Waiting for a real change

Events can outstrip the power of words.
Days have passed since news first came of the horrors at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Yet still we struggle to articulate the fullness of our sorrow, our rage, and our sense of helplessness.
A television commercial features a classroom of smiling kids and a sudden sob forms in the chest.
A Christmas present is wrapped for a nephew or a niece, a child or a grandchild, and the heart aches.
A familiar carol sung by children prompts tears that weren’t there before the news came from Sandy Hook Elementary School, tears we all share.
And as Americans, we have to wonder: How many times must this be endured?
We live in a culture inured to violence.
It’s on our TVs. It’s in our movies. It’s in our shoot-’em-up video games.
And it’s constantly in our headlines.
We live in a society awash in guns, more firepower than could ever be rationally explained.
We live in a world where the alienated and disaffected and disturbed can find themselves adrift, listening to the voices in their head because their own voices are no longer heard by the rest of us.
And we live in a nation that seems increasingly incapable of having a serious discussion about the need to balance liberty and lives, even when those lives are the lives of innocents, the lives of children.
Oh, our leaders may try for a while. There will be speeches given. There will be legislation introduced. But it’s difficult to be optimistic that things will really change.
Things did not change after Columbine.
Things did not change after Virginia Tech.
Things did not change after Aurora.
And it’s hard to find a reason to believe things will change after Sandy Hook.
If that doesn’t prompt a sudden sob to form in your chest, it ought to. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]