A Wonderful World?

I was in high school when the school shooting at Columbine occurred.  I remember not being able to look away from the television as the horror unfolded and the stories were told in news reports and photographs in the days and weeks and months that followed.  Although I didn’t know any of the victims or families, and though I lived in a different part of the country, that is the first tragedy that I can remember affecting my very core.  I began to understand that it could have been me in that school on that day; that it could have been any of my peers.  I realized that kids my age in another part of the country were either suddenly gone or living with the nightmare of what they had experienced.  I was heartbroken to know that the families and friends directly impacted by that tragedy were grieving in a way that I couldn’t comprehend.  I didn’t know how to respond, but I was suddenly aware of new level of fear and heartache.

A couple of years later, I was an RA in college, getting ready for my day when one of the residents across the hall ran into my suite mates’ room, visibly shaken, asking them to turn on the television.   I watched in horror as the events of September 11 unfolded on the news.  The feelings of shock and confusion and grief and fear that gripped me took my breath away.  I didn’t want to see, yet I couldn’t turn away and felt bits of my heart crumbling as I thought of what all of the people directly impacted must have been going through in those moments.  The resident that had come running in was afraid because the father of the children that she had been a nanny for back home worked at the World Trade Center.  One of my suite mates was beside herself because her father worked at the Pentagon.  I felt so distant from it all and yet so profoundly grieved that I did not understand my own response.  I felt helpless.  We had a prayer vigil for residents in our dorm that day who wanted to come together and needed support.  I was supposed to be there as a leader to offer comfort.  I found myself sobbing, unable to speak, needing to be comforted myself.

I have often thought back to that response, wondering what it says about me – that I can be so deeply moved and devastated by events that don’t directly impact me that it’s hard for me to be strong for those who are more directly impacted.  I wonder what my response would be if it was me in one of those situations, or someone I loved.  Would I have any strength or hope, or would I fall apart?

I remember learning about the genocide in Rwanda when I was in college.  Though it had happened when I was much younger, I started to really learn about the tragedy as a young adult.  And a few years later when I watched Hotel Rwanda at the theater, I went knowing that I would be devastated, yet feeling like it was important for me to watch it, to feel connected to what these fellow humans had experienced.  Leaving the theater, coming out into the beautiful, southern California sunshine, I was more aware of the darkness than I think I had ever been.  I truly didn’t know how much more my heart could handle.  I cried so much and owned a grief that perhaps shouldn’t have been mine.  And yet I could not help but to try to share the burden of it.

Several years later, I was at home cuddling my baby daughter while my son was in kindergarten.  I heard a knock at the door and it was my dad, stopping in and asking if I had seen the news.  I turned it on to see reports of a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and I really didn’t know if my heart could survive being broken again.  I cried a lot that day, and when I went to pick up my son that afternoon, everything suddenly felt different, much like it did when I first learned of Columbine.  My sense of safety was again shattered, and I hugged my sons’ teacher that day while I wiped away tears, thanking her for the job she did, sheepish at my emotional display.

Since then, there have been so many horrors and sorrows that I have learned about and that just seem to keep happening.  Between natural disasters and acts of violence, the devastation and suffering are so immense and so frequent that I have found that I don’t know how to respond.  I have no words.  I fear that my heart will break beyond repair if I let it.  I also fear that my heart will become calloused and numb if I let it.

These days I try to tread carefully.  I attempt to walk the line between recognizing the darkness and sharing the grief of it and choosing to pursue the light, the good, the truth, and trying to share that with my presence, my actions, and my words when I can find them.

As I was walking toward my daughters’ elementary school the other day (that same sweet baby that I had cuddled the day I learned of Sandy Hook is now in kindergarten), the sun was shining, and I was reflecting on the recent shooting in Las Vegas, and the major natural disasters that have recently devastated so many, and the voice of Louis Armstrong started to sing in my mind “What a Wonderful World.”  There is a powerful montage in the movie “Good Morning Vietnam,” in which that song is played against the backdrop of war scenes, violence and tragedy.  There is something eerily beautiful and powerfully devastating about it.  I find it impossible to hear that song without feeling hopeful.  And yet, I also find it hard to hear that song without acknowledging the deep reality of pain as well.  I thought of that scene as I walked to pick up my daughter, more aware than ever of the inescapable presence of “Both/And”.  Life is both hopeful and tragic; beautiful and scary;  wonderful and hard.

Though I am at a loss for how to respond to these most recent tragedies on an emotional level, my hope is that my heart will not become too calloused to share the grief of others, and that my eyes won’t become blinded to all of the good that continues to exist.  I find my greatest source of hope in God and the comfort of his presence and the promise of a better future.  I see reflections of this hope and comfort and presence in those around me all the time, and in the stories I hear of the heroic actions of ordinary people who find themselves in the midst of unspeakable situations.  For now, I want my life to reflect this hope to others.  Though we walk through dark times, there will always, always be light around us.  And I am comforted to know that there will always be a reason to sing “What a Wonderful World.”  As I do the hard work of trying to process my thoughts and emotions daily, part of that process will be reflecting on those reasons that do, and always will exist.

As I write this, the people impacted by the earthquakes in Mexico, the violence in Las Vegas, and the recent devastating hurricanes are especially heavy on my heart.