Today as I stood by the copier outside my third-floor office at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, I plotted my escape. The shooter would hunt for crowds, opportunities to inflict the most damage. While the machine pushed out warm copies for my 10:00 class, I looked through the glass in the double doors facing the bright hall where a river of students shuffled toward the narrow open staircase and descended single file on the right side while another line ascended on the left. Between classes these stairs were always jammed with people. A bad option.
On the other hand, the back exit that students couldn’t easily access—a windowless concrete stairwell used almost exclusively by faculty—was a far better and less conspicuous choice. No bottlenecks of people, minimal lighting, and the distinct possibility a shooter wouldn’t even know about it. If it came down to it, that’s where I’d go.
I grabbed my copies and walked around the corner and into my office — a filing cabinet to the right of the door, a small table against one off-white wall, blue carpeting, fluorescent lighting, a six-foot tall bookcase, and two chairs for students. A dark brown L-shaped desk stood near the far wall, the office chair setting in front of a keyboard and monitor. I sat down, dropped the copies on a stack of folders, and swiveled around. I looked back at the door: solid wood with a narrow rectangular window of reinforced glass. I could tip the filing cabinet in front of it, shut off the lights, flip the table on its side, and barricade myself behind it. It might work.
This isn’t the first time I’ve wondered what I’d do if events at BU unfolded as they had on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The shooter, a former student, used an AR-15, shot and killed seventeen students and teachers, and is being held without bond. Now, two days later, it seemed to be happening again. I was online and saw the breaking news on CNN: Highline Community College in Washington state was locked down after reports of gunfire. I picked up the stack of manila folders, copies, and a textbook and went down the quiet back stairwell to my next class on the second floor.
Since Wednesday’s shooting, Republicans slowly emerged from their rat holes and predictably offered only a moment of silence, a flag at half mast, and a tweet trumpeting “prayers and condolences.” No talk, no debate, no railing against another white terrorist gunning down Americans en masse. It’s still too soon, they claim, the hurt too fresh. Let’s not politicize this. It’s about the victims and their families. Let them heal. Let us pray.
When the so-called Christians in Congress, the devout talking-heads, and sympathetic NRAers call on Americans to offer up “thoughts and prayers” to the dead and bereaved, recognize what this is: code for “Shut your mouth, and close your eyes.” Politicians want us to appeal to an entity who — like the government — has shown no inclination to stop or even slow the slaughter of school-age children in this country.
If, instead of protesting, we pray, “Thy will be done,” the politicians figure we’ll choose complacency over complaint.
If, instead of banging on their doors, we mumble, “On earth as it is in heaven,” maybe we’ll fall back on wishful thinking rather than willful action.
If — instead of smearing the blood-soaked sneakers, blouses, and backpacks riddled with AR-15 bullet holes in those politicians’ faces — we request nothing more than “our daily bread” from the Almighty, maybe we’ll decide that we shouldn’t expect more of them.
And if — instead of raising our voices and raining our collective fury on the propagandists on FOX, the Russian gun-runners in the NRA, the gutless money-grubbers in Congress, and the illiterate channel-surfing golf bag in the White House — if we bow our heads and intone, “As we forgive those who trespass against us,” we have already relented and offered the shooter and all his suited accomplices a charitable Christian pass.
Given the millions of prayers likely offered up in the days following recent mass shootings in this country — in Paintsville, KY, on February 11th; in Melcroft and Reading, PA, on January 29th; in Long Branch, NJ, on December 31st; in Corning, CA, on November 15th; in Sutherland Springs, TX, on November 5th; in Casa Grande, AZ, on October 5th; in Las Vegas, NV, on October 1st; and in hundreds of other places across the country in the past five years —given all those prayers, might we not reasonably expect that one day soon He would actually “deliver us from evil”? Or should we finally admit that calls for “thoughts and prayers” in the face of another national tragedy is nothing more than a panacea, a form of passive censorship. It’s high time that we recognize that even though “Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory” might provide some personal consolation, we cannot and should not expect prayer to stop or convert or destroy the evil actors and their accomplices who pour destruction on innocent human beings time and time again.
When I walk into the second-floor classroom, twenty-two young people — mostly teenagers, one Army vet, two guys retaking the course, and at least two high school students who commute from the Scranton area — sit in six rows of desks. In front Marissa squints at her phone and scrolls through social media. Brian, a big African-American young man, fills his chair and slumps over the desktop, his head resting on his arms, his red hood pulled over his short hair and eyes. Eugene, Syd, and Morgan chat and laugh in the back. Alejandra leans her head against the far wall, her white ear buds plugged into her phone. Imanni studies her tablet and scribbles on it with her finger. Molly’s straight red hair falls just past her ears as she sits upright and waits attentively for class to begin. They have siblings, boyfriends and girlfriends, divorced parents and single parents, jobs, anxiety, dreams of graduation and professions, dying grandparents, skateboards and Xboxes, dogs that miss them while they’re away at school, and swimming holes they dream of leaping into next summer. They have lives.
Prayer will not protect them. Prayer will not barricade the door. Prayer will not slow down a determined shooter.
Only we can do that.
