Next week I want to get back to my last post about the doctor and the soldier, but not tonight.
I've thought all day about what to write here. It seemed ridiculous that I would post about anything except what happened in Newtown last Friday. And yet I couldn't think of a single pithy thing to say. I've looked in the faces of those children and adults who were murdered that day, I've cried like all the rest of us. I've felt helpless, blamed guns and video games and lack of funding for mental health just like everyone else.
I decided to turn to you. I wonder if you would comment here about how you feel changed by what happened and if you feel called to take any action on a personal, local, or national level.
I'll go first: I'm going to see if our local bookstore will help me put together a town meeting to discuss how we can work on the local level to make some changes. I'm going to educate myself about the issues. I'm going to keep looking at the faces of the brave people who died trying to prevent deaths and the children who could not be saved.
And now you....RSVP.
3 comments:
Mamie, thank you for your invitation. I think your idea of the town meeting at the bookstore is brilliant, and much-needed. I have been thinking almost constantly about what happened at Newtown, and now that the funerals are beginning, it is all the more excruciating to see the tiny coffins, the salutes from firefighters to one little one, Daniel, because he had told his parents he wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up. He was buried today. through this unspeakable horror, small thoughts emerge--the promise some are making to do 26 kind acts in honor of those murdered; I have begun that consciously and it does provide comfort and healing to those who receive and to me, the giver. other small things, which I hope will gather momentum into bigger things, are giving to NC Against gun Violence, writing David Price and others, constantly posting on FB how essential it is to fight for gun legislation, and why, to fight for increased understanding and support, of those with special needs and mental illness, to spiritually support all of us, now, beginning with our own children, our own parents.
I can't say I was changed by it, although it certainly rocked me, perhaps because I see evil every day in my work as a psychotherapist listening to stories of survivors of all sorts of horrors.
I can only hope that every therapy hour produces some healing of their scars and thus counts toward preventing such horrors from happening again.
All the churches in the little town of Woodstock, where I have practiced for 28 years, are going to ring their bells at 9:30 tomorrow morning in remembrance.
If I could, I would go to your meeting. It's a wonderful idea and I admire you for taking leadership in it.
To both of you: Thank you for taking the time to respond to my call for thoughts. I'm trying to decide who would give most to a panel. Certainly David Price would be good, but a therapist? Gun enthusiast? Gun hater? Video game producer? It's an important discussion and I want to have all the right ingredients.
Someone suggested forming a very strong PAC for tighter gun regulations that could compete with the giving that the NRA does. That piqued my interest.
Post a Comment