Dysfunctional Behavior

I am really happy that 2012 is almost over.  This year has been full of tragedy, ranging from the sort of unavoidable sad things that happen every day, to things that are unspeakable and horrific.  As I watched the coverage of the shootings in Newton CT, I couldn't help but hear haunting echoes of the voices in this community about six months ago.  Here, in the beginning of June a man killed his two little girls, and his estranged wife.  I heard many of the same things that the people of Newtown are saying today: "I'm in shock," "I can't believe this could happen here!"  The hard reality we need to face is that this kind of thing does happen "here," wherever here happens to be.
One of the diseases of our culture is the dislocation that we so often feel.  We can shrug off too much tragedy, as long as it happens somewhere else.  What we need to get a grip on here is that we are part of a big family.  When violence like this takes place it diminishes all of us.  We can read about peoples lives being torn apart, we can hear about people's children dying, but until we realize that those children are our children, these tragedies are going to come.
I consider it a blessing that I knew Amanda and Sarah Beatty (the two girls who were killed here in June) and their mother Christine.  It was a blessing because they were nice people, but it was a blessing also because the tragedy that overtook them has given me an unshakable awareness of our connections as human beings.  Today, when I think about those kids in Connecticut, those kindergartners (like Sarah), I see those two little girls.  It is not a disconnected tragedy that happened two states away, I can hear the sobs of parents whose lives are forever changed.  This is not okay, it's never going to be okay.
The soul-less media machine even momentarily acts stunned.  I watched President Obama shed tears on national TV, which is interesting for two reasons.  1. I don't think I've ever seen a President cry during a press conference.  2. The media seemed positively shocked at the genuine reaction of a politician, who, by the way, happens to be a father of two school aged girls.  Why don't we expect our leaders to be human beings?  Is it because they so rarely demonstrate that reality?
Of all people Dr. Drew gave some rather bracing advice to the leaders of our country: we need to start modeling healthy relationships, because the dysfunction and divisive nature of our society is beginning to take its toll on our culture.  Amen to that.  Edwin Friedman pointed out years ago in Generation to Generation, that dysfunction will manifest symptoms within a family system, often in rather unexpected places.  The trauma of poor relationships between parents, for instance, can make children sick.  How is the zeitgeist of our age effect the most vulnerable members of our society?  Well in this case, if you buy Dr. Drew's analysis, which surprisingly, I think I do, the violence in our rhetoric and our deeds has warped folks, who are probably mentally and emotionally unstable to begin with, into monsters who will open fire on innocent people, even small children.
The dysfunction that Dr. Drew was talking about is manifest in our national conversations about many topics from marriage to economics, but it is perhaps most eerily present in the debate about gun control.  In the wake of shootings like this, a very powerful gun lobby will begin to try and shape the discourse, soon and very soon.  The conversation will degenerate into a shouting match between those who tout "bearing arms" as an inalienable right and some vague enemy of freedom that they perceive is trying to rob them of their rights.
I like guns.  I have two of them (not loaded, stored and trigger locked), they are both shotguns that were given to me by my Grandfather, when he used to take me hunting.  I don't think those guns, in and of themselves are dangerous, but I am a reasonable and stable person, who respects them as weapons and does not feel at all that they imbue me with any sort of god like power over life and death.  I do not want my nine year old son to have access to them, thus the trigger locks.  I am practicing gun control, as I think is the responsibility of any sane parent.
I also happen to believe that gun CONTROL, is a rather reasonable expectation to have our our government and law enforcement officials.  I do not see the harm in having to fill out some paperwork and wait a couple weeks, or even as long as a few months, if I would like to own a handgun.  If I am law abiding, and sane, I will be perfectly able to go through that process.  I wouldn't mind having to take a safety course similar to the one I took in order to get my hunting license.  I wouldn't mind having to demonstrate competency in the understanding and practice of safe gun handling, like I did when I got my driver's license.  I don't think anyone who is thinking about these things like a functional adult, should have a problem with such things.
We need more functional adults.  In politics, and in other sorts of leadership roles.  We have idolized adolescent fantasies long enough, it is time for us to grow up, or else our children are going to pay the price.  And when I say our children, I mean OUR children.  Amanda and Sarah Beatty were our children, those children in Connecticut were our children, yours, mine, Barack Obama's, OURS.
Don't let the insanity of the world destroy any more of OUR children.
Grow up, act like an adult, and for God's sake stop the violence, it's tearing us apart.