EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2021 I began a new venture writing a newspaper column titled "Finding Faith" for the Forum Communications Co. network of newspapers and websites. I was asked to contribute to the company's ongoing conversation about faith, lending a Lutheran and fairly ecumenical approach to the discussion. The column was published in several of the company's papers and websites, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. This column originally appeared as a "Finding Faith" column on July 22, 2022.
By The Rev. Devlyn Brooks
Law enforcement officers who responded to Salvador Ramos’ attack on Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which left 21 people dead, are under intense scrutiny.
The details of the ineffective leadership and communication in the minutes following the shooting, which appeared this week in a 77-page report issued by a Texas House committee investigation, are difficult to read.
But make no mistake, whatever failures took place that day on the ground, we all collectively failed long before May 24 when Ramos shot his grandmother and entered that school.
Ramos shared so much in common with previous men who have committed mass shootings. Young, estranged from family and friends, bullied, angry, with seemingly nowhere to turn for help.
And all of the warning signs were there: A broken home with a mother addicted to drugs. Bullied in school, and struggling academically, but rather than helped, he was “involuntarily withdrawn” from school. Worrisome social media messages, but no response from the platforms when his posts were reported. Requests to those around him for help purchasing weapons. Violence displayed toward women.
The list of red flags is long, and the common thread is that seemingly no one stepped in to help a struggling young man.
This storyline is too common in America. And the consequences of our inattentiveness, our inaction and our lack of community are literally killing us.
The Christian faith is based on each and everyone of us being a part of the Body of Christ, each person a beloved child of God. But this isn’t a matter of pitting one faith against another.
Everyone who considers themselves a person of any faith, and also those who consider themselves a moral person but not religious, must understand that each of us is intricately woven into the fabric of creation. And when we fail to catch and to support those most struggling among us, we collectively fail creation’s larger family.
The cycle of violence is growing more frequent in America. There’s been at least 330 mass shootings in the first seven months of 2022, amounting to an unconscionable number of deaths, injuries, trauma and suffering.
However, we will make little progress until we realize that we are to blame. We can point fingers and pass more restrictive gun laws and increase school security all we want. But until we adopt a more universal view of our neighbor, and figure out how to love them, we’ll keep inviting the violence upon ourselves.
South African Priest Desmond Tutu famously said: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”
My fellow neighbors, we need to immediately start trekking upstream to figure out why so many struggling souls are falling in. Our very lives depend upon it.
Devlyn Brooks, who works for Modulist, a Forum Communications Co.-owned company, is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He serves as pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He can be reached at devlyn.brooks@forumcomm.com for comments and story ideas.
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