“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’” (Matthew 2:16-18)
From Columbine, Uvalde, Sandy Hook, Annunciation Catholic Church, and so many more we can’t even remember we are all in Ramah with Rachel weeping for our children, inconsolable because they are no more.
But for us Americans it is so much more complicated. We are parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends, cousins, neighbors, and total strangers who mourn yet more senseless violence, death, and trauma. But we are also Herod. There is blood on all of our hands because we have not done enough to end America’s love affair with guns. We are the only nation in the western world where mass shootings are a regular occurrence, where young children and teachers have to go through the trauma of active shooter drills. We now have a new generation of shooters who went through active shooter drills as children. I wonder what impact those drills had on them. And yet our “leaders” refuse to restore assault weapons bans or institute reasonable gun control laws.
We claim to be the “land of the free and the home of the brave” when we are neither. Our Second Amendment worshippers are so afraid of someone disagreeing with them that they need weapons of war to feel secure. Our President is such a coward he needs tanks in the streets to prove how tough he is. And none of us, not even young children praying in a sanctuary, a place defined as the ultimate place of safety, are free from random acts of cold blooded murder.
Yes, this is certainly a mental health problem on so many levels, starting with the fear and paranoia played upon for blood money by the NRA and the gun manufacturers. It is their ill-gotten gains that bribe legislators to oppose gun control when those Senators and Congress people know fully well that the vast majority of us they supposedly represent support those controls.
And of course the shooters themselves need mental health help, but those same legislators who hide behind that excuse refuse to fund adequate mental health services. Or worse they try to convince us that immigrants are the problem when we all see with our own eyes on TV that most of these shooters are angry, troubled, young white males.
I am reminded of the great lament from Bob Dylan:
“Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”
Tonight that wind is blowing through empty bedrooms in Minneapolis, through hospital rooms where helpless parents pray beside young wounded bodies, and through every Ramah across the country where inconsolable Rachels weep for their children.
I only pray that wind is also blowing through the hearts of our country’s leaders till they realize we are all Herod too.
Peacefully Harsh 