23 February 2018

About three weeks ago I was on my morning run, on the way back to my house, and I was running by the high school. I live only 4 blocks or so from the same high school I attended about 20 years ago. It was 7:00 in the morning, and school doesn’t start much after that, so I was running by a few high school students walking to school.

I looked up, and coming toward me was a young man who I’d never seen before, and I remember having the distinct thought, “that looks like the kind of guy who could shoot up a high school.” That seems like a harsh thought, but I imagine it’s tempered by the fact that you know exactly what I’m talking about, because you’ve had the exact same thought about some young high schooler you’ve seen before. Probably several.

I was a good 20 yards away from him, but that’s as close as you need to be to see the color of the clothes, the pace of the walk, the hair, the look toward the floor, the pallor of his face, the pained life emanating from his disposition.

How is it that we can recognize, in an instant, even from 20 yards away, people for whom life is not going well.

Almost in the same instant as I had that first thought, another thought sprang into my mind. “Say good morning to him as you run by”.

How is it that we have that kind of connection with a complete stranger, that we can have an impulse like that? And why is it that the next thought immediately follows it: “No, he would probably think I was weird, or he would be suspicious that I felt bad for him and it would make him feel awkward.”

Even 36-year-old men who think themselves “good” can be cowards sometimes, and as I passed him I looked ahead and kept on running.

But the thoughts didn’t stop there: “What if that guy was at the breaking point. What if life was so hellish for him, he’d become so convinced of the rottenness of life and of being itself, that today was the day he was going to end this miserable life for himself and take as many as he could with him (which isn’t an unreasonable thing to do if you think this world is corrupt and messed up to the core). But what if this morning he’d told himself, just to prove his point, ‘This world’s so rotten, I bet not a single person on the way to school today would so much as say hello, or even acknowledge my presence.’” He would have been right.

I was left jogging 4 very long blocks home, and it was no consolation that I said my cheeriest “good morning,” to 3 other high schoolers trudging to school.

Luckily, that kid doesn’t seem to have been at the breaking point, and life has continued on.

But two weeks later when the tragic shooting happened in Florida, I was left thinking about that kid, and the call to action I felt toward him after nothing more than a momentary glance.

There’s been a different feel to this latest Florida school shooting. For one thing, there hasn’t been anything else to interrupt the news cycle, and so here we here, well on a week after and it’s still the story. Then there’s the fact that it’s the largest shooting that’s ever happened at a high school. This isn’t like the Columbine shooting that happened when I was a junior in high school. Now every high school junior has a powerful publishing platform, and the media has relished making a story of the students at this high school who are speaking out with righteous indignation, to the president, to Congress, to the governors, to the NRA calling out for something to be done, in particular, something greater to regulate guns.

I’m no passionate gun rights advocate. I don’t own one, and they don’t fascinate me much either. But something has rubbed me very wrong about the collective way the story has come to focus almost entirely on gun policy. Gun policy is something that’s appropriate for a society to debate, but I think what rubs me wrong is the way people think is tied to any sort of meaningful solution for this kind of tragic violence. And it especially rubs me wrong how this solution is pursued with an outward pointed finger of accusation.

The Bible records that the first person born on this planet was a murderer. Call the Bible fact or fiction, it doesn’t matter, either way, our ancestors were trying to tell us something they discovered long ago when they gave us that story of Cain and Abel as the first story in this fallen world.

Our ancestors were trying to tell us that that capacity to murder, that disposition to murder, as well as its solution, doesn’t lie at the level of society, it lies at the level of the human heart. In your heart. If you had two people on a desert island, particularly men, and there was no society, no assault rifles, you would still have all you need for the kind of violence we saw last week in Florida. And if it occurred, the last thing we would be, would be surprised.

The bad news is that the problem lies much nearer to home than most would like to admit, but the good news is that so does the solution. That finger of accusation pointing outward, is best pointed inward.

I have no confidence whatsoever that school shootings can be solved at the level of the state, or the nation.

I know with certainty, however, that it can be solved at the level of the individual. I can solve school shootings at the level of Gary Nuila, and I can solve school shootings at the level of my family. Actions and thoughts that occur in my mind and in my house, either move the world one step closer to the next shooting, the next murder-suicide, fratricide or infanticide, or one step farther away from these horrible things, and that’s within my realm of responsibility.

But I’m also certain of the fact that school shootings can be solved at the level of the neighborhood. And that’s where my story comes back into play. At the level of the neighborhood, you’re still dealing with individuals. I can think of my neighborhood and I can see faces in my mind. I know which homes have lives that are in order, and I can see the faces of those who I have reason to be concerned about.

One of the most glaring revelations about these school shootings is the frequency with which we hear phrases like “Yeah, I thought that kid was going to do something like this.” And from that can be sensed the inference — “but am I my brother’s keeper?”

I can think of three faces of three young men, right now, in my neighborhood, for whom I have reason to be concerned, and for whom I feel an instant pull of responsibility. The usual suspects. No dad. Violent video games galore. Failure to launch. The pasty pallor. Life……..miserable.

Just as with the kid on my run, to pay attention and look at them, even in your mind’s eye, a connection is formed, and things come to mind which I can do, which I have the responsibility to do.

How many people would it take in a neighborhood, taking responsibility for their neighborhood, to solve school shootings at the level of that neighborhood? 5? 10?

How many students and parents would it take in any given high school to pay attention, look at faces, and heed calls to action that come to our minds when we see the individuals who aren’t doing well. 50? Maybe 100?

You might think, “but that was tried, even in this last shooting.” Neighbors noticed, law enforcement was called. But perhaps that last point is the problem. Not that law enforcement was called, that’s an appropriate response at the right moment, but perhaps when law enforcement was called, the sense of responsibility shifted. And now it wasn’t at the level of the neighborhood. It as at the level of the city, or beyond, and the level of the city, in my opinion, may be too distant to solve this problem. I’m not saying you don’t call law enforcement, I’m simply saying you’re responsibility doesn’t start there, and it doesn’t end there.

You could fault me for not offering detailed courses of action of what should be done for these kinds of individuals in any given neighborhood, but that’s at the heart of my point. There is no specific course of action other than look at them, and when you do, and you pay attention to them, the appropriate course of action will come to your mind, like it did with me and that young man on my run. I’m not naive enough to think that saying good