My heart is heavy with the news of 19 children and 2 adults being killed in a horrific shooting at an elementary school in Texas. I cannot even fathom the situation. I don’t think many of us can. I was an elementary school teacher in California for 13 years and I remember the drills we needed to do to prepare for the types of situations that happened in Texas. It was always surreal and deeply disturbing that we ever had to do that.

I am not here to get into a debate or a lashing out, though that is completely understandable and needed, especially for anyone affected by this heinous act. What I do want to do is just humanize it. Get out of the realm of politics and go into the grief, even the rage, for what has just occurred. Unfortunately, it is becoming commonplace in the US and it points to some deeper issues that just can’t be solved only with laws.

There is an undercurrent of deep emotional distress beyond the pale. All the talk of solutions, rights, immigration, gender, or false flag just miss the mark at the moment. They cover over something that needs to be looked at and felt at a deeper layer inside all of us individually and collectively. What the hell is going on? How did it get to this point?

There is a sickness in our society. A dis-ease that is eating away at the core of our humanity. When it starts to find its way to our children, that has to be a wake-up call. First, a call to the grief. A call to the deep loss of our innocence and our connection to each other and the Holy. As a whole we have lost our way, and it shows. The tragic deaths of these children and adults must be a reflective point inside of us. A ‘coming to Jesus’ moment.

I don’t have an ‘answer’ to this. All that is and will be hotly debated are just band-aids to the pain that lies underneath. I get why the debate will rage, yet right now in the Heart, it means nothing. There is only feeling. I stand in feeling with all of those who have had their lives turned upside down and inside out. There are no words that can make it better or easier. We have to look inward first and decide what each of us does next.

What have we allowed to continue to fester underneath the veil of ‘normalcy’ when nothing is really normal anymore. The shadow is leaking out in ways that are having consequences we can’t not live with anymore. We have to call upon ourselves to go to the places that are not comfortable to see or feel and bring as much love as we can to it. We are also called to take action. Make choices for ourselves and our children, whether they are ours or not. They have taken the brunt of our misguided and unhealed ways for too long. We must consider what world we want to guide them into and to create for themselves. But first we must ask ourselves that same question.

The ‘system’ is broken. It was never really functional in my opinion, but something is definitely off the rails. These horrific events reflect something profound about its very nature as well as ours. We have a disconnect in us all. Not a thing to fix really, but to meet with an open and curious heart. We have to build a new system from the inside out. The roots of the new grass live in you and me. We need to grow that grass for our children, and inner children, to play on. To feel safe to explore and learn from, not to be killed in.

I am not a fan of guns or governments. I don’t like either. Yet here they are. A part of the system we live in whether we like it or not. I am not here to write a treatise on what should replace it or how to control it. I am just here to share my heart and cry my tears for what has happened. For what feels like should not have happened. Yet, maybe there is meaning in it after the grief. After the rage. Something for each of us to address in our own way whatever that way is.

For me, now, it is prayer. It is feeling the pain. It is sending my love to all of those that were affected and whose lives have changed forever. To them, to you, my heart says, “I love you and I am sorry.”

This must be our awakening.

*****

Gabriel Amara is a SoulFullHeart Facilitator for both men and women.  Visit https://www.soulfullheart.org for more information about sessions, group calls/events, videos, community, etc.