Lent: Seventeen Shots
I had an awful dream in the early morning hours. I was with others swimming, enjoying a calm pond; the water was warm, I felt family and friends were close by. In the distance a rickety old building stood on the shore of the pond. The kid in me has always been curious, so I walked over to have a look at the old building. I went in. It was empty, and the sunlight was streaming through cracks between the old boards. Perhaps an old boat house, built in the early 20th century? Then I heard a roar and the building shook violently. I peered through a crack in the boards and made out a giant spaceship. A huge load of dirt was being discharged into the pond by the suspended ship. The pond was being filled. I looked through the weathered board siding again, and beheld a raft in the distance floating on the surface of the pond. A hulk-like, super-sized male human was laying on the raft. The monster was stirring.
I awakened with the clock alarm, and rose to begin my day, disoriented.
Yesterday was the first day of Lent. Lent is 40 days of voluntary abstention.
News came of another school shooting, this time in Florida. Seventeen were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The name of the school has a poetic ring, and I am told it’s a fine school. I have no doubt that it is for the majority of the students. One student, Nikolas Cruz, did not, could not participate in the “good fortune” of the majority who attended Douglas High. He obtained, somehow an AR-15 and shot seventeen of his class mates dead. Maybe that rifle was one that “fell off the truck?” You can read a full detail of the event at the NBC News site.
Last night there was a brief email exchange about the event between a few friends. One individual wanted to eliminate from the outset of the discussion the notion that the prevalence of firearms was at fault in the murder of seventeen young adults. I did not have the will to mount a spirited objection to his assumption because counter arguments have made no difference in the past. Another individual of our circle stepped up though, to assert that a society awash in guns needs to make some fundamental changes.
According to NBC the governor of Florida avoided any suggestion that the easy availability of weapons was a dimension of this awful tragedy. Governor Scott opined, “this was pure evil.” Likewise the Republican Representative in congress for Broward County assiduously avoided criticism of our “armed up” society. I heard the interview with NPR.
They worship at the altar of the 2nd amendment.
Forty days of voluntary abstention.
It is a false world (the modern world), based upon economies and values and desires that are fantastical—a world in which millions of people have lost any idea of the materials, the disciplines, the restraints, and the work necessary to support human life, and thus have become dangerous to their own lives and to the possibility of life. The job now is to get back to that perennial and substantial world in which we really do live, in which the foundations of our life will be visible to us, and in which we can accept our responsibilities again within the conditions of necessity and mystery.
—excerpt from Standing By Words by Wendell Berry
2 thoughts on “Lent: Seventeen Shots”
I would like to be able to add something to this posting because of the importance of this issue, but you have stated your case so well that these few brief words in response are only to say, “Well said!”
Well said.