A mother's lament for school violence

8.26.24 I wrote this for a class that required a modern lament in the style of Lamentations (aka: complaint against God, shifting to hope, accepting guilt, etc.)

O God,

I thought you were the God with us – Emmanuel -

the one who numbered the hairs of my head

the one who gathered my tears in a bottle

the one who was willing to live in a tent instead of a palace

so that you could always, always move with us.

My heart has been a tent for you

My spirit a home for yours

My body willing to follow your lead

even through the darkest valley.

But you –

You are not with me.

You are not with the innocent.

You are not with those who are hunted.

You are the hunter.

You traveled with us only to learn our ways

as a predator seeks his prey

stalking, studying, then plotting.

You have my people in your sights.

You have set a target on their back.

They are in your cross hairs

and your finger is the one on the trigger.

When I was young,

I brushed it off.

I still had to walk through those doors every day.

I made excuses.

I turned off the news.

I shut down the fear inside me.

It felt like we would live forever.

Nothing could stop us.

But I am no longer young.

I am simply weary.

Weary and worried

for the young ones today.

Exhausted from the sound bites.

The 24-hour news cycle.

The talking heads.

The empty promises.

The threats that hang underneath

The thoughts and prayers.

All hot air blowing around itself

Round and round

Empty, meaningless flatulence.

Thoughts and prayers do not shield the innocent.

They do not protect the young from bullets

and sudden death.

They do not heal the pain and the impulse to harm

that comes out of that hurt.

They are part of the hot air

that has blown across nation

from coast to coast,

mountain to valley,

plains to desert,

city to farmland,

from Congress to newsroom to outer space.

How can I send her each day

to a place that has become a death trap?

How can I let him out of my sight

when the sights of another are on him?  

How can every morning hug and kiss

potentially be my last?

Can I ever let go?

Bone of my bone

flesh of my flesh

heart intertwined with mine.

What is them and what is me

are threads not easily untangled

when woven together by your hand and loom.

How can I breathe

when every day

an elephant crushes my chest

and an eagle circles overhead

ready to swoop and silence me

with its talons at any instant?

The enemy, another one’s child,

hidden within a sea of children.

How can you tell of whom to beware?

There is no warning to give.

To warn would add fuel to the fire

that is already burning and out of control in our land,

a landfill set on fire over anthracite coal

burns for eternity, (and it has since 1962).

The town that burns is cheaper to abandon and start again

than to work to save the mess no one can put out.

Is that what we are to you?

A mess to be abandoned? As with Noah’s people?

Noah’s people being all I can call them,

for their names drowned with them in the sea,

their cries swallowed by the watery chaos of the deep.

“Mommy, we did something different at school today.

We had to turn off all the lights, lock the door,

and hide in a closet close together.

No one could make a sound

and we stayed that way for a long time.

But I had to pee, and I wet my underwear a little.

Why did we do that?”

To tell or to lie, what choice is this?

I swear by Almighty God that I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

except

I lied to him today.

Five years old is too little to know the truth.

A truth that will only cause great fear for all the years ahead

when he must walk through those doors 180 days each year.

And five years old is too little to know the other truth,

its twin, even more grim:

that no one cares.

Not even God.

Because nothing has been done.

So I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

to you

which is

children have become your target.

Is this a ploy to get the nation to come back to you? To bring us to our knees.

To repent of our sin?

Our idolatry?

Our reverence of guns, of violence, of the glory of war,

has made the nation terminally ill

in a way that kills the most innocent

while the contagion spreads unconstrained

through this land of the free.

Is this your disgusting plan

To turn our hearts back to the Lord?

If so, it is not working.

Our AR-15 adoration

feverishly fills the nation

and there isn’t room left for you.

The wall is built

And we’ve built you out

And somehow, it’s been built around our hearts, too.

-

O God,

It happened again today. Where were you?

Please, come to our aid.

Hasten to us.

Comfort us. Bring us back into your fold.

Bring us into life again.

For we are in death.

Against you, and all your creation

we have sinned.

We have made our nation an idol.

We have worshiped the guns we hold dear.

Before you and you alone is our perverse patriotism

The right to bear arms is inscribed on our hearts.

We have twisted your name for our battle cry:

“For God, guns, and country!”

The refrain ricochets the land of the free and the home of the brave.

But it’s not so different from the cry of the past -

“Gold, God, and Glory!”

Of all these, we repent. 

I would spend 1000 days repenting on my knees, 10,000 days even,

if you would but have compassion on your people.

Remove us from your crosshairs

and form us as your people, O God.

Change our hearts,

like clay, mold us afresh

until we conform to the pattern you had in mind

when you created us

or throw us on the trash heap and be done with us already.

To you, O God,

I lift up my face.

for you alone can save us.

I know that your steadfast love is for us

forever and always.

You are the one who came down to be with us in human skin.

To come close to us so that we might come close to you.

You came and let a mother snuggle your newborn cheeks,

and like my babies did, I bet you snuggled her back.

You allowed yourself to be fed from the breast of a woman like me,

nourished by a mom in your lack.

You let her hold you and love you,

teach you and even chastise you when she lost you.

You, who laid the foundations of the earth,

who determined its measurements,

who were there when all the morning stars sang together.

You let a mama push you into this world and

you let her push you into the work you were meant to do,

just as a mother bird pushes her baby out of the nest at the right time –

the time to fly.

And fly you did.

And later,

when all seemed lost and hope was dim,

when grief swelled wide and death was about to gobble you up,

she stayed close by

as mothers do,

and you found her another son

to do the work you could no longer do (for her) in this world.

I plea with you

on behalf of all mothers everywhere

in the name of Mary, the mother of God

and in the name of Jesus her son,

Remember your people.

Remember your steadfast love –

hesed

Remember the covenant and its aim –

shalom

and make us whole once more.

Let the sun rise today and bring with it your justice and righteousness.

Let the morning dew bring us drops of your mercy.

Let the lily bloom the joy of your presence.

Let the oak tree convey to us your sturdy patient strength.

Let the leaping deer thrill us with delight to play once more

and let the river flow your grace through us.

For Columbine and Blacksburg.

For New Town and Parkland. For Uvalde and whatever town is next. And next. And next.

For every mother without a child to snuggle and who never got to watch their child fly,

harmed by a place meant to nurture

cruelest trick there ever was

Come with your healing and your hope.

Come with your kindness and unfailing love.

Come with your Easter light and resurrection life.

And for every school filled with the thirst of curious children

(which is every school)

Say it will never happen again. And mean it.

You and you alone are our hope

We trust in you and your unfailing love for us,

the love of a mother to her baby

who comes close

to feel the warmth of our skin,

our breath on your cheeks

who delights in us as a proud papa

at the first smile,

the faltering wobbly first step,

surprise and pride reflected on our face

even as we totter and fall and rise up to try again.

I swear by Almighty God that I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

Dear God, are you there?

It doesn’t feel like it.

Some say you are dead.  

That might be true.

If you are not dead, you must be against us.

For today is the first day of school,

I swear.

In truth,

A mother who also snuggles the cheeks of her children whenever they still let her.