building for me forever.  The violence ends but the act changes our perceptions, our memories and our interiority forever.

Today I pray for all those affected by this most senseless act of violence.  I pray there is healing and comfort given to all those affected.  This happened to all of us.  We are all Noles in our hearts and this reverberates across the miles.  I pray that we do not vilify those who are also victims of one person’s delusional act.  I pray that we don’t point fingers except at the one who is to blame for this tragedy.  As a parent, we all do our best and are not necessarily responsible for how our kids turn out and what they believe and what they do.  I hope we can all take a moment to think about what it would feel like if your kid did something like this.  And if you can’t fathom that, thank your lucky stars.  Not all kids have an easy road and not all kids live a clean and peaceful life.

I am holding space for all those affected by this horrible tragedy today.  I am not going to blame people or throw around hypotheses as to why or why not.  I stand firm in my belief that human beings do horrible things, repeatedly.  It will never make sense and it will never stop.  I try to rest assured that the world is less brutal today than it ever has been which isn’t to say much but at least we don’t draw and quarter people today.

There will alway be senseless violence in this world.  There always has been and I do not see a Utopia waiting for us on the horizon.  We all do our best to live in harmony and the world we have today is a result of that effort, no matter how far we fall from an ideal.

My heart breaks for FSU today and all those who call that University home.  I pray there is healing and love and peace that seeps into the hole this violence caused.  I pray that we all recommit ourselves to living a peaceful existence, doing our best not to harm others.  And when the violence of others rips apart our worlds, I hope we show up for those we know and do what we can to ease the pain and relieve the suffering.

Again...still.