It's been just over a week since Omaha was jolted out of its "That kind of thing can't happen here" comfort, by an act of violence that still seems unthinkable and unexplainable. In just a few minutes, eight lives were abruptly ended by a very sad, sick-minded young man, bent on being "famous" at the expense of innocent and unsuspecting people.
My wife and I were among several hundred people at the Westroads shopping center that day, enjoying a bit of holiday atmosphere and shopping. In fact, my wife left the Von Maur store at the exact time Robert Hawkins was entering to "check out" the scene, before leaving and returning with his rifle six minutes later. I heard the shots from just outside the store's interior mall entrance, and saw one of the victims lying motionless on the first floor. It was too much for the mind to absorb all at once. It's still like a bad dream, and that's not to equal the outright nightmare it's been for the victims' families, friends and co-workers.
It would be tragedy enough if this sudden loss of life was, say, an accident or freak of nature that swept those eight people away without so much as a farewell. But to have it come by a senseless act, the twisted reasoning of a mind entirely detached from the feelings and hopes and desires of other human beings who contributed nothing to their killer's misery, this just seems to defy any rational explanation.
It seems to me that people favor and seek for explanations, however, and it's tempting to rush to any number of convenient places to put the blame. Too many guns, too little attention paid to our children by overly busy parents, too much violence in our culture, too little security and law enforcement to keep the innocent safe. Perhaps any or all of these might be implicated in the overall theory that makes such events possible; but none satisfy my mind as a comprehensive theory which, if it could somehow be resolved, would leave us, at last, free from the threat of history repeating itself.
But, we should at least give some thought to the possibility that something in the social and cultural climate of America, not to mention other nations, has given rise to an alarming and increasing number of seemingly random incidents of violence in the past 40 or so years. I say "random" because they do not immediately suggest a more obvious explanation such as gang rivalries, organized crime, terrorism or other causes that do sometimes result in horrific acts of violence. But the lack of a clear and consensus-building reason doesn't mean there is no reason.
One thing seems evident. As you survey a history of such multiple murders of people unknown to their killers, a profile stands out of people who are angry, detached, depressed, and therefore quite disinterested in the harm and life-changing injury they are about to set loose upon their victims and all related to them as they prepare to carry out their execution-style murders.
Sure, there's a lot of other angry, detached, depressed individuals who don't take assault rifles to the mall. So maybe we should just take comfort in the rarity of these events and figure we can't do much but shake our heads and try to carry on. But that won't solve anything, if indeed this can be solved by anything short of a total renovation of human society and culture; a renewal that would, once and for all, deal with the things that leave so many of our people, and especially our young people, with unmanageable levels of anger, hopelessness and self-loathing.
I won't claim that religion alone would make such a renovation, for we all know that religion can be distorted by human minds just like anything else, and sometimes more so. But I have no doubt whatever that the presence and power of Jesus Christ in a human heart can perform such a renewal. And I don't mean getting into a church, but inviting Christ into my daily thoughts, motives and attitudes to the point that I have an answer for the things that make me feel angry or bitter or hopeless. Knowing Christ in such a personal and powerful way doesn't remove all the sources of anger or unhappiness, but it sure changes how I deal with them.
It's too bad, to say the least, that Robert Hawkins could not have found this life-changing power for himself, before he took his rage and hatred of an unsuspecting world around him to such an extreme. Let's pray some other "killers-in-the-making" will find a new heart and hope, before it's too late for them, and for some of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment