It was with profound relief that I listened to the minister close last evening's community Christmas musical by acknowledging the unimaginable tragedy that had occurred earlier in the day. It was a multi-denomination concert but it happened to be held in the United Church so it was that minister who was closing the evening in prayer for everyone in attendance.
"Perfect words," I was able to tell her afterwards but that's all I could speak. The unimaginable was also unspeakable.
Fellowship afterwards was, for me, a lovely time. A balm for my shocked spirit. I am a stranger in church but not in the community although to many, I am a name but not a face. Thankfully, enough people recognized me and said the kindest words about my writing.  How much they enjoy it; one woman even told me her favourite columns.
The minister's prayer, the conversations over tea are all connected to the tragedy in Connecticut -- the giving and receiving of kind words, of encouragement. They keep the light burning in the darkness that had swept in around us, closer than ever before.
How to go on when 26 lives have stopped?  How to go on at Christmas time when 26 lives will never be home for Christmas again?
(Who shoots children? That's been my burning question, likely never to be answered. Who shoots children? And if your illness, your challenges are so great that an act like that is what you will driven to, how badly funded/staffed/managed is the mental health system that it would allow you to reach that point?)
So it's all in the kindness to each other and to oneself. Every time this happens (and my prayer now is that this, THIS unspeakable tragedy that killed 20 children, finally will make it clear that absolutely no one needs to possess assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols), every time this happens, we have to love each other more and be kinder to each other. That is our only human defense against the darkness. The light that shines from us is the only thing that makes sense in these black days.
A time of waiting, indeed.