November 6: Moonlike Ruins, First Baptist Church, Gun Violence

Nothing more was said about Dresden that night, and Billy closed his eyes, traveled in time to a May afternoon, two days after the end of the Second World War in Europe.  Billy and five other American prisoners were riding in a coffin-shaped green wagon, which they had found abandoned, complete with two horses, in a suburb of Dresden.  Now they were being drawn by the clop-clop-clopping horses down narrow lanes which had been cleared through the moonlike ruins.  They were going back to the slaughterhouse for souvenirs of the war.  Billy was reminded of the sounds of milkmen's horses early in the morning in Ilium, when he was a boy.

Billy sat in the back of the jiggling coffin.  His head was tilted back and his nostrils were flaring.  He was happy.  He was warm.  There was food in the wagon, and wine--and a camera, and a stamp collection, and a stuffed owl, and a mantel clock that ran on changes of barometric pressure.  The Americans had gone into empty houses in the suburb where they had been imprisoned, and they had taken these and many other things.

The owners, hearing that the Russians were coming, killing and robbing and raping and burning, had fled.

But the Russians hadn't come yet, even two days after the war.  It was peaceful in the ruins.  Billy saw only one other person on the way to the slaughterhouse.  It was an old man pushing a baby buggy.  In the buggy were pots and cups and an umbrella frame, and other things he had found.

I'm assuming the reason that Billy is happy in this passage is the fact that he is no longer a prisoner, that the war has ended, that he survived the bombing of Dresden, and that, relatively soon, he will be on his way home.  Basically, he is out of danger.  He has survived, despite the odds against him.

I apologize for my absence yesterday.  I have no excuse except the craziness of the last two weeks and the resulting exhaustion at the end of the day.  In fact, I was so busy that, until late last night, I was unaware of the mass shooting at First Baptist Church in Texas.  I found out the details this morning.  Twenty-six people mrudered.  Around twenty more critically wounded.

It's a story that is way too familiar in the United States.  In fact, I can predict what is going to happen in the next few weeks.  There will be lots of stories in the news about the people who were killed.  There will be lots of stories about wounded survivors.  Slowly, detail will surface about the shooter.  His troubled background, history of violence and/or mental illness.  There will be calls for stricter gun legislation.  There will be push-back from gun rights groups like the NRA.

And then, all this fade into the background.  Life will return to normal, whatever normal is.  Until the next mass shooting.

I am tired of this cycle.  Tired of how numb I'm becoming to news like this.  Tired of guns.

Do not leave comments on this post defending the Second Amendment.  Do not get angry at me for saying that we have a gun problem in this country.

Get angry a for a 17-month-old girl who is dead.  For a 77-year-old grandmother who is dead.  For 26 people who were worshiping God yesterday morning who are now dead.  Because of guns.

Saint Marty is not thankful this afternoon.  He's pissed.