An All Too Familiar Feeling

I was sitting in my living room, taking a lunch break while in the midst for preparing for my final, and hardest exam. I quickly went to check my Facebook to see what menial changes had occurred since my last check in hours previously.

But I got the opposite from menial. I got earth shattering.

Like a stone dropped in still water, tragic events cause ripples. They spread throughout the surrounding area, and they take time to settle back to stillness.

A gunman had entered my beloved high school, and my school was on lock down.

My heart sunk in the seemingly impossible reality of it happening, yet again.

Plop.

I was only seven when Columbine High School fractured the idea of school being a safe place. My meager memory only recalls flashes of the chaos and the fear surrounding me.

But still I remember it.

And it was not too long ago that movies, a typical medium for escape from the harsh realities of the world, met a new reality of brutality.

And once more I remember waking up the next day to a string of worried text messages, because I was at one point in time, going to see that movie in that theatre.

Chaos bewildering and fear engulfing.  

The ripples are still spreading. 

And so as I sat, watching a live streaming of the streets and brick walls I knew so well, I was overcome once more by the palpable terror and confusion.

How could this happen at Arapahoe? Who would do this? Why?

There are no answers. There are never really any answers.

But in each of these aftermaths there is another consistent, accompanying all of the horror and havoc, love.

But these people are just part of the ripples. Instead of just a single ripple caused by the stone there are a hundred little ripples that flow into the one big one big ripple. There is more to healing than just the individual level.

After each shooting, after each instance of violence in this community there has been an overwhelming response of love, and compassion.

Facebook has now blown up with prayer requests and the warrior's emblem.

We have once more come together as one.

We have all become warriors.

We fight.

We persevere.

Because