A Shooting Close to Home

Yesterday, the news hit close to home. A shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs (American football) Superbowl celebration at Union Station in Kansas City. 23 shot, including children. One killed.

I live 95 miles away, which means the shooting isn’t that close to home. But it is. Union Station is a landmark in Kansas City, a grand building which hosts exhibitions which have commemorated Van Gogh and the Holocaust. It’s a gathering place along with its nearby Memorial Hill and Liberty Memorial Tower. I have been there, eaten at Pierpont’s, and taken a train from the station to Hermann for my honeymoon. Never have I felt unsafe there.

The first I heard of the shooting was the messages on Facebook: Kansas City friends, please report in. Are you okay? And the reports came in, from friends and friends of friends: We went over the fence. I heard a series of pops and we ran. I was right in front of where it happened. I don’t know what to tell my kids.

23 shot, including children. One killed.

And then, the frustration. Thoughts and prayers become suspect, because the prayers we need are for people to do hard work to solve the mass shooting problem. The thoughts we need are for solutions. It’s going to take both pro- and anti-gun sides to do the work because that’s how we work in the US. Instead, we see finger-pointing and recriminations and the shrugging of shoulders because we can’t find any way to solve the problem of mass shootings.

I am a pacifist, so I sit on the side of fewer guns in the US. But I also believe that a way can open for us to find the solution, even with vehemently opposing sides. And my thoughts and prayers will go toward a way where this can happen.

Thoughts and Prayers and Results and Change

Well, I had a disaster with my course site for People, Money, and Psychology that took out two weeks of lesson plan. Any attempts at restoring the previous files failed, so I had to recreate these two weeks from memory.

Not a good day. I have to admit I was tempted to indulge in a few minutes of “I’ve been good, God, where’s my cookie!?” This is a childish thought pattern of mine, a plea to God to get me published in compensation for trials and tribulations I have suffered:

as if God throws trials and tribulations at me
as if God has control over my becoming published

My notion is that praying to God to make things happen is at best futile. For example, praying that your football (soccer in the US) team wins. The other team’s fans are praying as well. Whose team is God going to choose? The one with the most people praying? The one with the loudest fans?

I don’t think prayer works that way. I don’t think prayer works in any way that directly makes external change in the world.

Let me explain. The athletes pray that they’ll win, and this helps motivate them to do their best. They may win as a result of this focus. I may pray that something good happens, and I will be focused on this good outcome and find it. I may even pray to get published. Will it get me published? I don’t think so. Will it open me to knowledge that I can use to improve my chances? That’s what I suspect happens.

So I don’t think “thoughts and prayers” reduce the amount of mass shootings in this country unless it: 1) keeps praying gun owners from using their guns in human violence or 2) affects the praying populace to push toward gun control. I don’t think the people throwing thoughts and prayers are open to either change.

Beyond Thoughts and Prayers

I don’t normally go political with this blog, but in the face of this weekend of deadly shootings in the US, I need to say something.

Why won’t Americans make wise decisions about guns, ones where we don’t assume we need guns because we don’t trust others not to have guns? The ones where we realize that our chances of getting shot at the Walmart may become as likely as getting shot in a home invasion?

My suspicion, one which others share, is that guns are too thoroughly woven into American mythology and thus in American consciousness for us to disarm easily. Our existence started with a guerilla war of colonists against the mother country. We took land from its rightful owners through firepower, we fought wild animals on our journey westward, hunted our own food … Guns are as much a part of the mythology as log cabins and wagon trains.

I don’t think it’s inevitable that we give up on gun control completely. We should ban weapons designed to deliver a barrage of bullets in a very short time — our ancestors didn’t have those. They’re not needed for hunting. They have been banned before, and deaths from guns decreased by 40%. Since that ban expired, deaths from guns increased by about 240%. The only reasons people want them is for status, for fun (it is fun blowing things up), and for killing people.

We could require gun owners to lock their guns up when not in use, with stiff penalties. Granted, no penalty is as stiff as the death of children from playing with an unattended gun, but these deaths don’t seem to prompt families into locking up their guns.

We should require background checks — not just for mental illness, but felonies, domestic violence, reports of violent ideation. These should be reciprocal from state to state or federally managed. I understand that gun owners are afraid to be put on a “list”, but there should be a responsibility gun owners take when taking on a lethal weapon that can be used for multiple deaths quickly.

Most of all, however, we need a new mythology in the US, one which supports ingenuity, creativity, adaptability, and community. These qualities are represented in our history — settlers needed to rely on each other to survive, vibrant and colorful communities developed across the country, we learn and adapt from our trespasses in the past against those not like us (at least I hope so). We have to find a way to make the American Dream accessible to everyone, so that guns are seen as superfluous to our identity.

Querying progress: Not a lot to report

I haven’t reported my writing/query progress for a while, so here it is:

My Prodigies query got rejected by Tor/Forge and a lot of agents over the past few months.

My query is now out to three publishers — one big, the others small and independent.

One of the small presses asked for my whole manuscript, which is progress. We shall see.

The other two presses — it’s early days yet.

Please keep me in your thoughts and even prayers if you think this unabashedly liberal and universalist Quaker deserves them.

Thoughts and Prayers

I know that most of you in the United States are people I already know. My overseas readers, for the most part, seem to be regulars, but I don’t know you (or don’t think I know you). I am addressing all of you.

I need your thoughts and prayers.

Not in the sense of “I need to say something of comfort so I can go back to what I was doing,” as is too often the case when handling preventable tragedies in the US.

But I believe in thoughts and prayers if they occur in the sense of “I hope the best for this person.” I believe this has an effect — not necessarily to bring out a desired outcome, but to provide hope, clarity, courage, patience in the person who needs these things.

I need these things, because I’m struggling with writing. You might have noticed that I haven’t been able to write daily, and that’s because I don’t know if I’m going to continue writing. I have no idea if I’m ever going to be published, and I’m not sure it’s worth the time and money it takes to improve and make a story reading-ready.

But I don’t know if I’m not going to continue writing, either.

So, if you have a spare moment and the intent to help, send thoughts and prayers my way. You don’t even have to tell me you did. But I need to find clarity to move forward in whatever direction opens to me. .