What can we do?

I should be working right now, but I must admit that the thought of being a slave to anything at the moment is relatively unpleasant.

I’m sure anyone who is half-way human and some of those who aren’t have heard all about the school shootings in the news lately. I don’t know the full stories about what all is going on and I don’t care to know. Watching the news programs disturb me a great deal. I get so tired of hearing all the crap surrounding the idiots in society. I hate hearing all the bad news all the time. And that’s exactly how new stations should promote themselves … “All bad news! All the time!”

To top it off, the reason I don’t really feel like working at the moment is that we had a shooting/non-shooting at the local high school this morning. I haven’t heard any of the facts, but unsubstantiated rumors say that no one was injured and there were no fatalities. Radio reports are saying there were no shots fired at all, but a mother of a high school student just walked past my door after picking up her son who said he heard the shots and hit the ground.

At this point, I don’t know the truth and I don’t really care. It still invokes in me a rage, born from disgust, discouragement and cloud of depression about the state of society. I would love to rid the world of stupid, bad people, but that is not an option. The Christian in me knows that we should love these people, pity their situations and pray for them, but the human in me wants to see them disappear.

Why do I get so upset about these things? My wife is a teacher in the school system. My daughter is a first-grader in the school system. The university for which I work currently has student teachers working in the school system, several of whom I consider friends. And some of those were at the high school this morning.

… As I walked out of the class just the day before, a young lady in the class walked beside me. This class is doubling as an undergraduate level course for traditional students like her, as well as a graduate level class for old(er) people like me. As we exited the building she said in a somewhat light-hearted manner, “I thought we were all going to die today.”

Our class ran a little long and in the process one of the students for the next class came into the room. He was a big guy, a wide body, with a slicked back pony tail and had the general look of someone who might want to thwart the government. I can’t really explain the look other than to say he didn’t really look like the proverbial alter boy. He was wearing an oversized shirt and moderately baggy pants.

“When he came in,” the young lady said, “he had his arms down by his side and I couldn’t see his hands. I wasn’t sure if he was carrying his books or a gun.”

Although she said it in a light-hearted manner, I could tell there was a hint of seriousness about it as well. In moments like that, you realize how much these situations affect the people around us. While that thought never crossed my mind, it had crossed hers and it is apparently something some of our students worry about. And what could I do? I couldn’t reassure her. I couldn’t tell her not to worry because that will never happen here. I couldn’t tell her that if someone did attack our school they would surely choose to shoot up the education building, not the business building.

So what did I do? I reassured her that we had all survived. … Boy, that’s a big help isn’t it.

I guess there’s no real point to this blog entry other than to say I just don’t understand what makes people do this kind of thing. And furthermore, I have no idea what can be done to prevent it.

… I guess that’s why I’m not ultimately in charge. Thank God.