Pagan Studies
News and practical training in leadership, ministry, and personal growth from Cherry Hill Seminary.
Sorrow on the Strip
By now the Route 91 shooting in Las Vegas is old news, the shooter a mystery who will never have to answer for his actions in a courtroom since he chose suicide after murdering 58 and affecting thousands more.
Vegas was not a vacation destination I ever would have chosen. And I did not need to play the hero by rushing to volunteer in the aftermath. But I was asked to be part of the Red Cross team, so I packed my suitcase on Monday night, rose in the dark and landed at noon local time barely a mile from the concert/shooting site.One cannot drive from the airport into town without passing the Mandalay. Two broken out windows with ragged plastic blowing out are a jolting reminder that this is not a made-for-tv photo shoot or footage from a documentary, but the real thing. Yellow crime scene tape reinforced the surreal knowledge that less than 48 hours ago this had been an apocryphal scene.
Surreal may be the best adjective to describe Vegas, generally and in better times. The lights on the Strip are eye candy that one cannot ignore. But behind the good-times face put on for tourists, not one person I encountered was not grieving or at least shaken to the core. A woman in a business suit waiting on her order at Panera Bread who broke down when she saw our Red Cross badges. The person checking me into my hotel room, who quietly admitted that one of their staff was killed, her friend, but still unnamed at that time. The paramedics who wondered out loud to me whether they would have been as brave as their coworker who was off duty that night but raced to the scene, rescued people, rushed them to a hospital, then repeated the process over and over again. 
After being on site a few days I became acutely aware that in our time we have created a new "client population," a diaspora of those who endure a tragedy like Route 91, then return home and try to go back to work, to families, to whatever was normal for them before. Because nothing will ever be the same again. Normal is no longer a relevant word for them. A chaplain (or Disaster Spiritual Care volunteer, as Red Cross calls us) does not dispense anything that will neutralize what victims have been through, what anyone connected to a tragedy will wrestle with for a long time to come. Our role is to be there, to listen, to ensure that no one has to live through the aftermath alone, to offer prayers if asked, to connect individuals with that which best serves their soul.
With 22,000 people present at just this one shooting, you can be sure, wherever you live, that someone connected to you has been affected. In fact, every one of us has been affected. In Red Cross spiritual care, we say that our goal is to be changed but not wounded by our work. But I see that our society, our nation, the entire world, is wounded by the violence. As Pagans who feel compelled to serve others, we can be prepared through solid training at Cherry Hill Seminary. I never planned on being a chaplain, but I'm so glad studied and did the work. We can also make healing and peace our personal mission. Temple Osireion (my local group) has been holding an interfaith circle every few months since 2016. Our goal is to give people of various and no religions a safe and sacred space in which to grieve, ponder, heal and build peace. (I'm happy to share our ritual with you if you are interested, just email me.)
This Samhain I will be thinking of the many who were unexpectedly, prematurely, shoved beyond the veil this year. I will not call them to me, but I will wish them peace that passes all understanding, because I certainly do not understand.
Author's recent posts
Comments
-
Please login first in order for you to submit comments
