A man broiling with lifelong hatred, like sludge oil within an overheated engine, wedged his way into Overland Park hunting Jews so he could release his pent up, liquid rage. Only his hatred matters. His name should disappear, like biblical Amalek. By pure chance he murdered, not killed as is often reported, three innocent, God revering Christians whose names should be listed among the martyrs: Dr. William Lewis Corporon, his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, and Terri LaManno.

The bullets flew precisely where aimed and missed their target, demonstrating the oft taught but rarely learned truth that once bullets fly they or their leaden siblings may strike anywhere. They murdered three, but penetrated all of our hearts.

Whose lives were altered forever?

1.    The murdered:  I will not even attempt to eulogize the talented young man, friend and singer, lauded by his school principal as a standout talent; the altruistic doctor, who gave up his life-giving practice to love his grandchildren in Overland Park; the daughter and energetic community volunteer who, by her very being, energized those privileged to be around her.

2.    Those in the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom: whose psychological armor protecting them from the possibility of flying bullets launched by murderous hatred was pierced and has yet to fully heal, or even scar over.

3.    The relatives of those so proximate to the murder in physical space that, in their mind’s eye, their loved ones were imagined as the flesh and blood bodies in the parking that sunny Sunday.

4.    The Overland Park population who suddenly witnessed the horror: the terror aimed at their anonymous neighbors but instead striking their friends, members of their church, people with whom they worked and prayed and played.

The murderer tore away the psychological pretense, the protective fiction afforded by such suburban fantasies that others are targets and victims of hate. Suddenly we all became Gabby Gifford with a target on our backs, as we too felt as though our flesh were penetrated and torn. Because the murdered lay dead in parking lots, we, too, no longer held shields against random hatred. It might have been us.

What have we learned?

An inchoate, internal sense that something eminently real but as yet unnamed has been altered forever within us. We witnessed random, yet purposeful and directed violence. Each person who self-selected as a witness made him/herself vulnerable to the same unspeakable violability. Whether we take the next step to turn our vulnerability into constructive action is what faces us now.

What will we do?

Curiously, we instinctively turned toward one another to share the moment, and then to mourn together. We did not isolate ourselves into separate camps, but came together as a cross-political-border/state line/inter-faith/interracial community to share our common experience. I believe this to be a new reaction in our metro-area. Our humanity united us as neither State Line nor Troost Avenue divided us. Instinctively we talked and listened to whomever felt compelled to share our human terror and disgust. We instinctively started the process.

Where will we take this process?

It is important to state that it has begun. But now, to whom shall we turn? Which thoughtful leaders will help this newborn community to take it’s first childlike steps toward a new understanding of what it means to be a citizen of a loving community, created in the image of God?

If we stop where we are, we will fail to honor the dead.  If we do not move forward, we shall fail the hope-filled path just being forged in a wounded community. Admitting our common vulnerability, might we together construct a path beyond hate-filled destruction to a newly realized unity of spirit? God could well be present in this moment, if we could build upon our discovered common humanity to create a lasting civic peace.