Am I my sister's (or anyone else's) keeper and other musings

 The first week of 2023 has ended with shootings in the US. No surprise there but the two separate shootings--one, a family of five children and three adults in Utah, and the other, the shooting of a first grade teacher by her 6 yo pupil--have caused me great thought about where I would/could stand.

In the first, this family was Mormon. The first reports that came out talked about a "wonderful" family in a "close knit" community. This description sent shivers down my back. Not that long ago, we had a case in our own Mormon community about a father who sexually abused his minor female children for four years and was only caught by the FBI when pornographic videos were reported by someone in Australia! And then it turned out that our church here had known about the abuse but their solution had been to kick the man out of the church. In response to criticism, they defended themselves by saying they had suggested to the mother that she take her children out of the house but that was as far as they could go. "Clergy-penititent privilege" is what they are hiding behind in the court case now, where the children are suing the Church (the father committed suicide in jail, the mother served two years, the children are all being brought up in different adoptive homes.) Horrifying. But nothing public has ever been said as far as I know--I am not all that active in the church anymore. A lot of my inactivity has to do with this incident and its cover-up.

So, if I am no longer active as a Mormon, why am I so deeply upset by this latest incident. Because I KNOW how the Church is structured. We are "assigned" as women and as men, families that we are supposed to counsel with often. The church calls it "ministering" even though, unless that is our secular job, none of us are "ministers" and most of us have only a very cursory understanding of counseling. There are pages and pages in our "Church Handbook" on how to deal with abuse, how to report abuse, etc. Job done, duty fulfilled, tick the box, now we send these lay, untrained people out to become "brothers and sisters" to virtual strangers in the community. Even I haven't read all of the pages in the Handbook on reporting abuse; I only know my responsibilities as a schoolteacher. To try to remember where and when I am to report is difficult enough. In school, I report my suspicions to the principal and, job done. But in community?

The Church talks over and over about how wonderful Mormon communities are, how much we care about one another. If you do all the right things--go to your meetings, serve on your committees, go to the Temple, make sure your sons serve a mission--your family will be blessed. Maybe. And maybe not. And it is these exceptions that I wonder about. 

How do I ever know what is going on in someone's home unless I see bruises? A close relative of mine had an abusive husband and all I ever knew about it was that he "had a temper." I never knew that he beat his sons although, truthfully, I did witness him throw a glass at his wife once. But, I reason with myself even now, it wasn't "at her" and she was significantly older than I. How would I have ever thought that this outwardly competent, self-assured woman would put herself and her children in harm's way? How indeed.

I have actually asked for a meeting with my Mormon bishop. It's not that I expect him to have any answers but I am so angry at this, because I have SEEN this in the Church so often, I want a place where I can state my concerns. Sitting at home and b***ing about it with R feels somehow like, if I ever encountered this again, I wouldn't be any better at dealing with it than I have in the past. I need to gather ideas, I need to consult with someone, and the person who represents "the community" is a good place to start.

And the second, the shooting of the teacher? Well that is very close to home too. I am often called to teach a first grade class as a substitute here in town. Some of these kids in class have problems with behavior, one is already an angry little boy. So far there has been support in the school--when he starts to "lose it" I send him to the resource teacher, someone he likes, someone who knows how to calm him down. With 28 other students, some of whom, as I said, also have "issues" I just can't focus for very long on him in the classroom. But the resource teacher isn't always there; thank goodness that THIS year we have a principal who is right there when things start to go sideways. It isn't always the case in this school district.

So, as I think about that teacher, about the shooting, it is very personal to me. I feel a calling to substitute teach. I care about these children and I know that I fulfill a role for them, even if it's only once or twice a month. We laugh, we tell stories, and they share things with me that, hopefully, I reflect back to them as a caring kind of "grandparent" figure. I WANT to be part of a community because, God knows, these two incidents are only a drop in the bucket with what's wrong in our society. Children with guns, families who are shot to death and the only thing that the grieving family left behind can say "He took HER guns away, this wouldn't have happened if she'd had HER guns." Really? Was she going to sleep with one eye open until she could get him out of her life....?

Anyway, these are my thoughts at the end of of the first week of 2023.