Why?

On Monday, a young couple were shot and murdered in their bed, as their 2 week old baby slept with them.  On Friday, a man began ramming another vehicle with his vehicle on a bridge.  The person doing the ramming eventually lost control of his vehicle, spun out of control and crashed over the side of the bridge. As of the last report, he lived.   On Saturday, a man was shot and killed, and his wife shot, after another car hit them from the rear, and pushed their car into the vehicle in front of them.  The person causing the accident exited his vehicle, exchanged words with the driver of the vehicle he hit, then took out a gun and started shooting.

Why on earth are people so angry that they risk their lives and take other people's lives? What in the world can someone do while driving that provokes such murderous rage?  What is beneath all this?

I just don't understand.  And my heart hurts.  And I find myself close to tears, or tearing up.

Those who read my blog regularly know that I desperately try to preserve the illusion of control.  You also know that I am an anxious and fearful person who is always battling my fears just to do silly things like drive across a bridge.

I try to structure my life to stay out of scary and dangerous situations.  I use the treadmill rather than walk alone in a strange place, or in the dark.  I hardly ever go out at night.  I pay attention to my surroundings.  But with the increasing violence that has become American society's normal, I realize there is no place to hide from the violence.

And that makes me very sad, and very anxious.

And I have no idea how to re-establish my illusion of control.  Because there are too many angry people, and too many cars, and too many guns.  I still think I have a fair shot of running away from a knife or a bow and arrow or fists.  But cars and guns are too big and too fast.  I want to hide in my house.  With the doors locked.

I keep trying to figure out how I can help make it better.  I support Moms Demand Gun Sense in America, and The Sandy Hook Promise.  I try hard to meet anger with sympathy and understanding, and to not escalate situations.

I pray.  I love.  I don't know what else I can do.

At Mass this morning, I tried to pay attention, but I kept thinking about the families of the victims of violence, and the families of the perpetrators of violence.

Families were destroyed this week.  I opened this piece with three examples, that destroyed at least three families.  But the perpetrators families are destroyed too.  And the parents of the victims' families, and the extended families of both victims and perpetrators.

And some of those people will choose violence of their own as an answer.  And the cycle continues.

I long believed that the violence in American society was the outgrowth of economic inequality, and a lack of opportunity.  But I'm doubting myself now.

Violence is glorified in American society as an answer.  And it is never an answer.

There is so much that needs to change if society is going to change.  We need more peaceful dialogue.  We need to teach negotiating skills in school.  We need to offer real opportunity to people, so that they have something to aspire to.

We all need to look inside ourselves and determine when enough is enough.  When we are willing to sacrifice for the greater good to start a different conversation, one that examines how to re-establish the sanctity and value of human life in American society.

Because I don't want to have to hide in my house.  And unless something changes, that will be the only option left for those of us who value peaceful resolution over violent retribution.