The children have gone to a better place, they are held in the arms of love. The teachers and staff, some of them, died knowing that they were protecting the children. Think about it; what a gift, to know that your last act was of love.
As always, it is we, the living, who are left with grief, questions, blame, confusion, anger. With the confusing, unglamorous, tedious minutiae of figuring out how to live our truths, spread love in the world, do no harm.
It is tempting to blame the accessibility of guns in our society. It is tempting to blame the lack of mental health services. It is tempting to try to find the answer in the banning of guns and the further "protection" of children behind locked fences and doors in their schools. It is tempting to look for answers anywhere other than the deep questions of heart and spirit that our country needs to ask. We won't find the answers unless we ask the questions. It's tempting to continue the blame game and divisions so evident in our politics. Evident in the definition of politics, which used to mean social relations and now is defined as governance and power.
We need to redefine our politics as the practice of social relations. Each one of us lives in a world where this tragedy happens, often. Each one of us has to find a way to live with that fact. We need to stretch our hearts to encompass forgiveness of the shooters, and the society that allowed this to happen, through neglect, or ignorance, through callousness, selfishness, or whatever lack or fault we name--to forgive ourselves, for our compliance or failure to make a difference. It's up to us to forgive, and live, and love the children while we have them.
And yet... I invite you to look at a discussion on Amazon, about Angel trees, and how poor kids ask for expensive stuff. Part of the people posting take the position that kids should not ask for iPods and xboxes because they are expensive gifts, and part of the people posting think it's ok for kids to dream. So what is love? The Bible says if your kid asks for fish, you're not gonna give him a stone. It covers food, not iPods. But it does talk about God delighting to give good things, and clothing lilies in glory, and caring about birds that fall from their nests.
We need to find the place in our hearts where religion means love and not control. We have to do the hard stuff, the work of the living: loving, grieving, forgiving, changing.
We'll get there, eventually. The Dominion of Love, aka Kingdom of Heaven, will manifest on earth. Here, tangibly. It could be all around us, in us, if we had eyes to see. If we had hearts to sing, and arms to embrace, and legs to walk the talk, and the will to dream it true.
