Chesed

Wednesday December 19, 2012

It’s been five days since most of America stayed glued to TV and internet news channels, watching in horror as yet another mass murder aftermath unfolded in Connecticut.

Parents everywhere pictured their own child caught in the volley of gunfire and grieved deeply and helplessly for those moms and dads whose lives were shattered. A frenzy of facebook posts suggested that every mom was feeling that same primal instinct to hug tightly and never let go.

Almost before the smoke cleared, the usual debates and finger pointing began. We want answers. I did the same thing … desperately checking the news the next morning. Surely they had a motive by now. What I found instead was murky water and dark, heavy questions.

Why are the same people who lobby for increased gun control the same people who lobby for abortion? Why is the same president who sheds tears over twenty children ordering masses of children (and adults) killed in other countries? Why would it help to have armed weapons for self-defense everywhere? Why is the answer to violence more violence? And why is one murder a nation-stopping tragedy and another murder is a “slightly off-color joke“?

There are people desperately looking for better gun control and just as many people loudly demanding more guns so they can be armed and ready. There are people who insist this is a mental health issue citing insufficient funding and lack of proper therapy while others take a different twist and mention the sometimes violent side effects of Ritalin. Some people claim government conspiracy is at the core and that the issue goes much deeper than the lobbying for gun control. Others attack Hollywood and violent video games.

For me, the emotional aftermath was deeply personal. After the initial I-am-feeling-guilty-that-I-got-soooo-irriatated-with-Adam’s-dawdling-around-in-school-today-when-I-should-just-be-grateful-I’m-not-burying-him emotions ebbed, I felt such an intense call to action. Since Thanksgiving, I’ve been warring a hard internal battle with living here at camp. I’ve fought this battle off and on since we’re here, but it’s been particularly intense since then. When we were in our home area over Thanksgiving we drove in to see our old place just because we finally had time. I shopped places I’d shopped when I was home, enjoyed a nice breakfast out with friends and family, devoured wings and pizza that got ordered in just because, and in a dozen ways experienced startling personal reminders of how comfortable our life really was. Is it fun to downsize significantly, haul drinking water, heat bath water, and deal with typical thirty year old house issues like a furnace giving up the ghost in the middle of the night and sink cabinets that are rotted out and closets that smell bad? Not particularly. Have we really learned what it means to sacrifice since we live here? No. A thousand times no.

The inconveniences are just that … inconveniences that mostly surface when the bigger problem shows up. Isolation. Loneliness. Lack of purpose. There is no conscious purpose, as far as I can tell, for my being here. Even the tiny ways that used to feel like they were part of my ministry to the larger world look like something compared to living here and doing nothing. I’ve never been the person who did well with keeping the sidewalks swept outside during a conference inside. Yet, here I am. Sweeping sidewalks so David can work at camp.

It was high time for revival in my heart and the events on Friday began not only an emotional catharsis, but a spiritual cleansing. Finally, it really felt okay. Just because it feels like the desert, doesn’t mean God isn’t here. Just because it feels like my life doesn’t have much of any real purpose right now, doesn’t mean this is wasted time. I was finally ready to say yes to God again. To believe Him when it meant that this part of my journey was purely a walk of faith.

As the fingers pointed on Friday and we lamented the terrible anguish twenty-six families will suffer this Christmas season, one unspoken message danced across every news page, every blog, every facebook status.

We must live intentionally. What if instead of saying, “THEY need to ______________”, we’d buck up and start saying “I need to __________________.” It doesn’t matter if you’re a mental health nurse or the person who gently but firmly brings your friend to the reality that her kid needs professional help (being with someone dysfunctional for a long time can blur your reality of normal more than you realize). It doesn’t matter if you’re writing research papers about the harmful effects of playing violent video games or a stay at home mom teaching your children that life is sacred and because it is, we never shoot anyone … not with a real gun, not with a video game, not even with a stick.

It doesn’t matter half so much what the driving force was behind the school shootings as it matters how we live our lives from here on out. What really matters is how I parent two little boys who can simultaneously frustrate my last nerve and turn me into a liquid mush of prejudiced adoration. Whether I only settle squabbles or teach them the ways of Jesus is a big deal. It matters when I see glazed pain in someone’s eyes and I choose to ignore it or gossip my own conclusions about her instead of reaching out to help. It matters whether or not I pray for the safety of our children and the spiritual depravity of our nation.

We can’t change the history of Christmas Season 2012; but what we do with today could change the destiny of 26 people some Christmas Season future.

A few hours later I ran across this blog and my stomach literally churned and I felt muscle after muscle inside my body contract in one desperate silent yell. I know that mental illness is real. I am not in the least trying to downplay that fact. I am not saying that her child definitely does not have a mental illness or that she is wrong in pursuing psychiatric treatment. I’m only crying inside because her description of him is like a composite of five boys in our tiny camp right now. ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Autism spectrum … those are not strangers to our applications. A slew of antipsychotic and mood altering drugs? They are not strangers to the applications, but they become strangers to the boys after they live here. Eyes that change color?  Happens with the kid David interviewed this morning.  Families being threatened with knives and needing to lock up every sharp object in the house? Even that is familiar territory. I want to cry. Not because I am convinced camp would change Michael, but because he looks like a perfect candidate and instead, he’s being locked into a mental institution and drugged. I wish I could talk to his Mom. Not in a thousand years do I think she is making a bad choice. You can hear her love and anguish in every word. I just wish every mom knew they had this option … just in case she wanted to pursue it.

Meanwhile, if sweeping sidewalks means one more kid is less at risk for swiping twenty-six lives right off the map, then I’ll keep right on sweeping sidewalks. Even when the leaves are falling. How did December 14, 2012 change you?

12 thoughts on “Wednesday December 19, 2012

  1. aSeriesofFortunateEvents

    Wonderful post. For me the 14th was a reminder that no one is safe on this earth. It made me long for heaven and the life to come where death no longer has hold, and there are no more tears.

    It’s kind of funny, in an ironic way if you think about it that something like this reminds us that we are mortal and that we will die. Of all the things to be certain of in this world, death is THE MOST certain. There’s not a person here who has unlimited time, yet we live our lives as though it’s not an issue and we act shocked when it happens. The human race is really good at denial!

    As far as the whys? I deal with people who have endured awful, heartbreaking things all the time. The one thing I’ve learned is that the “Why” of it is not near as important as just accepting that it has happened and moving forward. The reasons someone would do this kind of thing wouldn’t even make sense to us, because our minds aren’t thinking the way theirs are. Knowing that person’s why doesn’t change anything or even give you insight.

    I’m glad to hear that at the place you are, you are helping young boys! We need a push in this country to help our young men be honorable, upstanding, (is that a word?) respectable young men. I love that you are a part of doing something like that.

  2. itsayoderworld

    Beautiful post, Michelle! Praise God that He has allowed you to sense the purpose in your life at this moment! I am so thankful to hear the call of the Father ringing through your “voice” once again.

  3. amyjane30

    (being with someone dysfunctional for a long time can blur your reality of normal more than you realize)

    That’s a true statement. I’ve been thinking a lot about mental illnesses having read that article too. It keeps coming to my mind about the ones in the New Testament with unclean spirits that Jesus healed. We so need Jesus today in this time….. And sweeping sidewalks is sometimes where it’s at. keep on….

  4. down_onthefarm

    EXCELLENT post michelle.

    alot of what i’m thinking and feeling is the same as what is stirred on sanctity of life sunday every january.  we say that a person is WORTH it regardless of age and location…and THEY ARE. and yet, how am i living that out with “birthed people?” how different would this world be? if we would as enthusiastically communicate value and love to the person next to us on the pew. or around our table day in and day out. as we do the unborn on that day?

    i thought of this quote with your ending question, “self deception slithers in when we mistake appreciation for application or being touched with being changed.” we are all deeply touched by the heartwrenching news, that’s for sure. but besides hugging my kids tighter than ever… how did that day change me? any “change” will have an ING on it… but HE has underlined the theme of James once again and what all that means for me …which i alluded to in the prior paragraph. and that feeling like i can do nothing is a distraction from what i can do—talking to THE ONE who can.do.something.

    there were so many sentences here that liked, but it would be silly to c&p them all. 🙂 i wanted to rec but xanga wouldn’t let me, so i shared on fb.
    <3 to you in your “sweeping” and for encouraging me with my own “sidewalks.”

  5. smilesbymiles

    @aSeriesofFortunateEvents –  So true, about us ignoring the reality of death … except that our denial is somewhat explainable in that we expect it to happen when we’re seventy. Or ninety-six. For reasons other than this post, I am mentally filing your statement … “Knowing that person’s why doesn’t change anything or even give you insight.” … I love your insight.

    @appalolly –  That is the biggest compliment I’ve gotten in, well, maybe ever. So thanks.

    @down_onthefarm –  I love that quote. I think we could probably talk about this for a long time … how we choose who to value and who to condemn / when to love and when to point fingers. It’s so wrong of us.

  6. quiet_hearts

    Oh Michelle.  I felt every word of this.  I love this line from your paragraph on spiritual cleansing, “Finally, it really felt okay.”

    And this: What if instead of saying, “THEY need to ______________”, we’d buck up and start saying “I need to __________________.”

    I’d find the sweeping sidewalks job hard too.  But I think it is making something brilliant of you. 

  7. Hutch5

    perfect! it changed me in all the exact ways you shared~
    it is ME that needs changing. revival. yes. AMEN!!

    love you friend and merry christmas.
    more to say but my computer is about to die any second.. ;))

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