I generally ignore the news.  Alot of it, I just don’t need to know; and I’ve found that really important news has a way of finding me anyway.

So it is with the shooting in Connecticut.

I haven’t read an official news article about it, yet.  I found out about it this morning, when I logged onto facebook.  I don’t know the details, but I watched US President Obama give a speech with watery eyes.

I did not close my heart to this news, and I allowed my heart to go out to everyone affected by this tragedy… which is a lot of people.  I thought about it, about the juxtaposition of violence and peace in the world.  Sweetie and talked about what it all might mean.  Was this meant to happen?  Why did it happen?  How could it happen?

Biggie answered.

Biggie, could you please help me with this?

Biggie spoke in emotion at first.  He shares in the grief left in the wake of violence.  I heard, “Too many,” and “Too much.”  I didn’t know what that meant.

He showed me the connection between the grief of the families of the children recently shot, and the terror of the kids who survived, and the awful experience of death it was for the children who died.

That is no way to die, not for anyone.

He explains that the contrast of violence against the bodies and minds of children is this corrupting kind of phenomenon.  We as adults have had all sorts of little traumas that have brought us to our maturity, but kids, kids are not supposed to know fear or grief.  It’s that innocence, it’s part of our connection to heaven and it’s part of their protection as children.

Biggie widens the picture and shows me that of course, children all over know fear and grief.  Parents in any places have mourned children caught in the crossfire.  He shows me weeping parents and mourning communities, in one case a little black girl who was caught in the crossfire in her own front yard.  I believe this girl died in Toronto, and I think I vaguely remember the story.  Her house was next to a crack house, there was a drive-by shooting,  and she died in her own yard.  Her mother was lost in grief, but fired with anger that the death of her daughter did not spark outrage in the community at large.

These kids in Connecticut, they’re white kids, aren’t they?  (I’m going to google to confirm before posting this.)  Biggie shows me children the world over who die by gunfire.  So many kids in Africa, so many in Asia, in Mexico and South America.  Kids with dark skin.  Where is the outrage, where is the proper grief for these kids?

He shows me little kids in Africa holding guns.  Child soldiers.  The violence against these children defies words.

Let the grief for those children (who died in CT yesterday) be the grief for all children who died (by gunfire, in war, in the sex-trade/trafficking industry.)  Let (the scope of our grief) expand to include all the children of the world (who need peace.)

Biggie just shares this incredible heaviness, this grief, and the understanding that it is felt by everyone on the other side, and it is felt for every child, not just those few who were noticed. 

When I asked him whether this was meant to happen, soul contracts; me, ever the seeker of the grim silver lining.  My Dad had this saying whenever he saw an intersection that needed a traffic light, or an unsafe practice that needed regulation:  he’d say, “How many people have to die for this to change?”

I wondered to Biggie, did these kids die to effect change?

The answer was so conflicting.  It was yes and no at the same time.

At first, it was no.  No one sets up to die like that.  No one.  He showed me all these threads of life, all these potential ways these kids could have lived their lives suddenly snuffed out, terminated.  No, this wasn’t planned.

And then he shows me the new changes, the new threads and futures resulting from tragedy.  Sometimes things are meant to happen simply because they happened.  Time is cyclical, in a way.  Because it happened, life plans can change retroactively.  The tragedy becomes incorporated into history, and culture.

The collapse of the World Trade Centre in New York was not planned either.  No one came in with the plan to die there.  This is something Christopher Reburn said on his podcast, and it’s a concept I had a very hard time integrating.  Something so huge, how could that not be planned?  And if it was not planned, how can there be any life plans at all?

The thing is, our life plans change.  Our soul contracts can and do change.  That’s why it’s so difficult to recover from certain losses, the loss of a child in particular.  You know in your soul that wasn’t right, that wasn’t meant to be.

And so, I ask Biggie, how can it be that these parents are creating their own reality?  How can it be anyone would want to live with such grief?

Because they are choosing to live.  (Shows me a parent choosing to follow their child to the other side, shows me how each mind is creating every moment since the, what he calls the Accident.  It feels like an accident, and so many angels struggling to save lives.  Shows me the origin of the concept of evil, a word created to describe the driving force around such events.  It’s an energy, like any other.  It gains momentum, like a tornado, and sometimes it gets out of control.)

Every day for the rest of their lives, those (parents) are going to choose how to live with their grief, or not.  That’s creating your reality.  Sometimes, it’s just choosing to live.

Biggie, this is so incredibly sad.  Is there anything I’ve forgotten to write?

The most important part, how do we answer this violence?  What future do we choose to create?  As a culture, as a country?  Children, the world over, die of violence, die of starvation, die of disease, die of (lack of love in their lives.)  Let our hearts go out to all the children all over the world, and remember – answer this violence with a call to create a better (peaceful) world for the children surviving today. 

(Shows me a hand putting down a gun on a counter, and a form walking out the door.)  Pray for those little kids.  Pray for those who hold guns in their hands to put them down.  You know what happens when you walk out that door to shoot the (man) who shot your friend – more people die, it goes on and on.  Answer the violence with a peaceful world.  You know where that begins. 

He shows me the heart connection, going all around the world.