Dear Ones:
Up at about 8 am and reading the last few pages of Maryanne Williamson’s The Age of Miracles. Great read. Had just read her discussion about spending the money we are spending on war on hospitals, schools, feeding the hungry. Realizing she is right that until all peoples of the world have a sustainable level of living that includes health, food, shelter, education and freedom, none of us is really living a sustainable level of living. I am coming off a high, having just watched clips from the Ringo Star/Paul McCartney duo at Rockefeller Center in NYC a few weeks ago…humming “we all live in a yellow submarine”, “all we need is love” and “imagine”…when my phone rang. Most folks know not to call me in the morning before 10 am so I knew when I saw Sascha Michael’s smiling face on my phone that something was not right. His first words…”sorry I woke you up Mom”…”I guess you haven’t seen the news yet.” And he was right. He quickly told me he was all right, at work, not at UT for his classes and wasn’t going to go there today. Then he explained about the gunmen on campus and the lock-down. My stomach started to churn. How many times did we have to go through this? We talked for a few moments and then we got off the phone. He was upset but he’s a realist. Perhaps I am not. How many times…I kept asking myself.
I went into the kitchen to tell Davide that Sascha was OK and she quickly went to her facebook page to tell all her friends that Sascha was OK. It was a normal reaction for her generation…to use the computer to get out the news…good or bad. I myself needed more time before going to my facebook page to report that Sascha was all right. I needed “mother-time” to sit with a cup of hot tea and just pray; first in gratitude that my own son was all right and then in hopefulness that noone else’s son or daughter would be hurt. I was not to receive my wish. It appears that the gunman may have taken his own life on the 6th floor of the library, on campus. Details are sketchy still…campus and local police are looking for a second suspect. In time all the details will be made known. In the meantime, I am still here, hot tea in hand, sitting at my computer with tears streaming down my cheeks. How many times, my dear ones, will it take before we all wake up and realize we must do more to bring about tikkun olam, a healing of the earth. Not just Mother Earth, who certainly needs healing and our rapt attention…but all the inhabitants of the earth. And how many times will we need to ask how many times before we realize that each of us has the obligation to heal ourselves first and then watch that miracle move out into the world outside ourselves.
Are you asking, “What can I do”? Stop asking as though there is something out there. It is an inside job. Find time to pray and meditate. That’s a start. And then get brutally honest with yourself. What needs to be healed in you? In me it is my weight and my budget issues. That’s what I am working on at this moment. In the old days I would have gone to the refrigerator for something sweet to help numb the pain caused by the fact that once again someone was loose with an assault rifle in a place he had no business being. My son, and other mother’s sons and daughters were at risk. That is a fact…but at least I’ve learned that eating sugar to numb the pain does nothing to ameliorate the horror of the situation! Nor would going out and self-medicating myself with some “retail therapy”. Praying for the gunman who may now be dead, praying for the law enforcement folks who are now looking for a possible second suspect, praying that the “children and faculty and staff of UT” are all right…those seem like much better use of my time. Realizing that other tragedies have helped to put procedures in place that enabled the Campus Leadership to get the word out to students, faculty, staff and the public in a very timely fashion is a much better use of my time. Yes, loud speakers on campus were used to tell people to stay indoors. But text messages were also going out to warn students and others of what was going on. And local news and law enforcement entities were receiving the same text messages.
Why do I even bother to write about this? Well first off, writing has become a form of therapy for me. It helps me think things through. And secondly, maybe we all need to be reminded that we still have lots of work to do. I think we all do know what the world needs now…I just think we haven’t made it a priority yet.
With many blessings and prayers and with very great love for all of us,
Rebba Raine
