To the chagrin of a panel of clergy there was no time for healing in the aftermath of the killing of 26 people – especially 20 young innocents – in a Newtown, Conn. elementary school.
They were critical that judgments were being made without facts or information hours after the early morning shootings.
There will be NO mention of the perpetrator by name, which will be explained later.
The first finger was pointed within 11/2 hours by a reporter on a national network blaming the incident on guns and ammo and a need for stricter gun control.
Shortly later another commentator said taking God out of the classroom was the root cause.
For the next week, 24/7 news channels were dominated by “experts” giving their opinions on the cause and effect of the massacre.
The media gave us more information and speculation than we needed.
The intrusion made it difficult for the survivors to mourn.
The clergy, mentioned above, gave the best analysis: “We may never know why – the person responsible killed himself and he alone knew the motive. We need to realize there is true evil that exists.”
These violent, senseless, unexplainable acts are becoming all too frequent.
We had difficulty dealing with a parent who would kill their children and/or spouse before committing suicide.
We are a people with no patience.
We demand answers and reasons.
We need to place blame.
Ways to prevent or at least deter future violent acts are as myriad as the reason for the Newtown murders.
Several years ago the way we deal with mental illness was changed, in many cases, correcting wrongs.
But opening doors of institutions and turning patients out did much harm, because many people had to fend for themselves on the streets.
Without supervision and medicines good intentions had tragic results for those incapable of being on their own.
Rules on admitting family members for mental and emotional care also changed, making it more difficult to get them into treatment or under supervised care.
Often times the patient must give approval before being treated.
The pendulum often swings too far in correcting a wrong.
God belongs in schools, like every aspect of society, is my personal belief.
The Creator is in the eye of the believer and has been important to societies through history – not just Christians and Jews.
Excluding God from our lives is a tragic mistake because we need basic rules to live by and to respect life and other people.
As somebody who spends time reminiscing about life and lifestyle while growing up, it is disturbing how today’s entertainment and media distorts truth and reality.
The bad guys were always caught and punished in movies and early television when I was young.
It was rewarding to be good and caring, while being bad had consequences.
Video games, movies and television shows depict confrontations between good and evil, with hundreds of rounds of bullets being fired at each other with most villains escaping with minor wounds if injured at all.
I can’t help but wonder if this skewed view of reality contributes to the violence prevalent in our society.
The other issue alluded to earlier is not mentioning the name of the perpetrator.
These people DO NOT deserve their 15 minutes of fame or notoriety.
Virtually all of them were unknown until their heinous acts put them in the headlines.
It is relevant to ask if this has anything to do with turning the private act of suicide into a headline story of a massacre.
There appears to be this motive of making the current atrocity into a more disturbing and shocking event than the most recent preceding act of shame headlined across the nation.
As the clergy stated, we must recognize that evil exists.
Newtown was the most damning evidence of it.