Stuck in Reverse

I have been trying to find words since Monday afternoon. It's been hard to explain how I'm feeling, but I think that "heavy" is the best adjective I can come up with. While I'm not from Boston, and I didn't go to school in Boston, I feel like I know more people who live there and call it home than people in Philadelphia.

My Monday afternoon was spent frantically texting and calling all of my friends who were spending their day off celebrating at Marathon Monday, what I know is one of the most fun days of the year. Many of my best friends from college live and work in Boston, the heart and soul of New England. I was in a trance, pulling up CNN.com and watching the live stream of the finish line, going to the gym but not really running, just watching the news coverage.

Luckily, I spent Monday night among friends. There had been plans for a little gathering at Kate and McKenzie's apartment on Monday, and while they thought about canceling, they decided to carry on, and that was the best medicine. Good food, good friends, and many laughs can fix anything, even if it's temporary. Kate, a BC alum, knew how I was feeling, only more. I can't even imagine how I would react to such a tragic event in my home away from home of Providence, and I could tell that her heart was aching for Boston.

As is mine. While Monday night was a good distraction for me, coming to school on Tuesday morning was eerie. We prayed as a school for all those affected, but everyone here for the most part is so separated from the East Coast that they don't understand the repercussions. They don't know people in Boston. Many of them have never been to Boston, and don't really understand how big the marathon is. They haven't ever interacted with Sox fans, and they don't understand how proud Bostonians are.

Being around people who weren't reacting was hard- it was good to check in with Kate every once and a while, and thank God, our friends are all safe. As the days have gone on, I've learned of connections to two of the three people who lost their lives. The 29 year old woman was a friend's boss, and the 8 year old boy was the brother of an Irish dancer, a girl who lost a leg in the explosion. Jane, the dancer, was a student of one of the PC Irish Dance girls at a prestigious dance academy in Massachusetts.

The response from the Irish Dance community, both at PC and all over the world, is astounding. There is an organization that is making a t-shirt quilt (or probably several at this point) for Jane, made of Irish Dance school t-shirts that are being sent from all over the world. PCID and other Irish Dance orgs from New England colleges are hosting a dance-out next Friday to raise money for the family. I have never been so proud to be a PCID alum.

So yes, the response is beautiful. The first responders are amazing, as are the doctors and nurses working around the clock to heal people. Everyone, it seems, wants to help Boston. Kelly, a good friend from PC, works in City Hall in Boston. She has told me about the beautiful gestures of kindness she's witnessed (and taken part in herself), but also about the scary responses, specifically the Westboro "Baptist Church." Now, they don't really deserve anyone's time, and I'm not going to waste mine about how infuriating they are, but they're a presence in the city, and they shouldn't be.

I have been encouraged by stories of runners continuing on straight to Mass Gen to donate blood, seen the video of the National Anthem at the Bruins game, and Stephen Colbert's wise words (Boston was founded by the pilgrims- a people who were so tough that they had to buckle their goddamn hats on), but I can't help but ask why.

I don't have an answer, and I know that no one does. I was even more infuriated with the Senate when they didn't pass a bill requiring background checks for weapons. We see disasters like Sandy Hook and the Boston bombings, all rooted in terrible violence, and then we give in to the bullies at the NRA? When 92% of Americans support stronger background checks?!

Gabby Giffords said it best.

"Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on." (Read her whole op-ed here.)

I realize that I haven't written about my Kairos experience yet, and I know that this post is getting lengthy, but I can't ignore the connections. One of the student leaders gave a talk that has changed my world. 

He has two older brothers, both of whom joined a gang, a completely normal choice in urban Houston for a Mexican teenage boy. One of them was on a "tag team," which means that he and his partner went out and tagged (graffiti-ed) the gang's symbols. My student's brother's partner wanted out of the gang, and really turned his life around. He got a job as a mural artist in LA, and during the process, became a real mentor to my student. He was more of a brother than any biological brother had been. LA was great, and my student's mentor came home for a visit in September.

He called the house to let my student know that surprise, he was just getting gas around the corner, and would be over for a visit soon. My student described watching his mother on the phone with his mentor, and how filled with joy she was that he would be over soon. Suddenly, her face changed. She put down the phone, picked up her keys, and ran to the car. My student followed, and despite his questions, his mother was silent. Until they got to the gas station.

My student got out of the car to find his mentor dead next to his car, shot in a drive-by, a repercussion of coming back to Houston, where he had been a member of the "wrong gang." 

In a place where boys are literally born into these gangs because of family ties, where they have no choice other than fight or die, they are forced into gun violence. 

This was a reminder of why I'm here- I'm not a teacher, I am here to be Christ to these students who have been so broken by a cycle of poverty and violence.
I can't prevent what happened to my student's mentor or the terrible acts of violence in Boston, but I can try to break the cycle of violence with my students now. I can TRY to fix them.