Steady On

When news of another mass shooting hits, I feel sick. Civic responsibility leads me to stay informed, to look up the details, and then I check my Twitter feed to find people are praying and asking for stricter gun control laws. Thousands are banding together peacefully to oppose the gun lobbies as part of a longterm remedy for unwanted violence, but then I see the responses by some people who defend their rights to own guns, and they are so viciously angry that I’m appalled. So much unreasoning, vindictive anger exists in our country. It’s a cycle of rage that bewilders even as it explodes.

I feel helpless, disgusted, grieved. I’m distracted. I’m writing this instead of my novel this morning. I’m feeling the kid ghosts of Sandy Hook around me, pleading.

So what can I do?

It isn’t nothing to get back to work. It isn’t nothing to keep volunteering, to visit an elderly neighbor, to practice music for an upcoming concert. We contribute as we can. We add to the dialogue. We fight back against the violence by resuming our precious lives uncowed.