A Community of We

Hello and welcome to a pensive Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is August 30th.

We are on the last Saturday of summer before school starts here in Wannaskaland. Unless you've been off-grid this past week, getting in one last hurrah before school starts - in which case, yay, you - you no doubt have heard about the Minneapolis Catholic school tragedy that occurred. What a devastating kick-off to what's supposed to be a time of new beginnings, optimism, and joy. My heart feels the distress, the grief, and the loss. Not so much because I'm exceptionally empathic (which I'm not), but because this tragedy touched my own circle of community four times, making this particular school shooting pierce my bubble of imperviousness to land its arrow of lesson into my heart.

The first touch came through a book coaching call with my client, a professional woman of color. Her colleague, called to the scene to serve in a professional role of support, could only think of her own child attending that mass. "Jacob Frey's comment about prayer not being enough - it was prayer that saved all the rest of those children!" she said. "Black people have all kinds of solutions to this problem. We deal with this every day. But will they listen?"

"My husband grew up in that parish," and "That's my brother's parish," were a quiet text and side conversation, the second and third instances, between the busyness of my life.

All this in addition to feeling a keen connection anyway because of my own involvement in my local Catholic community and faith - the fourth point of contact.

The last time I felt this close to a school shooting was Red Lake. It was the first to put an emotional blip on my radar. It made me feel wary and vulnerable. In response, William Kent Krueger wrote Red Knife. In this interview, he said, "My seventh novel, Red Knife, a long rumination on violence in our culture, was written after the school shooting on the Red Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota, which left seven people dead."

I just googled when that was, and it was 2005. Can you believe that was already 20 years ago?

Today, I am not able to look away from the 91st incident of gunfire on school grounds, because this tragedy has brushed against my sphere of community, stirring my sensibilities away from the sly and sneaky comforts of an Us vs. Them narrative to a "We" story that I cannot ignore.

I believe one reason why we have so much violence in America is that there is a permission piece in place to do so. It is the only reason I can think of that explains why these acts continue to be performed. There is a permission - a space where people feel allowed; that they identify as the sweet spot of acknowledgment they are yearning for. This permission doesn't come from a single person, but from society and the culture we create through living and existing together in a determined geographic space.

"Us vs. Them" is a false friend. It is the space that relieves me from any personal responsibility because I wasn't involved directly with my own actions to cause harm or create the breeding ground for violence. It's a "them" problem, down there, in the Twin Cities. "Those people" have fostered their own problems, so it's up to them to find their own solutions.

But because I believe deeply in the collective "we" of community, I do see that I am responsible. I do see that in staying in the lane of complacency - offering powerless, although appreciated, thoughts and prayers, before moving on to the next activity in my own life or the next crushing news story of injustice - I am participating in the collective "we" that gives permission. My voicelessness is an act of consent.

On Wednesday, as the breaking news was being released and unfolding in real time, I chatted about it with some church ladies of my parish. One shared a story about an incident at another Catholic institution in the U.S., where the Knights of Columbus decided to conceal and carry and establish a safety perimeter of welcome. While I can appreciate the intention and goodwill to keep people safe, gunning up didn't feel like a good solution to me, either. As a convert to Catholicism, I often reflect on one of the earlier lessons I learned in my conversion, which is, "It's not our job to judge." We are reminded to condemn the action, but love the person. We have to remember that there was a person on the other side of the firearm. A hurting person. Sarah Lenore Reely, a former teacher of said person, explains in a Facebook post that has gone viral, "Every teacher has a list in their hearts of former students they always think about and hope they are okay. "Bob" (Robin) was on my list." She adds, "I am posting this to remind people that it's a snowball effect of multiple system failures at a national level, that every murderer was once a kid in someone's classroom who needed help, and that this issue is so much deeper and more complicated than we want to admit."

Which brings me back to the collective "We."

We - yes, you and me, right here in Wannaskaland. We, by the very default nature of living and existing in the same space of finite geography, exist - for better and worse - in what we call society. Society builds systems. People build systems. We are people.

May this be the shot(s) heard 'round the world that shifts the collective conscience of our communal We and moves the hearts of you and me to make changes to the system that will remove the permission to hurt people, and replace it with a compassion and infrastructure that make the invisible and hurting feel seen, loved, and accepted.