"An individual dies
when they cease to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the
sunshine again. When I see an act of evil I don't accommodate, I don't
accommodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere. I am still so
surprised! That is why I am against it.
We must learn to be surprised."
— Abraham Joshua Heschel
— Abraham Joshua Heschel
Wednesday
night I woke from a deeply disturbing nightmare. My mom was shot and killed. She was right outside our house, the house I
grew up in, checking to see what a stranger wanted. It was late at night and I’d wanted to stop
her, to tell her to let my dog run out first with her snarling bark that
usually annoys me but every once in a while helps me feel safe. But Mom is too hospitable for such
things. Somehow, instead, I was still
upstairs, looking out the bathroom window onto the scene as it happened.
When I woke,
my feet were icy and tingling, the way they get when a bad dream has chilled me
to the bone. My mind returned to what
had initially kept me from falling asleep in the first place. Just before bed, my husband and I had read
about the shooting
in San Bernardino[i],
California. Fourteen people were killed
and twenty-one injured at a center for people with mental disabilities who were
in the midst of a holiday party.
I am so
heartbroken and bewildered. Why did this
happen? How must the surviving loved ones be feeling? How terrifying and devastating for all those
present. I’m struggling with this
tragedy, not only for its own sake, but also because of the tragedies it
recalls. I have read that this is the
largest mass shooting in the U.S. since the horrific event at Sandy Hook
Elementary three years ago. More
troubling still, this is the 355th documented
mass shooting in the U.S. for this year alone. And surrounding all of this is
the ongoing refugee crisis, terrorist outbursts in Iraq, Kenya, Paris and
elsewhere; the innumerable wars and pseudo wars wreaking havoc on the lives of
men, women and children.
Dwelling on
all this I am filled with despair, outrage and, reluctant as I am to admit it,
fear. However, what I am afraid of is
not a terrorist attack. Nor do I dwell
on being caught up in the violent outburst of a mentally deranged person. And certainly not dread of foreign invasion. I’m afraid of a tendency I’ve noticed to
consider purveyors of violence “outsiders.”
I am afraid of a general lack of willingness to look in the mirror and recognize
that the violence erupting in schools
and churches, in city streets and now even in a residential home, are not
about the “other,” they are about us; you and me, as individuals and as part of
a community and country. Each of these acts
are awful opportunities to examine our culture and ask how and why it compels
and enables such violence. Yet, again
and again, that opportunity is passed over and we are left with only sorrow,
rage and despair at the devastating destruction of precious lives.
Part of my
heart urges me to continue this train of thought by addressing the refusal of
so many to take into consideration how entrenched the U.S. is in the production
and distribution of weapons. It is
an enormous and
enormously profitable business in which machines made specifically for the
purpose of destruction of life are sold with little to no discrimination both
within and outside our borders. Part of
my heart is prompting me to illustrate the terror that unfolds in villages that
are haunted
by drones or where the land has become a permanent battlefield because of unexploded
ordnances, or where people live under
threat of a night raid, always
terrifying, often lethal.
Most of my
heart, however, is consumed by the fullness of my womb, filtering everything
through the lens of an expectant mother.
When I was at this place of unborn fullness with my son Eli, who will
soon be two, a friend asked if I was not afraid to bring a child into this
world. At the time I said no, I was not
afraid. What I didn’t realize then is
that being a parent would in fact cause me to be more concerned for safety,
more aware of danger, more sensitive to the precarity of life.
There were
many nights when I would contemplate horrifying scenarios that would end with
either one or all of us dead. I would
consider how absurd it is that I should expect and feel entitled to safety in
my home when so many others live without it, when so many whose lives are taken
had no part in inviting such violence. However,
I continue to see participating in creating and nurturing life (whether through
pregnancy and parenting, art, activism or other means) as the greatest act of
hope, of love, of resistance to violence and despair that we can offer this
world. And so I pray that fear never be
what stops me from sharing in such acts.
And this
brings me back to the dream. I was
troubled by the dream not only because of Mom’s death, but because of where I
stood as it happened. I remained
removed, hiding within the walls of our house, hiding behind my dog’s ability
to intimidate. It is my mom, in this
dream, who is the one stepping out in an act of love. I don’t consider myself to be in the wrong
for having been afraid, but I am disturbed by my choice to follow fear and
remove myself or drive away whatever or whoever triggered that fear.
Fear and
anger have a place. They are important
signals that tell us something is very wrong.
But staring at the wrong does not lead us to what is right. I am grateful for the times that I have a
visceral response to tragedy, for the times that I am still surprised by violence. I’m grateful because it means in that moment
I am living outside of apathy and inside communion with living beings. However, if I become overwhelmed with anger
or fear, judgment or disgust, I try to redirect those feelings toward
grief. Turning to mourning allows
sadness to soften and open my heart, creating a pathway for the grace and
wisdom of the Spirit to enter in and do it’s healing, guiding work.
There is a
piece to this dream I failed to recount initially. As I am standing at the window, I am aware
also of the presence of a few of my friends from Witness Against Torture who (in
reality and in the dream) had just returned
from Cuba. In the dream I am vaguely
aware that they too have tried to get Mom’s attention, tried to ask her to
wait. They, however, are not asking her
to wait so they can send out the dog, but so that they can go with her.
Note to the reader: throughout this piece
there are links that have been attached to statements and ideas that I thought
might require further explanation or that I would have liked to share more
about but others have already collected the information more efficiently or
articulately. If you are interested in
or object to anything that was said, please feel free to follow the links for
further exploration.
