In a crowd of about 5,000 people last Friday night in downtown Oxford, a few people standing about 20 yards ahead of me started yelling and motioning toward a person who had apparently fainted.
They were calling for medical attention, but the people at the back of the crowd didn’t know that.
Soon, people started running. Someone shouted “gun.” It took Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and pastors on stage during the candlelight vigil for Oxford High School shooting victims to frantically calm the jittery crowd and assure them another tragedy wasn’t unfolding.
It's been that kind of week.
In the days since the horrific shooting that claimed the lives of four students and wounded seven others — including a teacher I had in high school — support has poured in from around the country. A week later, #OxfordStrong is still trending on social media, and my hometown, a place I always thought would go down in history as the “gravel capital of the world,” is suddenly known for something much less quaint.
I attended Oxford High School. I graduated what seems like a lifetime ago, but the community is still just as I remember it: Quiet, humble, aspirational. The kind of place you’d never expect to become national news, except for maybe in a good way somehow.
I walked those halls. I knew those teachers. On a night when Gov. Whitmer said, “We’re all Wildcats,” the emotions of being one were strong.
Yet, as close as I feel to what transpired Nov. 30, I’m lightyears from the trauma that will forever haunt the lives of Oxford families, students, staff and community members who were there. This wasn’t my tragedy. I’m one of the lucky ones.
At moments like this, it’s become almost cliché to say we’re praying for the victims. And for as many “thoughts and prayers” as have been shared, there are just as many people questioning whether we should give up the whole charade. Thoughts and prayers aren’t working, they say. Enough already.
The thing is, I get it. When tragedies happen elsewhere, it’s difficult to see how “thoughts and prayers” can do anything to help the victims. We want action. We want laws changed. We demand answers.
And yet, when it’s people you know and love … everything is different.
A week ago Tuesday, I saw firsthand the impact thoughts and prayers can have. Hours after the shooting, I saw Oxford High School students arriving at my parish by the hundreds, weeping, desperately searching for consolation. I saw pastors counseling those enduring unimaginable grief, who took comfort — if ever so slightly — in the idea that a suffering God was, in that moment, close by their side.
On that night, the entire country was praying for them. And they knew it.
As I listened, my priest reminded those present that ours is a God who isn’t absent in the midst of His children’s pain; He, too, felt the suffering inflicted by the sins of others. He grieves with us from the Cross, assuring us that our wounds are His wounds. And yet, our bleeding Savior tells us, there is hope beyond the abyss.
There are no words that can heal a heart shattered by tragedy. The pain will linger far beyond the 24/7 news cycle, and long past when the “thoughts and prayers” stop coming. But the Lord doesn’t need words to heal.
Those who were inside Oxford High School on Nov. 30, as well as the whole community, need the “peace of God that surpasses all understanding” (Phil 4:7) right now.
Pray for Oxford. They hear you. And it helps.
Michael Stechschulte is editor-in-chief of Detroit Catholic. He can be reached at [email protected].
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