Anger and Lamentation: A Reflection on the Mass Shooting in Uvalde, Texas

“My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of my people, because infants and babes faint in the streets of the city.” Lamentations 2: 11

I got up Wednesday morning and sent my son to school. I don’t know if it was an act of faith or insanity. I do know that what I must consider as a parent and what all parents must consider is that our children are not safe in any school, or in a movie theater, or in a grocery store for that matter. Any minute, in this country, a gunman, carrying military style weapons and ordnance, can take their lives.

I write this less than two weeks after a gunman walked into a Buffalo grocery store for the express purpose of killing Black people. Ten lives were lost that day. The gunman had been radicalized by a dangerous conspiracy theory that claims that white people in this country are being replaced by immigrants and People of Color. His was a bald and despicable act of terror.

And our country and the Buffalo community had barely recovered from that shock, when it happened again. On Tuesday, May 24, an 18-year-old gunman walked into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. He went into a 4th grade classroom and opened fire, killing 21 innocents—19 children and two teachers.   

The families of those who were lost as well as those who survived, and their families, are experiencing unimaginable trauma. Families that have been victims of other mass shootings, like the families in Buffalo or the families of Sandy Hook, also are experiencing trauma. We are all experiencing trauma.

And I fear that we have become numb, because this has become so commonplace in the U.S. and because the trauma is so overwhelming. And, we have come to believe that we are powerless to effect change. So we say all of the things that we typically say—we offer thoughts and prayers. Then we move on, knowing full well that it will happen again.  

 Is it true that this is all we have to offer?

I certainly am in prayer for the families, the children, the first responders and the whole community of Uvalde. I encourage all of us to offer our prayers. But might we also offer our anger and our lamentations? And, might we revisit the anger and lamentations of God?

 For a fire is kindled by my anger, and burns to the depths of Sheol; it devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.” Deuteronomy 32:22

This passage was God’s response to the idolatrous practices of the Israelites. And we are not exempt from God’s indictment. Indeed, we must ask ourselves if we have made an idol of our political differences and therefore given up on working together to find common-sense solutions to gun safety. We must ask ourselves if we have fallen into the idol of tribalism and so refused to come together to address the thousands of gun deaths in this country as the public health crisis that it is.   

There will be dueling narratives about this issue. Some will point to mental health and others to access to guns. And surely the reasons for gun violence are complex. But the scale of the death and destruction from such incidences is not complex at all. The scale of destruction has to do with the tools—automatic weapons that are made to kill quickly and efficiently. And the unending drumbeat of destruction has to do with our refusal to work together to end the carnage.

The day after the shooting, my son asked to be picked up early because he was feeling faint and experiencing shortness of breath. The next morning I gave him Pepto Bismol because he was complaining of heartburn. Then I sent him off again to school.

Parents in this country are weeping. Our stomachs are churning. To paraphrase Lamentations 2:11; bile is pouring from us onto the ground. This is especially true for the parents of Uvalde. They are inconsolable--their lives forever rent by grief.

Might we find within ourselves the depth of grief that would make us inconsolable? Might we find within ourselves the depth of lamentation that would make us cry out, “No More!” Might we find within ourselves the depth of anger to act?

 Please God let it be so.

Rev. Kennetha J. Bigham-Tsai

5/26/22