All Things Wash Ashore

The refrain we hear, every time, is – “we never thought it could happen here” – and yet it does, again, and again, and again. We don’t want to believe that our lives, hectic, frustrating, and annoying, but also beautiful in their relative mundanity, can be so catastrophically changed by the rage of another person. We don’t want to believe that these things can happen “here” and to us, because then we’d be living in a nightmare that, for too many, there is no waking from. 

Then the nightmare arrives, and with it, the million-watt glare of the world. 

Stemming the violent, angry hearts of Americans and staunching the bloodflow that only seems to increase is something no blog, social media post, stream, or simple thought and prayer can do. It takes serious work and cooperation between people to make it happen, and we’re not there. It takes politicians putting people above profits, and every one of us understanding that, as angry as we are at one another, we have to see one another as humans, as equals in that way, or we’re doomed. It’s easier to dehumanize one another than ever. To hide in the weeds of rhetoric and propaganda. To point fingers from our couches. 

It only takes an event like the tragedy of the weekend to remind us of that. 

I live within fifteen minutes of the mass church shooting in lower Michigan. I know that area. Our daughter has friends who live near there. Seeing the news of the shooting and the fire isn’t sobering; it’s horrifying. It’s not a matter of “it can happen here,” but how can we stop this? How do we stop these angry, emotionally broken people from destroying so many lives?

However, the answers don’t lie within today’s politics. 

Or our influencers. 

Or our online echo chambers. 

I lived in Flint when the water crisis hit, and to see how people still speak about a city I love – though sometimes begrudgingly – is disgusting. But we got that talk from our neighbors. People who would say – “oh, well, you know Flint…” – and dehumanized all of the victims of the crisis. Acting as if it were a free payday for those families affected. Flint is a city full of tough people, passionate people, but people who have had enough. The water crisis was severe, but witnessing how many people profited from it, using it to make money and gain influence, is disheartening. Seeing how the country spoke about the city, during and after the crisis, is heartbreaking. 

And now this new crisis, and within hours the internet was full of BIG THOUGHTS and BIG OPINIONS, on the perpetrator, their politics, the people of the area, the church, and on, and on. We can reach out to someone to offer comfort or care, but we prefer to point a finger instead. We prefer to look for the clues that the killer was “one of theirs, and not one of ours.”

That is who we have become. 

People will crowd toward the camera and mic, so they can share their opinions and capture a moment of fame, as the blood dries in the background. 

People will want to weaponize this tragedy, to use it for their gains, without even knowing where the city this happened in is. But this is a real city, with real people. This was a real church, with real families. This is a real area, with more to offer the world than this tragedy and more divisive headlines. 

It is surreal to see the headlines, the articles, and the social posts dissecting something that happened near where I am today. People are trying to extract a story from something that’s just 24 hours old. 

This will happen, this tragedy, so long as we let ourselves be weaponized. So long as we allow ourselves to stop seeing one another as human. So long as we allow politicians to wind us up, and direct us, and hope we explode in a way that benefits them. 

Of all the things that we talk about with the American dream, feeling safe that someone won’t kill us in the places we allow ourselves to be most vulnerable shouldn’t be on that list. 

But here we are. 

We care more about guns than people. 

More about gun rights than our children. 

More about dehumanizing one another than getting people the help they need. 

And more about being right than we are our own safety. 

Save your thoughts and prayers for yourself, because you’ll need them. We’re all in this burning house together, and no one is willing to look for the door. 

…c…