Grieving in Texas
As Americans we’ve grown sadly accustomed to experiencing a few nervous moments in large gathering places. Crowded theaters. Football games. Concert halls. We check for the emergency exits, briefly wonder what might happen if a gunman were to storm in, or a terrorist were to launch an attack. We quickly reassure ourselves that it probably wouldn’t happen here. Couldn’t happen here. What are the odds?
For the poor souls who gathered at their tiny church in Texas on Sunday morning, however, such worries surely never invaded their thoughts. How could their house of worship be a “soft target”? It was their sanctuary. The heart of their community. The place they felt safest and closest to God.
But violence and death and grief intruded anyway, as they did in New York last week, and in Las Vegas last month. Now at least 26 people are gone, 20 more injured. A community and a nation are in mourning — but sadly, given recent events, perhaps not in disbelief.
One member of the community stood outside the church Sunday evening and asked, “Why this church? Why people that I grew up with? Why them?”
We may find purported answers to the “why.” Authorities say the killer, Devin Patrick Kelley, had sent threatening texts to his mother-in-law, a member of the church community. He had been drummed out of the Air Force, court-martialed, accused of domestic abuse. This was a deeply malevolent individual.
Still, those answers will never make sense to law-abiding people, to people of faith, or to people of good will — that is, to most of us. That Kelley was neither racially nor religiously motivated doesn’t make his 26 victims less dead. It doesn’t help tiny Sutherland Springs stitch itself back together.
As for the “how” — the attack inspired the usual blame and recriminations, the calls for tougher gun control laws on the one hand and pushback from gun rights advocates on the other. Americans sent thoughts and prayers to the victims; other Americans mocked their thoughts and prayers as insufficient, a waste of time. It’s all so depressingly familiar.
Perhaps one day this nation will find common ground on the policy measures some insist are the solution to these attacks. But policy changes won’t address the intense rage simmering in so many of our citizens. It won’t inject humanity into those who lack a conscience. And it won’t bring back the loved ones lost.