I grew up within the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, perhaps 20 minutes from Highland Park. It’s not a spot where guns are a traditional a part of culture or society. In truth, in my whole life, I actually have never seen one. And I believe that’s true for most individuals there.
That is the purpose where I inform you how shocked and upset I used to be to listen to in regards to the mass shooting that happened in Highland Park on July 4, just how much it broke me to listen to my 75-year-old mother say to me, “It just looks like you’re not secure to go anywhere any more.” But you’ve already read that story 100 other times, haven’t you?
I could also share a number of other upsetting data,just like the incontrovertible fact that 68 other people were shot in Chicago over the weekend. Eight of them died. Or that there have been 14 other mass shootings across the country that weekend or that there have been greater than 300 already in 2022. But truly does any of that basically surprise you at this point?
Dante’s great insight in “Inferno”is that ultimately the one way out of hell goes through it, by confronting what we see there and what we feel.
I could offer an interview with activists working to vary the gun laws, constitutional scholars with insight into interpretations of the Second Amendment or mass shooting survivors who could describe how that have has impacted them. Or I could point to other articles I actually have found insightful, like this piece by America’s editor in chief Matt Malone, S.J., written within the wake of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., that killed 19 children and two teachers.
But to what end? There aren’t any startling latest insights to be gathered at this point, no fresh takes. All around the country, daily, persons are being shot and killed. And regardless of how much sadness and outrage are generated, what number of marches are organized, what number of speeches are given from the ground of the House or the Senate, or what number of pages are spent writing about all of it, it just keeps happening. But even futility has grow to be a drained angle on our situation. We’ve literally heard all of it. I’m exhausted on the very idea of reading (and writing) one other story about being exhausted.
It’s like we live in a Samuel Beckett play. The one real query is: Is that this Purgatory and alter will actually some day occur? Or are we stuck on this hell eternally?
Probably probably the most famous image from the Italian poet Dante Aligheri’s own imagined trip through Hell in “The Divine Comedy” is the sign he discovers at its entrance: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” Yet Dante’s great insight in “Inferno”is that ultimately the one way out of hell goes through it, by confronting what we see there and what we feel.
One thing I think is that God is waiting for us in that darkness, equally outraged, exhausted and stuffed with grief. And in selecting to take a seat and mourn with him, we’re all less alone.
There’s something Ignatian in that, too. For St. Ignatius, big feelings were all the time something to run toward, not away from. Scary though they could seem, rage and despair were lighthouses just as much as joy or wonder.
But what could they possibly solid into relief at this point, beyond absolutely the desolation of our political process? What good could possibly come from attempting to stay within the limitless, battering horror of this moment, to stick with these feelings in prayer, to read one other story or write one other letter?
I assume it is feasible that we may grow in our capability to just accept the burden that lies upon us all. Perhaps the misery of all of it cracks us open and helps us to like more generously. Perhaps this really is a purgatory pushing us toward some form of conversion.
One thing I think is that God is waiting for us in that darkness, equally outraged, exhausted and stuffed with grief. And in selecting to take a seat and mourn with him, we’re all less alone.