What If It Was My Child at Parkland? Dear God, What If...?

Empathy (noun,) from the German einfühlung, meaning "feeling into"; to enter into the feelings of another person; from the Greek pathos, "to suffer"; to enter into the suffering of another person     --etymonline.com et al

What if?

What if it was my child, my son or my daughter, who was killed February 14th, Ash Wednesday, in the hallways of a suburban Florida high school? What if I was the one who got the phone call from a first responder or school counselor, giving me that awful, world shattering news, that broke my heart wide open? What if one of the 17 beautiful and innocent kids lost was my little brother or my big sister, my teammate or the friend I went to church youth group with, the kind neighborhood kid who lives next door, who I'd never, ever see again? 

What if?

What if the precious lives lost in America's latest mass shooting were not the stuff of sensational newspaper headlines we read and then turn away from, or breathless TV reports we watch and then quickly turn off, but are instead somehow real to us? Closer. So close that these deaths move us to in fact change our hearts and change our minds so that we actually do something, do anything, work, to make sure a similar cataclysm and tragedy does not happen again.  Ever.

What if?

What if the women and men in Congress and the President, actually showed moral imagination and empathy, that rare human ability and gift to enter into the suffering and the pain of a fellow human being?  What if, after this latest mass shooting, which came after the last mass shooting and the one before that and the one before that, instead of acting with spiritually vapid "thoughts and prayers" these pols did more?  What if they decided it was more important to protect school children than get re-elected? What if they actually reached across the aisle and worked for compromise on gun control, background checks, sharing mental health information, and making sure the mentally ill cannot, will not ever have access to firearms?

What if?

What if the majority of law abiding everyday gun owners tore up their National Rifle Association(NRA) membership cards and demanded a sane and merciful balance between legitimate second amendment rights and simple public safety, the notion that our kids must be free to go to school without fear?

What if?

What if we imagined the very heart of God breaking apart, shattering into a million pieces, in response to the death of the innocent, these children of God, who were made by God to live long and substantial lives? The young people of Parkland were supposed to grow up and fall in love and have children of their own and realize their dreams but now they will never know this.  What if God offers comfort in the midst of our national grief, but anger too? What if God demands that we the living actually do something, and not just wait until the next tragic news breaks again?  What if we as a nation are somehow collectively culpable until together, we finally, find a way out of this national nightmare?

What if?  

What if that was my child? I can't imagine that, but perhaps, I should. I must. I will.