How does one set out to comfort the families on this day? I see a picture of a pastor from Newtown on the news website, and I do not envy him that position this morning. The best headline I see puts it this way: "World reacts with sympathy, bewilderment" Yes, exactly! We mourn the children, mourn for the families, and wonder, "Why?".
Killing children hurts us most. Hardened police detectives break down when children are murdered. Anger sweeps the land when children are chosen by a killer. Yet, we still do not have an answer that satisfies. As is too often the case, the person doing the murder is dead as well. We can gain no answers from him. Would it be easier for us to hear that his last memory was of a satanic ritual and then he 'woke up' in a jail cell? I don't know, because the answers are denied to us by the silence of his death. A blog, a Twitter feed, or even an old-fashioned diary may be discovered, but people can write anything they want. Some will use derogatory names to describe the young man, but in truth we may never know the 'why' of such an act. And doesn't it seem like we walked down this road not very long ago?
Writing this devotional started just over six years ago, and yet I can recall at least 3 other times I had to sit down on the morning after and write something very similar. Tuscon, Aurora, Montreal, Virgina Tech, and other tragedies hit us like waves from a faraway storm. Sometimes I couldn't write, but simply sat and asked "again? already?" and similar useless or vague questions. No doubt someone has asked, "Can we go through a year without a mass murder?" Once a year is too often for this sort of thing; never would be much better, I think.
God be with you on this day,Bucky
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