Saving the children

 

Last week I wanted to refer to a comment that a friend had made on one of my blog posts. This meant scrolling through recent posts until I found the right one. It was an educational experience. Seeing my blogs as a whole, I realized my voice was—there’s no other word for it—shrill! Granted, most of what I post is shared material, not my own writing. But it’s still shrill and angry and not peace-making.

An old friend told me long ago that because she’s such an activist, she makes sure to post about her grands, her garden, her dogs and cats, so that people will know that there’s a warm, fuzzy side to her. Except for food-related posts, I have fallen down on that end of blogging.

Shrill is what men criticize about women in public affairs or politics when what they really want to say is, “Shut up, sit down, and tend to your knitting. Let us men handle the affairs of the world.” I surely don’t agree with that attitude, but I don’t want to be known as a shrill female. Thoughtful, insightful, concerned—yes, all of those things. But shrill? No. I resolved to change my tone, perhaps post less often.

And then Nashville happened. How can any of us remain silent in the face of this recurring butchery of our children? I remembered back in the sixties, before Roe v. Wade, when we were encouraged to vote a one-issue ballot: if a candidate was for women’s rights to their bodies, we should vote for them; if not, nada. It didn’t matter what a candidate’s stance was on any other issue—the decision was made on the basis of the attitude toward abortion.

I am feeling that way again today. Two issues will determine my vote: gun control and abortion. I will not now or ever vote for anyone who opposes reform for those two issues. Yes, I know that saving the climate is crucial and immediate, and voter suppression is a problem, and yeah, I’d vote against any Republican who wants to withdraw support for Ukraine because that says to me they have no understanding of international relationships and do not deserve to hold public office. But those problems are not of immediate concern to me; the lives of children take precedence.

I was still mulling over my shrill voice when I attended church (via LiveStream) Sunday. Russ Peterman’s powerful sermon was about the school shootings. Pointing out that the leading cause of death in school children in this country is violence (and we are the only country for which that is true), he suggested that we are failing our children, failing our responsibility to keep them safe. Oh, some would have us keep them safe from drag queens and books that might enlighten them about our LGBTQ neighbors or the drag queen who reads stories to them, but not safe to live.

A meme on Facebook this week has a seven-year-old telling his mom he doesn’t want to go to school. “Why not?” she asks, and he responds, “I’d rather be dumb than dead.” Think of that. Let it soak in.

Admitting that the solution to gun control is complicated, Dr. Peterman pointed out that we have solved much more complicated problems. My thought was, “Yes, we are about to put men (and a woman) on the moon again, after fifty years.” But we cannot keep our children safe. I sent my kids off to elementary school in the late seventies and eighties—I cannot imagine how I would have felt if there was the slightest possibility of one of them being shot at school.

Dr. Peterman talked about compromise, with both sides trying to see the other side. For me, that’s so hard as to be impossible. When someone writes they will pry his AR-whatever out of his “died hands,” I know what kind of enemy I’m facing. When a Tennessee representative dismisses the whole things with, “We aren’t going to change it,” I know the enemy. I am beyond tired of people who don’t want to get involved or who withdraw for some peace—there is no peace, ever, for parents who lose their children in a shooting. And there is no reason we cannot ban military weapons in the hands of civilians. When Clinton did it, shooting deaths declined dramatically.

So watch for me to continue to be shrill, because I cannot in good conscience not speak out. If you want to tune me out, so be it. Dr. Peterman quoted someone who said, “Our faith does not  allow us to remain silent behind stained glass.” Either you  put your faith to work daily, or you are a Sunday believer.

Fittingly, our church service ended with the singing of “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus.” Jesus, be he prophet or teacher or divine god, loved the little children. How about you?

An apologia: this post is couched in the terms and traditions of Christianity, because that is the faith I know. I recognize that not all of my friends nor all of my readers are necessarily Christian but I am sure the beliefs herein can be adapted to your faith.

How Not to Start the Day

 

Image of Sophie because i needed 
something light-hearted for a somber post.
I refuse to post a picture of an assault weapon.

Well, that was exciting. I’m here to tell you that at 6:10 or so in the morning, it is still very dark. As in pitch-black, feel-your-way-around dark. This morning Sophie and I were up at 5:00 because she was acting strange and staring at the kitchen door. I got up prepared to catch night visitors in the act of vandalizing our cars. I peeped under a shade on the kitchen door. Nothing. Was that movement behind Jacob’s SUV? Was the back of his SUV open? Hard to tell in the total dark.

I decided it was nothing and went back to sleep, only to be startled awake a little after six. Confused at first, I couldn’t figure out where I was nor why I was awake. Then I realized there were no lights. I sleep with a lamp on in my living room and yard lights blazing. I feel guilty about the latter, because I now it disturbs the daily cycles of birds and night critters, but I trade the guilt for a feeling of being safe against night visitors and other unsavory characters.

But this morning I’m not sure if the power made a noise when it went off or if the sudden dark itself woke me, but suddenly there I was awake and a bit disoriented. I reached for my walker and could only find one handle—that’s was the disorientation you get in true dark until your eyes adjust. Finally I made it to the kitchen and peeked under that same shade. Far as I could tell lights were out in the main house and the houses on both sides. Then I ventured into the living room and saw that the neighbors behind me were also dark.

I sat at my desk and turned on the light on my phone, which was suddenly awfully bright. Couldn’t figure out why I would need it, turned it off, and went back to bed. All this time, Sophie was following close by me, confused I’m sure. I wasn’t back in bed long before the lights came back on.

Later I learned that a driver had died in a one-car accident several blocks away. His car was speeding down Forest Park Boulevard, hit the guard rail, flew across open space, hit an electric pole, landed on its side and caught fire. May he rest in peace. Jordan told me the power went off several times, but briefly each time. I guess I slept through the others.

When I finally woke up and made it to my desk, hot tea in hand, I found myself inundated with TV news and analysis of the school shooting in Nashville. Suddenly, I was white hot angry—angry at the shooter, of course, but even angrier at the Republican politicians who tried to brush it off with their tired arguments.

Gym Jordan accuses Democrats of trying to politicize a tragedy. Well, you know what—it is indeed a political issue: Democrats want a ban on assault weapons and reasonable gun control; Republicans want to whine about the second amendment and their rights. (They need to study the second amendment and stop bending it to their wishes.) They want to investigate Hunter Biden and drag queens and Mark Twain’s books, but heaven forbid they should care about let alone protect the lives of America’s children.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, that odious bag of puffery, yells about the gender-bending medications the shooter was taking and how they caused the whole thing. Our children won’t be safe, she claims, until teachers are armed. Oh good job, MTG, what we need is more guns. Does she know how many guns were outside the Uvalde school, waiting while children were slaughtered. A good guy with a gun is not the answer.

Neither can she nor anyone else claim that gender-bending drugs caused this tragedy. Guns did it. Say it out loud: guns killed those children and adults. The shooter was being treated for an emotional problem. Think about this: if assault weapons had been banned, and if strict gun control had kept weapons out of the shooter’s possession because of mental instability, how different would yesterday have been?

With each tragic school shooting, the reasonable among us think maybe this is the one, the one that will galvanize the country, make our leaders and our people realize how wrong this needless slaughter is. How far out of step we are with other civilized nations of the world. And then the furor dies down. Not. This. Time.

I hope every Democrat on every ticket will take courage in hand and campaign on the twin issues of gun control and abortion. Call out the hypocrisy! Call out the callous carelessness about human life, the blind ideas that defy knowledge and studies and medicine. We won years ago with Roe v. Wade, we got an assault weapon ban in 1994, we can do it all again. We just have to be fired up. Please—do whatever you can. Speak out, call  your congressmen. We do not have to live like this.

Amen.