It was ...different... going in to work this morning. I ran into a fellow parishioner this morning as I was grabbing coffee and bagels on the way to work. The standard greeting around NIU these days is no longer "Hi," but some variation on "How are you doing?" When she asked me that question in the bagel shop, I looked at my watch and said, "I'll know in about 10 minutes," that being roughly the amount of time it was going to take me to drive to campus, park my car, and walk to my office.
On the one hand, it was good to be back in familiar surroundings and doing familiar things. Though I'm grateful for being given some time off to think and pray and reflect and grieve, by the end of the day yesterday I was chomping at the bit a little. I wanted to be doing something again, not just sitting at home and thinking. Not that I don't have plenty to think about--I do. But I wanted to be doing something in and around that thinking.
Still, I wasn't sure--and many of the colleagues I spoke with today expressed similar feelings--what it was going to feel like when I stepped back on campus in the daylight, during working hours, on a regular workday, after leaving it under such stressful and confusing circumstances last Thursday. The metaphor I used to describe how I was feeling to one of the colleagues who inquired was that it felt like trying on a new suit--though now that I think about it, maybe the better metaphor is trying on an old suit that has been altered for the first time. You know you like the cut and the material, but you're still not sure how it's going to hang on you or move with you--it may need to be shortened here, let out there.
We're going to be working on our usual jobs this week, but more importantly, most of the faculty and staff (anybody who has front-line responsibilities for working with students) will be going to informational workshops on what to expect and how to respond when the students come back next week. And that was adding a little weirdness to what was already a weird day. I literally had no idea what I was going to do today when I walked into the office, beyond an 11 o'clock staff meeting.
Also weird was the absence of the students. That is not, in and of itself, terribly weird: the staff work during spring break and intersession, when the campus is mostly otherwise empty. But this isn't one of those times: it's the middle of the semester, and the students should be here. The media presence has diminished somewhat, but they're still here (and I expect they'll be back in full force by Sunday night before the campus memorial service), and that was weird--personally weird for me, today. After our staff meeting wound up, I walked over to the university bookstore to see if they still had some Huskie gear available (which they did, so I relieved them of the necessity of counting a couple of pieces when they have to do inventory later this semester), and then thought I'd walk past the memorials on the Commons, which I didn't get a chance to see on Friday night.
On the way out of the student center, as I was pulling on my gloves and getting ready to go back out into the cold, I saw an ambulance pull up outside, and immediately thought, "Oh, Christ, what's happened now?" After holding the door for the ambulance crew and the NIU police officer who accompanied them, I walked over to the hill with the five crosses that overlooks the Commons. After saying a short prayer, I walked over to the four huge message boards set up in the center of the Commons. As I was reading the comments on the last one, with a couple of other people standing near me, a reporter from the CBS affiliate in Chicago came up to us and asked if we were faculty members, and if we'd had the training yet. She was polite and respectful about it, but I did resent it a little that she would intrude on our private moment like that. I suppose it's just one more thing we're going to have to get used to.
Another thing on that list, and one that I am very definitely not willing to get used to, is the nutjobs from Westboro Baptist. For reasons known but to them and to God, they have decided to make NIU their latest base for trying to attract attention to themselves. They were picketing near campus last Friday at the vigil, which I only learned about afterward (fortunately). They've been picketing all of the funerals of the students who were killed thus far, and they have announced their intention to picket at the memorial service this coming Sunday. I'm not a violent man by any stretch of the imagination, but I have to hope I'm not going to see any of those scumbags when I'm going to the Convo Center Sunday evening--because I'm not sure I'd be able to restrain myself from trying to disembowel one or more of them with a dull spoon, that's how furious it makes me to think that these loathsome and hate-filled people--every one of whom should be rotting in jail or someplace equally unpleasant--have to use us and our time of grief to try to make themselves relevant and get anyone to pay attention to their hate-mongering. It is beyond me what they hope to get out of this, other than some attention from the media. I understand that there are counter-protest groups working to be sure they don't get that, however, and that pleases me. I'd help out, if I weren't worried that I'd fly off the handle at the sight of those nutjobs.
I feel the same way, though not to the level of wanting to wreak mayhem on their persons, about some of the talking-heads and bloggers and pundits that I've heard or seen bloviating on this tragedy and using it to pimp for their pet political causes. Far too many people--and I say this as someone who has never liked guns and who does think that our gun laws are far too lax--have been arguing that all we need to do to prevent further tragedies like this is to ban guns altogether. A far smaller minority have argued the opposite case, that we should let everybody carry a gun with them into class. I call bullshit on both of those ideas. Blaming the guns (or suggesting that everyone should have one) is too easy of a fix. As one of my colleagues said to me today, gun control would be like putting a Band-Aid on a severed artery: it may look and feel good, but it will have absolutely no effect on the actual problem.
The sad thing is how few people I've heard calling for what may well be the only viable solution--a complete overhaul of our health care system, especially as it applies to mental health care. The insurance companies want to run everything on the cheap and make decisions based on the bottom line--when what we should be doing is making decisions on what's best for the patients involved. If we'd been able to do that with Stephen Kazmierczak, he and five others might still be alive today. But fixing health care is not an easy solution, and it sure as hell isn't cheap. For that reason, I can safely say it's unlikely that anything will be done to fix it--and if anything is even tried, it is almost certain to be a purely cosmetic measure that will have little actual or beneficial effect.
It would be nice if we could take advantage of the fact that we've got the media and their cameras in our midst to move the goalposts a little closer toward a realistic health care system. But I doubt we'll be given the opportunity--even if we have the time to think the matter through and come up with a realistic proposal. The soundbyte is king anymore, and we're in the midst of primary season. I estimate we've got less than a week left before the media will leave us alone and everyone will forget where DeKalb is on the map again.
My wonderful cousin Michael. Your mom forwarded me your blog address. She said she was biased, but she was right. Your blog is wonderful. I cried as I read through it. As I mentioned to her...I've been reading and listening to everything I can during my business travels as it relates to NIU and the horrible events over the last week. I have thought of you all so often...you wondering if you were safe, and your mom, Shell and other DeKalb residents...how everyone was fairing. Can't say I know what you are going through because I dont. But, I can say that I can imagine the feelings...horror, anger, guilt, sorrow, compassion, hate, love, frustration, hope, etc. Who would have ever thought something like this would happen in DeKalb at NIU?! Know I think you are doing great, healing work for you and others by documenting your feelings and thoughts. You wrote an AWESOME prayer. What a gift you have, Michael! Just know that folks from all over the country, me included, keep you all in our thoughts and prayers and know you all, along with the friends and families of both the shooter and the victims are in pain and going through a horribly difficult time. Keep up your good work. Jenni
Posted by: Jenni Webber | Tuesday, 19 February 2008 at 22:08