Tags
action, cleansing, grief, healing, mourning, platitudes, prayer, random violence, shootings, Spirituality, terrorism
This season of random violence seems never-ending. I write the morning after the Chesapeake Walmart shooting, four days after the Club Q shooting, a week after the shootings of University of Virginia students, and sometime before the next attack. We also remember shootings in places as different as Uvalde, Charleston, Pittsburgh, Gilroy, Parkland, and Orlando.
Like you, I feel raw because of these random acts of terrorism, and I am tired of the pious platitudes mouthed by politicians under the guise of “thoughts and prayers” and other concerns. The United States is in a season of death and in need of courageous action by elected officials to deal with violence-related matters, ranging from the difficulty of access to mental healthcare to the easy ownership of automatic weapons.
The United States also needs a form of national mourning and cleansing. Armenians traditionally hold hokehankist (rest for the soul), a requiem service to mourn the dead forty days after the death of the loved one. While the requiem cannot bring closure to grief, it offers a sense of consolation and hope.
Pray, chant, burn sage, do whatever rituals you know for healing and see what happens.
Add to your rituals one other practice: telephone conversations and messages, emails, texts, and any other means of communication with elected officials at all levels.
georgehdonigian 