Stop with the thoughts and prayers!

Because those “thoughts and prayers” have become completely meaningless.  Words fall on dead ears. (I know what I said). Those words sound well intended.  I mean what else are we supposed to say?  We feel compelled to talk as though that will make it better.  If I tell a Sandy Hook parent how sorry I am and that they are in my thoughts and prayers, that must remedy something right?  It makes me feel better momentarily, at least.  I don’t have to go home to tiny toothbrush still wet from the morning routine. - oh, I just can’t let my mind go further into that scenario. It’s too painful.  Too much. “Too far Ingrid!”  Just give us answers.  What should we say?

How about nothing?

What would happen if after another school shooting a sheriff, principal, or president gets on the news and says this… nothing. Just empty space.  No facial expressions.  No words.  Simply Silence.  Reporters pushing microphones and cameras into authoritative figureheads begging the question: “What’s was the motivation?” “Who did this?!”  Who can we crucify? We want someone to blame because the confusion and unfathomable discomfort  is seemingly too hard to bear and we don’t dare focus on our own actions.  You want motivation?  It’s everywhere, just be still enough to see for yourself. Painful?  Yep, and why would we want to feel better after another shooting? I think we are wired for that emotional pain too. It is so intense it has the potential to motivate us. If we focus on a scapegoat then our anger gets directed away from our own hearts.  It’s much more painful for me to think I have contributed to this horridness.  But I have. I’m culpable by being complicit.  I have to live with that.  Now what?

Silence.  It would leave us with that empty space.  A raw uncomfortable feeling of dread.  We want answers, we demand justice for such atrocities.  “How could this happen?”  Again and again.  Sit with it.  Be uncomfortable.  Perhaps part of the problem is not feeling it enough. Weapons of mass distractions. Anger seems easier, at first, but profound reverent sadness may provide a stronger serum.