AMERICAN MASS SHOOTINGS

 

POLICE LINE TAPE, TIBETAN PRAYER FLAGS

“When you pray, move your feet.”  — African proverb

I served on our church Trustees group in 2012 when the horrendous mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School took the lives of 20 children and 6 adult staff members.  Many people across the country were offering their thoughts and prayers.  That tragic event of 13 years ago prompted us to initiate a variety of security measures that are needed today more than ever. 

I’ve noticed that more folks are recently challenging remarks by others during troubled times when they remark “Our thoughts and prayers are with you.”  They cry for that plus action!  That phrase has almost become cliché in our culture and folks are noticing.  The recent rampage of Hurricane Helene and the resultant response demonstrated that prayers and action go well together! 

The mayor of Minneapolis, where a gunman opened fire at a Catholic church and school 13 years later, killing at least two children and injuring 17 others during morning Mass, mostly children, said "thoughts and prayers" were not a sufficient response to the mass shooting.  He noted the kids were literally praying at the time.  He’s right, more action is needed in the area of security, military style weapons and mental health.  Most all but one of similar mass shootings lately have involved young men.

The Tibetan prayer flag above states that “Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.”  Offering “thoughts and prayers” is surely a wonderful thought, but when those words are all that is offered without some positive action to attempt to right the wrong, those words become cliché and merely platitudes.  Hopefully, the prayers will inspire us to action!  

Karl Barth was right when he observed: “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”  This troubled world, including the Holy Land and our schools, is definitely worthy of our prayers and our actions!  The floods that have ravaged our state recently remind us of our strength.

“We may bend but we never break.”  When the night is dark, be the star that ushers us home.