Annunciation: This Is Just How We've Decided Things Are
Do we really want to play whack-a-mole with tragedy after tragedy, for the rest of our lives... or do we want to create a whole new reality, once and for all?
These things often dawn on you slowly.
At first, on Wednesday morning, I saw an alert come through on Nextdoor, about an active shooter situation nearby.
Odd. Unusual.
False alarm?
Sometimes those happen.
Surely that was it.
The past few days had been gloriously cool, after a steamy summer. Having had our home sealed off from the elements for months — grateful for our AC, to be sure — we had been happily opening nearly every window, relishing the refreshing breezes that came through them, day after day.
Before I saw the alert that morning, I had opened the windows again.
And now, instead of the chirps of birds, maybe the sound of a neighbor mowing their lawn, maybe the muted conversations of neighbors walking by… we were hearing the somewhat ominous sound of a helicopter hovering overhead, nearby.
We were still trying to figure out what was happening.
We did the usual things you do.
We Googled. We looked at local news sites. We saw that something was happening at Annunciation Catholic School, just a few blocks down the street.
We thought of our neighbors, Mollie and Jesse, whose kids went there.
I find watching TV news anchors, live on-the-air, unscripted, when they have no real idea what’s happening yet, because the news is literally breaking at that very moment, to be a bit… like rubber-necking?
I just kept watching.
I couldn’t look away.
I kept hearing the helicopters.
“Are they police or news ones?,” we asked each other.
The news anchors — presumably charged with staying on the air so that they can relay breaking news as soon as it’s available, and perhaps to make sure that anyone tuning in for the first time will be able to get the latest news immediately — mostly ended up repeating themselves.
And yet, you can only repeat yourself so many times…
… so in between the repeated facts, they’d riff off of each other, being human more than anchors, talking about things like how, in a community like Minneapolis, often called something like a small-town big city, something that happens at a school like this often has powerful ripple effects, with many people having close, personal relationships with those involved… or otherwise being profoundly affected.
The prescience.
Little by little, the facts were trickling in.
We learned pretty early on from reporting that there was no immediate public threat, that the shooter had been “contained.” What a whitewash of a word.
So we were just concerned about whatever was happening over there… and hoping we’d get more news sooner than later.
Mid-morning, the mayor and police chief and other officials finally strode out onto the street, towards the cameras and a bank of microphones.
Live. Real-time. On-the-scene. Finally.
We could finally find out what was going on.
As soon as the mayor opened his mouth and started talking, I knew it was worse than I had wanted to imagine until then.
He was talking about dead kids.
He was emotional.
I’m sure he hadn’t really thought through leading with dead kids before that had even been confirmed publicly by anyone, but… you know. That’s how trauma goes.
The police chief stepped up and began stating the facts, woodenly, describing what had happened and what he knew. A gunman shooting through stained-glass church windows, at children sitting in pews, at a morning Mass. Two children dead. Twenty total victims. The living rushed to the hospital. Shooter dead.
Just…
What?
Just down the street?
In our quiet, leafy, community-and-family-oriented corner of Minneapolis? No. Those are just images we see on TV, stories we see online. They don’t happen here.
We were mostly numb.
Within a few hours, we heard a candlelit vigil would be happening at our neighborhood park that night.
I immediately felt drawn to attend, to reach out for community as a balm in such a dark moment. My husband didn’t want to go at first, feeling like it was too soon, too raw, that it was better to grieve in private first.
I ended up convincing him.
So we went.
As we walked over to the park, taking the blocks one foot in front of the other, the magnitude of the day’s events began to dawn on us even more.
Not far from our house, we started seeing lots of cars parked in the streets. We still weren’t exactly close to the park yet, and we knew that the vigil’s organizers had explicitly asked folks to walk or bike, if possible… since there wouldn’t be a lot of parking available near the park. We wondered: could these be people going to the vigil? Naw. Maybe?
A couple got out of their car in front of us and started walking, ahead of us on the sidewalk, holding hands. They seemed to be going to the park too. We just knew.
And sure enough, as we continued to walk, we started seeing cars parked in every spare spot on the street. We noticed multiple bikers streaming past us. As we started getting within sight of the vigil, we noticed whole groups of people, walking along the creek, coming down the various sidewalks… all moving towards the park.
“Wait. Are they going to the vigil too?!”
We noticed the glowing lanterns in their hands. They had to be!
More dawning.
As we approached the park…
… we heard the whistle of the traffic cop, standing in the middle of the intersection, choreographing cars and pedestrians and bikes with her glowing sticks. Cars everywhere. Bikes everywhere. People coming from all directions, walking.
My first glimpse of the vigil did me in.
HUNDREDS of people were gathered.
Our neighborhood park, transformed — no more an open green space, given to shouts of children playing and cracks of bats — into a crowded, somber, quiet space. Hundreds of glowing candles. Quiet music playing. Hardly a word spoken. A deep, visceral sense of communion. Tears lingering in nearly every eye I caught — that or openly spilling over onto cheeks.
Afterward, we walked home quietly.
The night was dark.
We felt more connected, for sure.
I had cried some tears I needed to cry.
But yet, I had a sinking feeling still.
I had texted Mollie and Jesse to check in earlier in the day, and we still hadn’t heard back from them. That wasn’t like them. We knew they probably had a lot happening, and a lot of people reaching out to them…but still. I was worried they hadn’t even marginally responded. I felt like it meant something not-good.
We woke up the next morning to a terse text from Mollie:
“Fletcher is dead.”
Three words.
And the dawn cracked open.
The horror was fully laid out for us now. My husband and I held each other and cried.
Since then, the tears come whenever I really think about it.
And I’m just a neighbor. A neighbor who delighted in Fletcher’s and his siblings’ and friends’ shouts of joy, as they played in their yard and on the block. A neighbor who remembers calling “Congratulations!” to Jesse, when they first got home from the hospital after Fletcher’s birth… and needing Jesse to repeat the new baby’s name like three times, because it was unusual to me and I couldn’t understand it at first.
I didn’t love and care for him from his first breaths.
He wasn’t an essential part of my every day.
I didn’t have kids at Annunciation.
But Fletcher was my neighbor. Annunciation is just down the street. We and our neighbors heard the sirens and helicopters all Wednesday morning. We walked just a few blocks, to our neighborhood park, to meet a throng of people mourning and to hear nearly every politician who represents us, at every level of government — from the mayor to the Lieutenant Governor to our US Senator and Representative — talk about how deeply they were grieving and how much they were committed to preventing this from ever happening again. Minneapolis is my home, and I am well aware of how much all of my fellow Minneapolitans and I share a destiny. I grew up attending a Catholic grade school, with weekly Masses. I have many friends and loved ones who are teachers. Mollie and Jesse and all of their kids happily provided us meals when I was sick. I feel a visceral, familiar love for all of the kids that were in that sanctuary, yearning to connect to God, excited for another fresh year of school.
Let me count the ways.
Let me count the many ways that I feel close to this.
Let me count the ways that this is not something that is directly happening to me… and yet, I feel deeply affected… and forever changed by it.
No Time to Love Our Neighbors
Yes, I feel this way.
I feel close to it, even though I’m not directly affected.
I feel deeply affected by this, even though these aren’t my blood kin.
But I know I’m unusual.
I know many/most others aren’t like that.
I’ve experienced this story before, many times. I know how it ends. Yes, I may have been located further out in the ripples those times… but the ending has always been the same. No matter where people are located in the concentric ripples, they always ultimately decide they don’t have time to love their neighbors. There are far too many more important things to focus on.
The victims are ultimately left to navigate their pain alone.
Life goes on.
Profit and production will always remain the most important things.
People mouth outraged, demanding words in the immediate aftermath. And then they ultimately demand nothing. They’re too busy living their lives. The pain and outrage have faded for them. Many other motivations and influences have reigned.
I pay attention.
I see how it goes.
Again and again.
So I know how this will go too.
I remember Columbine. My bestie was especially affected, because it happened on her birthday… and her mom was a teacher. She was practically catatonic. We couldn’t imagine how something like this could happen. At a school. Because it was so… reality-shattering! But we still weren’t the adults running the show. So we had some assurance that the adults would take care of it and keep us all safe, because that’s what we’d always been told. This wouldn’t happen again. Surely.
I remember Sandy Hook. I was an adult now. I was in a crazy-busy job. I remember that, on that day, I had barely had time for lunch. (I might not even have had it.) I had gone from meeting-to-meeting-to-meeting, with barely a chance for a breath. I had heard rumblings about something happening at a school out in Connecticut. But I didn’t start understanding what happened until I got home that evening. Saw our US president with tears streaming down his face on the news. Was gutted. And then I thought: “OK. Finally. THIS is it. There is NO way any of us feeling adults can see a whole school of elementary children slaughtered and not do something about it. Finally! We can finally stop these tragedies from happening again.”
I remember hearing about the Abundant Life Christian School shooting in Madison, Wisconsin. By that point, more than 25 years after Columbine, these school shootings were commonplace… so I barely heard about this one. I really only became aware of it because my dear friend, the former Associate Director of the summer camp I used to call home and be a counselor at, posted about it on Facebook. This was her kids’ school. And they were all horrified and traumatized. I was moved. My heart hurt. And I moved on. Because it was just another day. Just another school shooting.
When we’re kids, we look out at the world to learn “how things are.”
The adults show us the way. They tell us how things work. We watch them, to see what is appropriate. We trust them to keep us safe. And we trust them to tell us the truth about a world we’re doing our best to soak in, learn about, and grow up in.
I guess, since I wasn’t one of “the adults” yet during Columbine, I absorbed the lesson that it didn’t really matter. That nothing would happen. That I shouldn’t even try.
So when Sandy Hook happened, I heeded that. Even though I was now one of the adults. Even though I was now one of the ones imparting the lessons — if in no other way than by my choices and behaviors.
I was now perpetuating the reality.
I was “too busy.”
I was resigned.
I “knew” that “nothing was going to change.”
So my co-creation, with my fellow adults, was just that result.
And the kids we were influencing learned those lessons well.
And many of those kids are now adults…
… so they’re imparting the same lessons to the young ones now.
We’ve all agreed.
This is just how it is.
School shootings happen. Kids die at what’s supposed to be a safe place for them. Parents wail and grieve. Politicians shout passionate words in the aftermath. Then, the moment where those politicians or other adults could actually make sure that it doesn’t happen again comes… and nothing happens. Nothing changes.
This is how it is.
I’ve paid attention.
I’ve learned.
And now I’m perpetuating it.
And so are you.
We’re good soldiers.
We’ve learned well.
How the Nightmare Could End
Scrolling through Facebook now, I can see the ripples rippling away.
A close friend who lives nearby posts this:
”This school shooting was in our neighborhood. We didn’t know the kids who died or the ones still being treated at the hospital, but we may have unknowingly played beside them at our park or stood in line behind their families at the grocery store. I see kids in Annunciation uniforms every day of the school year hanging out at our public library, going into the Starbucks down the street from the school, playing in front yards on our block. In the time between when I saw the news online and when I got text replies that our neighbors and our family members who were at the school were safe, there was a moment I thought we might have to live in a world without those kids. And in that moment something inside me broke. I have thought of little else since. I don’t know what to do with this grief, but I know it has changed me.”
A mutual friend responds, writing this:
”A friend’s daughter was a classmate of the girl who was killed and was sitting three down from her. Many members of my Orangetheory location are Annunciation parents, including [someone] whose son was shot and is still in critical [condition]. It’s no longer a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.”
I realize a classmate and friend I went to high school with — in a small town in southern Minnesota — actually lives in my general area of Minneapolis. I had no idea. She posts that her daughter attends the school, was there, and is physically OK.
That means that everyone with whom we attended school growing up — hundreds of people, across multiple grades — is closely, indirectly connected to this. And those people are all over the world by now.
Neighbors, friends, work colleagues, family.
Everyone is connected to it here.
But it’s not just here.
I’ve had friends from everywhere checking in on me and expressing their shock and pain. People in every state of the United States are feeling it. People all over the world, when they hear about it, are feeling it.
And here’s the thing.
This type of reality has been the case for every single shooting like this.
The impact is biggest and strongest right at the epicenter… but the ripples reverberate out and out and out, in concentric circles… and every single one of us human beings on the planet is affected.
We can’t escape it.
There is nothing that happens on this planet — absolutely nothing — that doesn’t affect us all. This is how it works.
Something happens in one place, with one group of people… and it ripples and ripples out, affecting more and more people, in different ways, over time.
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly… affects all indirectly, as the wise Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us.
There is no isolated individual.
Not really.
Our isolation is imagined, a mirage that we reinforce through our actions.
But there is only “us” here on this planet.
If we all could see this, we would realize that if there’s one person with unhealed trauma… we will all be affected by that trauma. Whether or not that person decides to act out their trauma violently… either way, we will all be affected.
If we all could see this, we wouldn’t balk anymore at sharing whatever we have, freely, to help people who are struggling (in whatever way they are struggling).
If we all could see this, we would invest in universal healthcare — including mental and emotional support — because we know that the need IS universal. Every single one of us needs it, and so few can actually access it, in our current state of affairs. We would know how absolutely unacceptable that is.
If we all could see this, we would realize that weapons of war do not belong on our streets, in our neighborhoods, or in our deer stands. We would have no need to obliterate each other. Because we’d know we’re all dependent on each other.
If we all could see this, we would realize that our collective budgets are moral documents, material records of whatever we most value and care about — and thus, we’d realize that our budgets should be our ways of caring for each other.
If we all could see this, we’d see what a total folly it is to pursue profit and productivity above all else, and we’d stop the mad dash of competition with each other — as though any one of us can “win” anything worthwhile that way.
If we all could see this, we’d realize that there’s nothing to do or be but… here. Together. We’d know that our relationships, our community with each other, our love and care for each other, are the most valuable things we have. And we’d prioritize those relationships, that community, that love and care for each other, around every bend… and in every decision we make… and in everything we do.
If we all could see this, there wouldn’t be any more school shootings. There wouldn’t be any more wars, either.
We could hammer our weapons into plowshares… and use them to till the earth, cultivating sustenance for us all, instead of terror for us all. Affirming life, rather than destroying it. Resolving conflict, rather than fomenting it. Cooperating with each other, rather than competing, exploiting, extracting. Loving, instead of fearing.
Can you imagine?
Probably Time to Just Give Up
But I don’t think we actually want any of that.
I pay attention.
I’ve seen the reality we’ve decided to co-create together.
Columbine to Annunciation… and everything in between. We don’t care about each other. Not really. We refuse to shoulder our inherent responsibility for each other. We refuse to acknowledge how interconnected and interdependent we are. We refuse to wake up from the nightmare. We just keep advancing the horrific story, instead.
Let’s just forget it.
Let’s acknowledge the truth.
We won’t change anything.
We won’t.
We want kids to keep dying. We’d rather prioritize profit than care. We’d rather see each other as the enemy, or the competition… than as our human family. We’re selfish, and we have no desire to be otherwise. We believe empathy and compassion are for losers. We’d rather shirk our responsibility for each other than shoulder it. We don’t want to “belong” to people who we perceive as different than us. We want to maintain our hierarchies, rather than be in any kind of solidarity with each other. We want to keep thinking of life as a “game” that we can either win or lose. We believe that only the strongest and most violent and dominating should win. We believe that “winning” is even possible, so we can maintain the illusion of our individuality. We like making a show of wringing our hands. We don’t want to expend the energy to take meaningful action. We don’t have any courage, so we won’t say anything that’s going to ruffle anybody’s feathers — especially those who hold the most power in our communities. We will definitely keep valuing money higher than any other thing we have. And we’ll continue to treat these precious lives of ours as a mad sprint to grab and claim every last bit of material success we can, because we’ve decided it’s all a zero-sum game… and we’ve decided that winning that game is what’s the absolute most important thing we’re here for. We’ve decided we’re willing to sacrifice our children at the altar of guns. We’ve decided that nothing will be sacred for us.
We’re just wasting energy, pretending otherwise.
If we wanted otherwise, if our priorities were different, our actions would be different. Without question.
The proof is in the pudding.
I think it’s time to let the talk go.
We like it this way.
We’ve decided to create this.
We won’t change it.
Let’s just admit it.
I’m done pretending.
Are you?
Or…
… am I wrong?
Do you want to change this reality, once and for all?
Now?
Finally?
Are we finally ready to write a new story together?
Are we ready to lay down our lives for our neighbors… to make sure that no more of our neighbors need to lay down their lives in tragedies like this?
Want to directly help the community affected by this latest shooting?
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