Wanting the Shootings to Stop, Thoughts & Prayers: Kitiki #385
Emptiness: Bless Your Heart for Kids Killed in Schools
“God helps those that help themselves.”
I grew up hearing that. Particularly in situations when people were facing situations that seems unmanageable. Those “why me, God” moments. I also remember I Corinthians 10:13 which according to the New Living Translation Bible reads, “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”
School shootings, floods, wars and rumors of wars, even Putin tapping Trump[1] are opportunities for us to remember two things: we can do things to overcome tragedies and we can endure. Irrespective of people offering solace with comments like bless your heart, or platitudes of thoughts and prayers. Comments that are best ill-timed and at worse empty of any true assuaging of feelings of loss.
Former White House Press Secretary Jean Psaki called the White to task recently, commenting, "Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayers does not end school shootings. Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back," she wrote. "Enough with the thoughts and prayers."
Current White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt seemed to challenge Ms. Psaki, ignoring the idea that “God helps those who help themselves.” Her response? "I saw the comments of Ms. Psaki and frankly I think they're incredibly insensitive and disrespectful to the tens of millions of Americans of faith across this country who believe in the power of prayer, who believe that prayer works," Leavitt said.
Often, we don’t see the forest for the trees, as Ms. Leavitt didn’t. She responded to what she heard, not what was said and Psaki later insisted that while she personally believed that prayer was a "powerful source of comfort" for people dealing with tragedy, "prayer alone is not enough to prevent and end the crisis of gun violence in America." Psaki, a mother of two school-aged children observed that there have already been five school shootings across the U.S. since the start of the school year earlier this month, and that there have been 57 total school shootings since January.[2]
Going back to both I Corinthians, and the fact that God expects us to do something, these thoughts collapse in the framework of what Psaki would consider helping. "The fact that parents like me have to worry every day about whether or not our kids are safe at school is what we should be talking about," Psaki said. "... People in power — like, say, people in the White House who are using their platforms to do anything other than call for action for sensible gun safety measures — they're doing anything else like attacking me, which is a waste of time. They're doing anything but saying what should be done to help prevent tragedies like the shooting in Minneapolis. And because they're not doing that, frankly, they're not doing enough. And people shouldn't accept they're doing enough." Nor in my world, nor in God’s.
As John Pavlovitz eloquently pointed at in his The Beautiful Mess piece on guns.
“Thoughts and prayers” from a party whose members traffic in gun porn for their family Christmas cards and base-baiting social media posts is the height of hypocrisy.
"Thoughts and prayers" from lawmakers who obstruct any new gun control legislation is an insult to those who've been murdered.
”Thoughts and prayers” from members of Congress wearing AR-15 pins is a strident middle finger to families of the dead.
"Thoughts and prayers" from politicians who accept NRA contributions is a putrid, stinking farce.
"Thoughts and prayers" from pastors who continue to preach a God and Guns heresy is a flat-out sin.[3]
The United States has recorded 2,331 school shootings since 1970. Nearly a fifth of these incidents occurred between 2020 and 2022 when school shootings were at their twenty-year peak.[4] And why? Because you have people who don’t believe God helps those who help themselves? And who are they, and what can they do?
We are they.
Besides offering remorseless bless your hearts filled with indifference or thoughts and prayers filled with nothing close to actions we can do something. We can demonstrate we understand that without helping ourselves God has no reason to act upon our thoughts and prayers. God has no reason to do anything because by allowing many of the same things to happen indicates we really don’t want help. Legislation helps. Enforcing laws help. Act like we want the killing to stop; crime to go down. Act like we don’t care about the guilt of doing something more than sending thoughts and prayers. Act like we don’t want the guilt that comes with lies. We want the truth to come out about abandoning the law or breaking it.
As Newsom's press office reacted to a ruling on X on Friday about tariffs, "If it's a day ending in y, it's a day Trump is found violating the law!"[5] To me, abiding by the law is better than sending thoughts and prayers because that shows God we are trying to help ourselves.
We want the shooting to stop.
[1] GOP Senator Compares Trump Deal to Communism, "You're Going to Have to Explain"
[2] Mass Shootings in 2025 | Gun Violence Archive
[3] Thoughts and Prayers, Bullets and Guns, by John Pavlovitz
[4] School Shootings by State 2025
[5] Court Ruling Challenges Trump's Tariff Authority, Sparks Political Reactions