A small excerpt from a book in "process" based on my experiences in the field......

                        SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

It is tragic to say that many school shootings have taken place since Sandy Hook, but just mentioning the word, Sandy Hook evokes powerful emotions. We remember well the shooting deaths of 20 children ranging in age from 6 to 7 and 6 adult staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, shot and killed by Adam Lanza on December 15. Children excited in anticipation of the holiday season and break from school. All of us were deep in the holiday season. Thanksgiving had come and gone and Jewish People were well into the 8 day festival of lights, Chanukah. And many of us were emersed in the season of Advent in preparation for what was hoped to be a joyous Christmas season. And in this season of joy and celebration and light, an oppressive darkness covered the land.

Whenever a tragedy involves children, especially small children it is simply “the worst”. In leading debriefings and responding to the many incidents that I have responded to whenever something bad happened to children it has a huge impact that lasts for a long time. For First responders called to a scene involving children it is not uncommon for them to picture their own child, or grandchild as being the victim they are responding to. And it is also normal that those after responding to incidents involving children to want to call home and make sure their own kids are ok. Many first responders report going home and giving their children an extra hug or being more protective than they normally had been prior to the tragic incident. 

 I remember driving to the little church I was serving part time on Christmas Eve, 2013, a little over a year after the anniversary of the school shooting. I was playing a CD of Christmas music I typically play during the season. As I was driving down the road that evening a song came on that featured a children’s choir singing. My eyes teared up to such an extent that I had to pull over and off the road for a few moments. The voices of the children singing might as well has been the children of Sandy Hook Elementary School. And in a deeper more profound sense so often brought by the mystery of the season that is inexplicable, they were. Those voices reminded me and all of us that we are to be, to be “singers of life and not of death”, as author Loren Eisley has written. The irrepressible voices of the children of Sandy Hook Elementary School continue to rise up, to touch, and inspire each of us be the singers of life in the midst of death, to resurrect love, and goodness and hope from the ashes of hatred destruction.

We will not get over the tragic Sandy Hook shooting but we can learn from it, and we will grow from it as well.  What we learn is that love always rises up in response to hate, that love will always find a way to be the final word. Following the tragic shooting people poured into the area wanting to help, so many so that unvetted resources had to be turned away. A priest at a church mass in the Newtown area following the tragedy said in his message that Christmas must be celebrated for those who live and for those who died. Angel memorials with the name so the victims were placed in the community, and ornaments with the victims names were placed on the village Christmas Tree. The response from around the country and the world was overwhelming. By the time it was all said and done, about 65,000 teddy bears were sent to Newtown, a community at the time of 27,000 people. So many teddy bears were shipped that some churches provided space in classrooms to store the bears. $27,000 dollars worth of toys were sent to the community and many families of the surrounding cities, towns and countryside personally brought wrapped presents for families in the Newtown community. 9 semi tractor trailers filled with paper snowflakes, some from as far away as Iraq, and an estimated half million letters were sent to the community. Houses of worship were filled to overflowing. Teachers and staff who had been involved with the Columbine School shooting came to provide support that only those who experienced something similar could provide. 

Following the School shooting many events were held to provide care and a forum for sharing for the Newtown community members and non-profit organizations were formed to support the community and work for school safety.  One such event that I was involved with was the Symposium of Hope, Resilience, and Recovery Following Sandy Hook which was hosted by the United Way of Western Connecticut and it was held at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Connecticut about 11 miles away from Newtown. The first day there were panel discussions, one of which I participated in. My fellow presenters were Frank DeAngelis, (now retired), principal of Columbine High School, Mary Fetchet, a social worker who lost her 24 year old son Brad who died in the World Trade Center attack and went on establish the non-profit, Voices of September 11, and Dr. Jamie Howard, clinical psychologist and director of the Stress and Resilience Program at the Child Mind Institute. Other panelists included Dr. Curt Drennen, of the Colorado Department of Public Health, Donna Gaffhey, advisor, Project Rebirth, Bill Keegan, formerly a highly decorated special operations lieutenant of the Port Authority Police of New York and New Jersey, and Frank Zenere, a school psychologist of the Miami Dade Public Schools. On the second day I co-led a follow up meeting with the first responders to the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting and then met one on one with those who wanted to talk to us. 

At this symposium I was asked to share on what I had learned from my involvement with the Sikh Temple Mass shooting that might be helpful to the larger Newtown community in their long road to resilience and recovery. I shared what I had learned from working with the Sikh Community immediately following the crisis and what was helpful to them. And of course as I have written earlier, the foundation of their ongoing road to resilience was their faith, their grace, their capacity to forgive, their spirit of Chardhi Kala, (which means relentless optimism), their strong support system both within the faith community and the surrounding community, and their commitment to serving others.