A Moment of Silence
- sekrigsman
- May 25, 2022
- 3 min read
I can’t take my eyes off him. Even to type, each sentence is separated by a long pause as I soak in my boy’s every feature. As I stare, I try to memorize the curve of his cheeks and the length of his eyelashes and let his weight imprint upon my body so I can always feel his warmth.
The rain outside matches the rainstorm in my heart. Grief and anger, fear and fury - all torrents in my spirit.
It feels obnoxious and insensitive to write about the horrors in Texas yesterday.
It feels callous and cold to write about anything else.
A father who lost his daughter in a high school shooting in 2018 offered this to the families in Uvalde: We don’t move on, we move forward.
In the smaller circumference of my life, I felt this ring true yesterday. I enjoyed precious fellowship with a friend - cupcakes and a chat is the best kind of living. Yet at one moment during the afternoon, in her dining room were three women (myself included) and two children, all directly impacted by incarceration. It’s the painful thread that brought us all together - the common ground our friendship walks on.
We don’t move on, we move forward.
As we met, another dear brother was standing before the parole board, finally receiving good news of his release; good news buried under pain, attack, and regret. We celebrate (do we ever!), but we know there are still difficulties ahead. He’s not moving on, he’s moving forward.
Maybe that’s the secret - or part of it. Our deepest wounds aren’t a deviation from our path, they become the path. We don’t always pick up and leave our aches behind, sometimes we wear our scars and keep going.
And maybe these broken parts of ourselves - the shattered and punctured hearts - maybe they form the bridge to one another; a gate to let love in, rather than a wall to shut pain out.
Perhaps too, in a more important way, in our suffering, we come closer to the suffering of the Cross. Our brokenness connects us with the broken body of Christ.
“The only comforting home for all our grief is in the arms of the covenantal love of Christ. It is only His withness that can begin to break all this brokenness.” - Ann Voskamp
And what can grow from these broken places? Well, even the seed knows there is life after it breaks.
Today, as my own son pulls a book from his shelf and climbs onto my lap, I can only weep with these families.
When will change come?
I was about 16 when I read the books of Rachel Scott, published by her own father after she was killed at Columbine High School in 1999. Her story reached the world over, impacting a generation. But here, 23 years later, what has changed? We have failed her memory, and failed the 185 students who have been killed, and the 369 injured in mass school shootings in the U.S. since that time.
Maybe this time change will come. The current holding pattern of gridlock is really a death spiral, and our children are the ones dying.
No matter our disagreements, we need to keep showing up to the table. Guns, mental health, security, freedoms, we need to face it all.
We observe a moment of silence, and then we honor their lives by getting to work to prevent the next one.
We don’t move on, but we must move forward.
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