As I sit in an Arizona airport today waiting for my delayed plane home and listening to the news of the tragic events that took place today I can not help but wonder if we have all collectively lost our minds. The day before a local school was in lock down because of a nearby burglary. At my sons Halloween parade this past fall there was a sniper like presence on the roof top of the school. I guess to protect us from a possible shooter or maybe to keep an eye out for a child-knapper. I try not to think when I go into a grocery store or put my kids on the bus to school that someone might just shoot at us today but I do find those kinds of thoughts creeping in. But who are these people that are firing guns off at us in our communities? They are members of our communities. They are coming from us. They are in some ways a product of us. We can’t protect ourselves with guns or we can to some extent but someone is going to slip through. What are we going to do? Have metal detectors at every school entrance and every grocery store? I think today’s events took place in a parking lot. Shall we search every car before they pull in? I don’t know maybe we should but I can’t help but think that these shootings are the result of the break down of our communities. I think for all of our social networks and online ‘communities’ that we are moving into a time of increasing social isolation. Humans are social creatures. We need real live people in real live communities to sustain our mental health. There was a time not too long ago when people knew their neighbors because they shopped at their pharmacies and bought their food from their farms. You knew who was having financial problems. You knew who had a drinking problem. The community knew who the troubled souls of their group were and helped them. Where has this gone? Why can’t we recognize these very same people among us? Have our communities gotten too large? Are we too busy? Are there not enough opportunities to meet the members of our communities? What ever the reason, I think we need to at least try to rebuild our physical communities. We have to try to get involved in someway by either supporting a local business, joining a church, volunteering at the local school or the local soup kitchen. Heck even knocking on your neighbor’s door and introducing yourself. If we want to protect ourselves, I think we need to get to know each other again.
