Another Death, Another Day - Brian Howard

 

Another Death, Another Day

 

Like many, I was grieved by the news from Buffalo that a gunman opened fire at a supermarket in what is likely a racially motivated act. Then, while most of us were still processing through that terrible information and asking all of the usual questions, there came word that a young man had massacred 21 people at a school in Uvalde, TX after killing his own grandmother.

 

I remember in 1999 when the Columbine massacre occurred. It seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime event. I was a junior in college and thought “Surely this won’t happen again.” But then came so many other bloody scenes over the years, churches, shopping centers, concerts, and more schools. Sometimes these acts are racially motivated, other times they’re the result of apparent mental health issues. Sometimes we don’t know the reason, other than that there is wickedness in this world that wants to end the life the God creates. 

 

We read news of this nature with a sad mix of both horror and numbness. Horror at the loss of life, cut down in an instant. Numbness because these events occur often enough that to our shame, we forget about many of them all too soon. 

 

When Herod slaughtered the innocents in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16-18), Scripture tells us a prophecy was fulfilled,

 

“A voice is heard in Ramah,

   weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

   and refusing to be comforted,

   because they are no more.”

 

This mother’s grief is palpable, her weeping so great and her mourning so intense that she turns away all comforters. “Why bother?” she says, “My children are no more.”

 

I hope that I never have to experience Rachel’s grief. With a wife that works as a school teacher and a son that has a few years left in the classroom, I pray regularly for their safety and security. The church where I serve has a number of school teachers, administrators, and students. I pray that they are a light in a dark place, and have safety amidst a world of ongoing violence.

 

Here’s a song I’ve been working on to make sense of the darkness:

 

Another Death, Another Day

 

Another death, another day

We search for words with none to say

Our sorrows last all through the night

We look for joy to come our way

 

But in the morning-mercy dawn

We struggle to move on

Since the headlines again say

Another death, another day. 

 

Come now Lord, and come on soon

A mother weeps for her children

You have gathered all her tears

Still she wakes in quiet fear

She wonders as we do

Are you still making all things new?

It seems like now we all just say

Another death, another day.

 

They were just trying to live their lives

At the checkout, waiting in line

At the church, ready to pray

At the desk on their school day.

 

But there were footsteps in the hall

Nature red in tooth and claw

A dark blossom of the heart

That’s taken root and will not part

 

Come now Lord, and come on soon

A Father weeps for his children

Jesus showed us in his tears

Yet we hold on to this fear

 

We may wonder as we do

But you’re still making all things new

Though sometimes we all just say

“Another death, another day.”

 

Verse 3
Then you promise what’s to come

When we’ll finally be home

To take this violence from our hands

Sword to plowshare; wolf and lamb

 

Every tear wiped, as you say

The former things will pass away

You bled and died, the price you paid

For no more death on that new day.

 

Oh, that’s the price you paid

For no more death, another day.