This is what happens when you no longer have strong communities where people know each other and look out after one another. In the wake of the shooting in a Cleveland high school, the city, already strapped and barely making it along, will spend over three million dollars to install metal detectors in all of its schools (not to mention the cost of having people to man them etc.)Is this not disturbing? It is not the cost, but the fact that we feel it necessary to have metal detectors in schools. And further, it is not that there might be another kid out there who might be on the path to becoming the type of person who would do the same thing, but that our communities have so fallen apart that there was not one person who was there to help this boy in his formative years or was aware of his violent tendencies and as community try to bring some help to the kid.
The sad part here is that as we move further and further from community and freedom being the basis of civilization to autonomy and license, the more we have to rely on things and laws and enforcement to enable us to survive side by side.
Major medical decisions are now relegated to a piece of paper when you were in a state that may not equal your current mindset, yet a piece of paper is held as binding instead of a flesh and blood person who you know and trust, who takes council with the doctors, possibly family and hopefully your faith tradition to plot a course for the future when you are unable.
Adriana Trigiani in “Rococo” writing about people who come to rely too heavily on money puts forth that, “Rich people develop a feeling of invincibility, but none of us are exempt from the pain and suffering of life. A wealthy person thinks, 'If I need a kidney, I’ll buy one; If I lose my career I’ll coast;' or when 'I’m old, I won’t need to rely on the kindness of others, I can pay someone to take care of me.' Instead of building up relationships that matter, the rich man nurtures his relationship with his accountant.”
Apparently there were many signs that this kid was headed for trouble (as it seems there almost always is.) True freedom would still exist for that boy and the people he shot had community been more cohesive and concerned about the young man than being afraid of trespassing on someone’s business. That is the basis of the community of Church. It is the basis of true freedom. It is us and God, not me and God.
“When you go at it alone, the worst in you will come out.” - Fr. Canice
