How long, O Lord, this madness?!

The recent event in Newton, Connecticut is simply horrific. These victims were innocent children! First, we are all stunned and sickened. To imagine it brings so much grief we feel it in our guts. It is hard to focus, and as much as it hurts to think about it, it is hard to think of anything else. No doubt this is a day to pray. Indeed, our hearts go out to those who have lost someone they loved. In Bishop Hagiya’s pastoral letter he says that we must think of these children as our own, because in the kin-dom of God they are our own. And if they are our children, if they are in God connected to us, shouldn’t we think differently about this?

If we are connected as children of God, if all things are connected shouldn’t we be looking for connections? But what I often see is dismissive. It is too easy to say that there are evil people out there, so what can we do? Does that mean that we are not connected to these “evil people?” To say this is no different than to say, “The Devil made him do it.” And that breeds paranoia when we need to think of transformation. Former Governor Mike Huckabee pointed at the lack of God in our schools. This just deflects us from the deeper cultural neurosis that lurks underneath these events. Worst of all is the comment, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” The purpose of this nifty phrase is simply to kill any discussion. But isn’t discussion precisely what we need?

I believe we need to talk about it. Specifically, at least, we need to talk about mental illness and guns. Not as sad anomalies to our culture, but as a part of our culture and expressions of our values. Who likes to do this? But if we don’t, I don’t think we are living as if those children in Newton, Connecticut are our children too.

Mental illness is not an infectious disease that is caught and can be cured. Genetically people are born with relative potential to develop the disease, the other factor being one’s life circumstance. The life circumstance is our culture, I believe, is a petri dish for mental illness. Our values, including individualism, competition, privacy, personal responsibility, freedom (as an absolute value) and Darwinian economic policy leads people into disconnection and isolation. This is not to condemn these values outright; they are good values, but there is an underside to them. Isolation is a major factor in mental illness. It seems to me that this is something we ought to talk about. And a part of the discussion should also be how we are caring for people who are mentally ill. As we face a “fiscal cliff” I fear that programs that assist the mentally ill will be cut – this also is a kind of madness.

We also have to talk about guns. The Congress won’t, nor the President because it is too risky politically. This is more madness. Guns are not the sole reason for this violence (to think that there is a sole reason is wrongful thinking). but it is again dismissive to ignore that guns are a part of the problem. To shut down discussion is irresponsible to the victims of these tragedies.

To honor our connection to these children first we must pray. Second, we need to talk. Then we must understand our mission as bringing connection to the isolated. Evangelism is not simply converting people, it is first inviting people who feel lost and isolated into our community, which we strive to build around the love of God in Christ Jesus. It is to share with the world that all are God’s children, and we are connected to all of them. Pastor Jim