There Are No Words

I don't quite know what to say, but I feel the need to say it, so I'll do my best here. First of all, I should probably begin this post with a caveat. I HATE political posts on facebook. Hate them. Hate them. Hate them. I go on facebook to see the wonderful things going on in the lives of people I have come in contact with through the years. I come to grieve with them and comfort them in their trials. And I come to rejoice with them in their successes. I love to see the wonderful family events that make up everyone's lives. We are different in so many ways, and yet we are a community of people with so many similarities as well. That is why I love facebook. Political posts are just divisive. A few of them are just people respectfully sharing their views on important matters of the day. But so many are hateful and uninformed and divisive. There is not a spirit of goodness in them. There is a spirit of anger and contention. I hate them. I used to take some time to try and comment to try and correct inaccuracies or call out people who were name calling people who were good, kind people. But I don't anymore. I don't know of one single person in the world who has ever changed their political views because of a dumb facebook meme. Not one single person. We post that stuff in order to validate our own views in some ways. If I am unable to validate that view, my comment isn't going to change anything. It is just going to lead to nasty comments debating my feelings, sometimes leading people to put me in league with Satan himself. It's infuriating. My feeling is that you should only post things on facebook about others if you are brave enough to say it to that person's face. I don't care if it is a movie star or an athlete or the president of the United States. Our Heavenly Father expects us to be kind in our speech to others. And that includes facebook. So I ignore as much as I can and block people who are notoriously frequent political hate posters.

Having said that, I avoid posting political thoughts at all costs. I have pretty strong views that don't easily fall into a liberal or conservative label. I probably lean a lot more liberal than many of my friends, but I am a lot more conservative than many of my family. I am a conundrum. But who really cares? My thoughts are my own to live with. I don't have to defend them, and I don't ask anyone else to defend theirs. I am just happy if people would come to their opinions after reasonably looking at the issues and not listening to hyperbole and rhetoric.

Well, something happened last Friday that made me seriously want to post on facebook. But I have stayed strong. I will not post anything. I won't even link this post on facebook like I often do. I'm not interested in a mean-spirited facebook debate. I don't even want a debate on this blog. I just want to express my opinion somewhere. I need to get these thoughts out. I am not trying to influence anyone to change their opinion. You will not change mine with a comment at the end of this post. I just want to say what is in my heart. Here goes:

I don't watch the news much anymore. It is mostly just an avenue for propaganda machines on both sides of the political spectrum to use for their own benefits. It is entertainment television in my opinion. So I avoid it. But after a facebook post about children being hurt at a school in Connecticut I turned it on to see what was going on. And what I found was horrific. Absolutely, completely horrific. It brings tears to my eyes right now just to think about it. Twenty young children, ages six and seven, along with six adults were murdered in an elementary school in Connecticut by a mentally unstable young man with a lot of ammunition and complete depravity in regards to the value of human life. These children were first graders, just like my sweet JoJo. I couldn't help but think of him as I thought of those sweet children who met such a horribly terrifying end to their young lives. I could only watch for a moment before having to turn off the television. It was much too painful for me to watch. It still is. I think I'm done watching any more coverage. It isn't helping.

Well, of course after a terrible tragedy like this the facebook universe has to go crazy with posts about it. Many were posts offering comfort and prayers for the families involved. Several talked about the heroes of that day and the lives of the children and teachers who lost their lives. I appreciated those. But then there were immediately lots and lots and lots of posts from people who only seemed to see this tragedy in terms of how it affected their right to own guns. Some of these posts were okay, but many of them were downright offensive -- listing all of the ways that people could go about doing the same thing with another weapon -- things like that. I read a post from a woman saying that Israeli schools are much safer than ours, and then showing a picture of a teacher with an assault rifle hanging off her back, implying that our schools wouldn't have things like this happen if we only allowed our teachers to wear rifles. Maybe so. But I will say this: If our society turns into the type of society found in Israel, where we are in constant fear of suicide bombings or needing to have military armed personnel guarding our schools with visible rifles, it is time for Team Blau to circle the wagons and just homeschool, avoiding participating in anything where I would ever feel that unsafe as to need that sort of security. I am not interested in living in that sort of society. Those are just my feelings about a world like that. I'm sure others feel differently. I'm just not interested in sending my child to a school where there is a potential for a shootout between an enemy and school personnel. That isn't the America I know and love.

Today as I dropped JoJo off at school I really did think a lot about that school shooting. I always say goodbye to JoJo and give him a kiss as he leaves the van, but today I took some time to really appreciate him. I always do, but I don't always really think about how much I am entrusting him to the wonderful teachers and staff at East Elementary. This world is crazy at times. It can be unpredictable. There is no guarantee of absolute safety in anything, no matter what laws are put in place or if every single citizen of this country walks around with fifty rounds of ammo stuck in our back pockets. Horrible things are going to happen. These are the last days, and horrible things are going to happen. I can't prevent everything. All I can do is look my babies in the eye and let them know that I love them each and every day. I need to do all that I can as a mother to let them know that no matter what else happens in the world, there is one place in the world that is a safe haven for them where they can find absolute love and protection -- our home. So that's what I try to do. Some days I do great. Other days I fail horribly. But overall I hope that my children can feel that even if the world around them falls apart, the love that Herman and I have for them is constant and absolute.

As I was washing clothes this morning I watched this clip from Morning Joe. I thought that it was brave and touching and moving.



He said so many things that I felt myself after I heard the news on Friday. We are gun owners. I didn't grow up with guns, so they still make me very, very nervous. But I do support Herman as he purchases them and teaches our kids to shoot them and use them responsibly. I do support the right of citizen to own firearms. I do. Can people do lots of damage with knives? Sometimes. Are there other things out there that kill people? Yes. But there is something crazy about owning military assault guns that can fire hundreds of shots in less than a few minutes time. Why is this necessary? I don't understand. We have banned first person video games from our house for many years. We used to have them, but then one day Herman started thinking about how we were "playing" games about killing people. Lots and lots of killing without one feeling about it other than perhaps euphoria for having killed the most. There is a desensitizing to violence that occurs when these games are so violent and so realistic at the same time. So we got rid of those games. I know, having dealt with the mental health system with my mom's problems, how ridiculous our health care system is when it comes to mental healthcare. Beds are never available when there is a crisis. It takes months to get appointments to see psychiatrists, and then those supposed experts only spend ten minutes with my mother, never truly trying to help her get better, simply prescribing a bunch of meds, never checking to see how they work. I have more than a few friends who have children who struggle with mental illness and have to lock their children in their rooms at night for fear of being killed in their sleep. The mental health system is not meeting their needs with this super complicated problem. One not-so-brilliant guy on facebook posted a post about how this wouldn't happen when we were younger because we would have just "beat the shit" out of a kid like the one who murdered those children. Oh how I hate stupid people sometimes! Such a misunderstanding of mental health! Of course, I wouldn't understand things either if I hadn't witnessed first hand how mental illness can completely alter a person's personality and make them do things that they wouldn't normally do. You can't understand it until you see it happen to someone you love. It is horrible.

So what is the answer? I don't know. I wish I did. It's complicated. There are so many layers to this problem. But I do know that we have to do something. I don't want to EVER wake up to hear about the massacre of innocent children like this again. NEVER. We are better than this as a nation. We can do better for our innocent children. For now, I do the only thing I can. I hug my babies a little tighter. I take time to listen, to love, and to enjoy every single blessing of time we have together. And I know, no matter what, that my family is forever.