When Worship Feels Like A Risk: Navigating Faith After Violence

On a late August morning, I received the phone call that every grandparent should learn to dread.

My breakfast plate was still full; my inbox, still demanding attention; my music selection, still calming.  The day’s schedule was filled with the usual, when I picked up and said, “Hi” to my son’s number

“Mom”, he shouted into my ear.  “There’s an active shooter at the school.”

“What?” was the only thing I could get out.

“There’s an active shooter,” he said again.  “I’m driving there now!”

Faster than I ever thought possible, I was dressed, in my car and racing the ten blocks to Annunciation School and its garland of ambulances, police cars, yellow tape, and frantic parents. Incoherent, I talked my way through the uniformed security that guarded access to the gym. Finding my son in the milling crowd wasn’t difficult given his height and his smile and wave of relief. Our student was physically unhurt.

The rest of the day, our family took refuge at my house. No TV. Solo forays outside to make phone calls to family members. A few questions about the experience, making sure to be calm. And a huge black hole in our lives about the future.

Since then, we’ve navigated much. We’ve learned about violence, grief, and trauma. A few things stand out, though.  

First, the school became more than its parents and students and teachers. The entirety of my neighborhood—in the broadest sense of the word—rallied in support. The local library offered its community room to a spontaneously formed community group that created the blue and green makings for streamers. For days afterwards these school colors were tied to every possible pole and tree for blocks in all directions. Masses of flowers and other memorials crowded the front doors and sidewalks of the church. Clergy from different denominations appeared there to offer support to those who grieved there. People, not related to the school, volunteered shifts to manage everything. Grocery stores brought food; other schools and parks provided gathering places and activities; art-making spaces created special opportunities for students and their adults. Just this week, the local newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize for its thoughtful and compassionate coverage.

Then the school year itself changed. School shootings in the US are now so frequent that a counseling profession has developed to deal with them. Our school immediately contracted with two experienced providers of such support. Special meetings for parents and support people, ongoing trauma work with teachers and staff, and daily presence of 5-7 counselors became a year-long school reality. Children were consulted as to their individual readiness to participate in the Christmas program, for example. The big family-friendly festival was by invitation only and thick with security presence. Everything that has happened at school this year reflected in some way the terror and tragedy of that first school week.

Unique school leadership was also a requirement. No school principal can possibly be trained to handle a school shooting. The character, faith, and steadiness of our leader have become examples of the qualities that such a situation demands. We are all quoting the words he spoke early in our journey: “Pray for us but be sure to move your feet.”  

Above all, there’s church. The shooting happened during the school’s first mass, held in the parish church next to the school. Now “church” is traumatic. A sanctuary, long believed to be place of refuge and safety, has become synonymous with terror and violence. Even the rituals of faith, like weekly prayer services in the school gym, don’t completely overcome the sense of danger. 

For months, the church itself was closed. While the stained-glass windows of the nave were healed immediately, the pews with their bullet holes and scars were not.  At one point, a few parents asked if they could enter, just for their own peace. Before long, our family’s three adults decided to do that too. We learned where our student had been sitting, experienced the path that her middle-school buddy took to shepherd a group to safety downstairs. The priest who let us in remained a pastoral presence as we absorbed the remainders of that August violence.

That church visit was healing. But it didn’t stop my ongoing ability to assess schools in terms of safety. I’ve yet to spot a school playground that could provide security from a semi-automatic shooter. Every school or church window is an invitation to someone with intention and a semi-automatic gun. Only recently have I stopped looking for an escape from church crowds in case a gunman should appear.

But mostly, I pray that some day worship time will no longer feel like a potential shooting gallery.