Not numb to the horror
22/09/13 05:33
We do live in Western South Dakota. After writing about the advent of autumn yesterday, today is the first official day of fall and it is already over 60 degrees outside, heading for a high in the low 90’s. The forecast notes the possibility of thundershowers in the afternoon. Yesterday, after splitting wood with a group of church members in the morning I stopped in at the Pennington County jail staff’s annual picnic and the weather was perfect. The group was gathered at a shade shelter in one of the city’s parks and there were plenty of good times and food. The staff at the jail is relatively young, so there were lots of families with young children. It is kind of interesting being a grandpa in such a crowd, but as chaplain it also fits with my role pretty well.
The forecast calls for more sunny and warm days later this week, but tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and a bit cooler. We could definitely use the rain, so there will be no complaints from me. It will be a good week to get some of the tasks in the yard completed, and I have a long list of “to do” items for my day off tomorrow. A little rain won’t get in the way with most of the things that I have planned.
World news headlines are depressing, as the standoff in the shopping mall in Kenya appears to still not be totally over. At least 59 people have been killed and another 175 injured. The victims include old and young, nationals and foreigners. An uncertain number of people are still trapped or hiding in the shopping area. In Pakistan, a suicide attack claimed the lives of at least 55 people in one of the deadliest attacks on the country’s Christian minority in several years. Mass killings and attacks on innocents are becoming so common that we don’t have an opportunity to process one before news of the next one arrives. Often I just don’t know what to say. Each of these events is worthy of pondering and trying to figure out what can be learned to prevent the next one.
And it is still less than a week since twelve people were fatally shot at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. last Monday.
It is the lack of reaction to the Navy Yard shootings that has me concerned. The event has passed away from the headlines too quickly. The president called it “yet another mass shooting,” as if such events have become routine even for the president. After the terrible shootings in Newton, Connecticut there were at least some calls for making reforms and changing things. The complex issues of balancing freedoms and security were at least debated in state legislatures. Legislation was considered and then dropped in the legislative branch of the federal government, were dysfunction and inaction are what we expect. But after the Navy Yard shootings the reaction is an overwhelming silence.
Have we given up the hope of preventing such tragedies?
They did decide to postpone the baseball game scheduled for the Nationals stadium on Monday, but that appears to be mostly logistics because the command center for the Navy Yard shootings had been set up in the parking lot. By Tuesday, things were back to normal at the ballpark and they a doubleheader was played.
No one seems to be willing to talk about how we might make mental health care available to those who desperately need it. In fact there is a reasonable chance that the House and Senate will let the government be shut down in a last ditch attempt to repeal a law already passed that would decrease the price of mental health care. And this is after 40 attempts to repeal the law have already failed.
I have no doubt that the affordable health care act is a flawed bill. And it remains to be seen if it could make mental health services available to those who need them. But the bottom line is that there are plenty of folks who, for whatever reason, do not obtain the services that they need.
Part of the problem is the stigma that we attach to those who suffer from brain diseases and mental illnesses. Rather than reaching out with compassion and support to the victims of chronic illness, we shun them and isolate their families. A cancer diagnosis will result in special fund-raisers and pooled days off in the workplace. A diagnosis of a mental illness often leads to a quick dismissal. As a result, the victims of mental illness often hide their condition and the results of such hiddenness can be tragic. Among other dangers is the false perception that everyone who suffers from mental illness is dangerous because a tiny fraction of those who have mental illnesses get their hands on guns and cause violence.
Most of the victims of mental illness suffer in silence and never come anywhere near making a newspaper headline. Too many never obtain treatment that is available because they don’t know what can be done or worse because they cannot afford the treatment.
I am shocked to discover that we live in a time and place where a gunman can kill a dozen people in the heart of one of our most iconic cities and a week later everything has returned to normal. I keep looking for ribbons on the lapel or t-shirts emblazoned with “D.C. Strong.” It seems, however, that the nation is eager to simply get on with life as normal. But mass killings can never become normal for the families of the victims.
The grief in the families runs deep and will not go away.
I don’t ever want to become numb to the horror.
I don’t ever want to stop trying to come up with ways to prevent future tragedies.
That may be part of the reason I have started spending part of each week with the officers of the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office. We’re all in this together. An together we need to work to prevent future tragedies.
In the meantime, I for one, will not forget what has happened.
The forecast calls for more sunny and warm days later this week, but tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and a bit cooler. We could definitely use the rain, so there will be no complaints from me. It will be a good week to get some of the tasks in the yard completed, and I have a long list of “to do” items for my day off tomorrow. A little rain won’t get in the way with most of the things that I have planned.
World news headlines are depressing, as the standoff in the shopping mall in Kenya appears to still not be totally over. At least 59 people have been killed and another 175 injured. The victims include old and young, nationals and foreigners. An uncertain number of people are still trapped or hiding in the shopping area. In Pakistan, a suicide attack claimed the lives of at least 55 people in one of the deadliest attacks on the country’s Christian minority in several years. Mass killings and attacks on innocents are becoming so common that we don’t have an opportunity to process one before news of the next one arrives. Often I just don’t know what to say. Each of these events is worthy of pondering and trying to figure out what can be learned to prevent the next one.
And it is still less than a week since twelve people were fatally shot at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. last Monday.
It is the lack of reaction to the Navy Yard shootings that has me concerned. The event has passed away from the headlines too quickly. The president called it “yet another mass shooting,” as if such events have become routine even for the president. After the terrible shootings in Newton, Connecticut there were at least some calls for making reforms and changing things. The complex issues of balancing freedoms and security were at least debated in state legislatures. Legislation was considered and then dropped in the legislative branch of the federal government, were dysfunction and inaction are what we expect. But after the Navy Yard shootings the reaction is an overwhelming silence.
Have we given up the hope of preventing such tragedies?
They did decide to postpone the baseball game scheduled for the Nationals stadium on Monday, but that appears to be mostly logistics because the command center for the Navy Yard shootings had been set up in the parking lot. By Tuesday, things were back to normal at the ballpark and they a doubleheader was played.
No one seems to be willing to talk about how we might make mental health care available to those who desperately need it. In fact there is a reasonable chance that the House and Senate will let the government be shut down in a last ditch attempt to repeal a law already passed that would decrease the price of mental health care. And this is after 40 attempts to repeal the law have already failed.
I have no doubt that the affordable health care act is a flawed bill. And it remains to be seen if it could make mental health services available to those who need them. But the bottom line is that there are plenty of folks who, for whatever reason, do not obtain the services that they need.
Part of the problem is the stigma that we attach to those who suffer from brain diseases and mental illnesses. Rather than reaching out with compassion and support to the victims of chronic illness, we shun them and isolate their families. A cancer diagnosis will result in special fund-raisers and pooled days off in the workplace. A diagnosis of a mental illness often leads to a quick dismissal. As a result, the victims of mental illness often hide their condition and the results of such hiddenness can be tragic. Among other dangers is the false perception that everyone who suffers from mental illness is dangerous because a tiny fraction of those who have mental illnesses get their hands on guns and cause violence.
Most of the victims of mental illness suffer in silence and never come anywhere near making a newspaper headline. Too many never obtain treatment that is available because they don’t know what can be done or worse because they cannot afford the treatment.
I am shocked to discover that we live in a time and place where a gunman can kill a dozen people in the heart of one of our most iconic cities and a week later everything has returned to normal. I keep looking for ribbons on the lapel or t-shirts emblazoned with “D.C. Strong.” It seems, however, that the nation is eager to simply get on with life as normal. But mass killings can never become normal for the families of the victims.
The grief in the families runs deep and will not go away.
I don’t ever want to become numb to the horror.
I don’t ever want to stop trying to come up with ways to prevent future tragedies.
That may be part of the reason I have started spending part of each week with the officers of the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office. We’re all in this together. An together we need to work to prevent future tragedies.
In the meantime, I for one, will not forget what has happened.