A culture of competitive violence

For some time now, I've been recounting my thesis that one way to describe the culture of america is in terms of competitive violence. I'll leave the competitive element aside here for now, because it's the violence piece that most recently nailed me again.
You see, as it turns out, I not only live in Tinley Park now, but I was at the shooting location when the 5 women were shot down; I was just across the parking lot in the Super Target picking up a couple DVD’s that I plan to use in my class on Tues.
I got “locked down” inside Target as the cops from about every local town and county descended upon us, with more live weaponry than I’ve ever seen before … We didn’t have a clue what was going on/down, til someone phoned home on a cell phone and learned from a radio report that there’d been a robbery/shooting in the store across the parking lot.
I was struck by three things in the moment. First, I phoned home to reassure Connie that, while I would be delayed indefinitely, I was o.k. I had no idea if she was even aware of the situation, but I didn’t want her to worry. Even as I thought of Connie, I couldn't help but also think of the families for whom no reassuring word would come; their loved ones had died.
Second, I was stunned and made a bit fearful by all the weaponry that the law put on display. Fear and violence beget more fear and violence. Not only did every officer have a revolver, etc., but the swat teams had high powered rifles, all on the ready, etc. Everyone was wearing bullet proof vests, etc. They did a sweep of the parking lot, looking into every vehicle to see if the person had taken up hiding in there, and when, after a couple hours or so they let us go, they said it was up to us if we wanted to take the risk … since the offender was still on the loose. Unnerving.
But perhaps worst, as I sat in the little cafeteria area of this super Target, two episodes seemed to capture so much of contemporary American life: a cop came through fairly early on and did a visual search of us all, but then went out of his way to ask a young black fellow who was clearly wearing a Super Target uniform, badge and even Target baseball cap, to take off the cap and stand aside for closer scrutiny. I know the cop had to do it; on the other hand, I thought of my black college students and couldn’t help but wonder what kind of hell they’d have to endure if they had happened to quick run out a minute to Target that morning like I had. Alongside this, a portly white fellow more or less my age commented, in response to Target handing us all $3 coupons for our inconvenience, that $3 was a pretty paltry thing in light of having lost “his Saturday”. I said: “It’s not Target’s fault. They probably are losing hundreds/thousands of dollars for having to be shut down on their biggest day of the week.” But what got to me was that the inconvenience of a couple hours seemed like the most important thing in this person’s life when just across the parking lot people had been shot to death. The incongruity of it all—death, consumer convenience just rattled me.
I’ll be reflecting on this a bit in class tomorrow. Interestingly, my last lecture was a presentation in which I rehearse the state of our culture and had commented, specifically, that i didn't think Columbine or Virginia Tech were exceptional situations, but rather we could expect similar events to recurr with lamentable frequency. Some of my students thought I’d painted an overly grim picture of US life. They began to tune me out; I was getting over the top and boring. Ironic, eh. I go out to buy a CD for that same class, and get caught up in the very violence of which I spoke.

Today, at work, I heard a lecture in which the speaker said that the church in North America was like a thermometer, when it should be a thermostat. One reflects the state of things, the other changes and influences it.

Please pray with me that God will comfort the families of the women who were killed.
And please pray with me that my students will begin to understand the gravity of the situation and God's urgent call for us to be peacemakers ...

bill