Reflect­ing on Vio­lence this Time of Year 

The shock­ing mur­der­ous vio­lence at an ele­men­tary school has shak­en us all. Our very sense of secu­ri­ty has been shak­en. We ask ques­tions about why this could hap­pen, with a sense of out­rage. We grieve and feel deep emo­tion, which touch­es all oth­er sad­ness and emo­tion we are expe­ri­enc­ing in our lives. We do not, and may not ever, know the details of what caused a per­son to shoot inno­cent peo­ple - espe­cial­ly lit­tle chil­dren and their teach­ers. How­ev­er dis­turbed we may dis­cov­er the per­son was, or what­ev­er dis­cus­sion may be begun about assault weapons in our midst, it is unde­ni­able that we feel, indi­vid­u­al­ly and com­mu­nal­ly a sense of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty - for our­selves and for our children.

For now, our expe­ri­ence of the sec­ond part of Advent, and our prepa­ra­tions for Christ­mas are deeply dis­turbed. We hear of peo­ple or towns tak­ing down their Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions, out of guilt for cel­e­bra­tions at this time, or sim­ply a sense of not know­ing what is the right thing to do before such a ter­ri­ble real­i­ty which has vis­it­ed us. What should we do? How should we respond? What does our faith offer us at this trou­bling time?

At the heart of our Chris­t­ian faith is the won­der­ful mys­tery of a Cre­ator God who enters into a rela­tion­ship with all of us who are cre­at­ed as unique and irre­place­able chil­dren, with infi­nite val­ue. We must re-cen­ter our vision on the absolute dig­ni­ty of every human life -- from con­cep­tion to nat­ur­al death. That respect for life much con­front a cul­ture of death on so many lev­els. Every life much be regard­ed as pre­cious and we must work hard, work togeth­er, work with renewed zeal to re-intro­­duce respect, rev­er­ence and spe­cial care into our regard for every human per­son. We must let the Holy Spir­it into our dis­cus­sions and into our divisions.

We must pray for peace and heal­ing in our own hearts and in our com­mu­ni­ties. The night before he died, Jesus prayed to his Father, “May they all be one.” This must become our prayer and our mis­sion. We must over­come our prej­u­dices, or judg­ments, our big­otry. We must learn to deal with our hurts, our wounds, our anger in ways that respect one anoth­er and the absolute dig­ni­ty of every per­son. We must learn to beat our “swords into plow­shares” and our “spears into prun­ing hooks.” [Isa­iah 2]

We must devel­op a cul­ture which cares for those who are wound­ed and on the mar­gins of our soci­ety. We must find ways to devel­op our com­pas­sion and our sol­i­dar­i­ty with those who suf­fer - for what­ev­er rea­son. We do not and can not live in iso­la­tion from those who expe­ri­ence great pain. When one part of the Body of Christ suf­fers, the whole body suf­fers. [1 Corinthi­ans 12:26]

This is for us believ­ers to rely on the promis­es of our God: “The peo­ple who walked in dark­ness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.” [Isa­iah 9] It is a time to enter more deeply into the real mean­ing of prepa­ra­tions for Christ­mas. The good news is that we will find our sal­va­tion, in a messy place, in a barn, “lying in a manger.” This is the time to go to that place of inter­sec­tion with our God’s com­ing and pres­ence among us. He meets us where we are poor. He comes to us in our dis­tress. We can expe­ri­ence the plight of the Holy Fam­i­ly as our sto­ry - a sto­ry which com­forts us and helps us know again that we are not alone. This is our God, with us - with us where and when we need a lov­ing, sav­ing pres­ence the most.

When we don’t know what to do or where to go these days, we can go to the manger. We can imag­ine being there. We can imag­ine going there and expe­ri­enc­ing the sol­i­dar­i­ty we will be giv­en there. We can unbur­den our fears and trou­bled heart there. We can let the spir­it of that first Christ­mas night bring us to a very spe­cial and renew­ing Christ­mas this year - not only on this year’s Christ­mas night, but for as long as we need it this new year.

From that place, our renew­al can begin. Our con­ver­sa­tions in our fam­i­lies, among our friends, can be about sol­i­dar­i­ty and greater love and care for the dig­ni­ty of every human life. We can check and renew our own pat­terns of deal­ing with hurt and anger bad­ly. We can prac­tice rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and heal­ing. And, the grace that came that Holy Night will come again in our hearts and bring Joy to the World again.