Angry at Life, Angry at God? Go Start Your Own Revolution!

Neighbors talk among themselves outside the Amish schoolhouse where a gunman on Oct. 2, 2006, killed three girls and critically injured seven others. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Quote of My Day

"Live Your Own Revolution" quote from a bumper sticker on a car at the Giant supermarket

On My Mind Today....

Yesterday when I heard the news about the school house massacre in Lancaster, I was in my car in the parking lot at the Giant supermarket. As I sat in the car and listened to the news update on the shooting and terror, something caught my eye. On the bumper of a car not far from where I was parked was a sticker that said "Live Your Own Revolution." This bumper sticker has been on my mind ever since I saw it. Ever since I heard about the children shot execution style in the one-room Amish school house.

We live in a region of Pennsylvania where many Amish live and live quietly. While not as populated with the Amish as nearby Lancaster county, we still share the road with the Amish buggies, shop with them at the local stores and witness their peaceful existence as we drive past their farms that are free of all things unnecessary (electricity, cars, iPods, computers, televisions, etc.). And it is peaceful to drive past their farms. For me it is often thought provoking. I often ask my husband questions like "What do you think it is like to live like they do?" "Why do they choose to live that way?" or "I wonder what they believe and what they think of us." So yesterday's tragedy hit close to home, physically and emotionally. Not that I have any emotional bonds with the local Amish. I don't know a one. But when you see them everyday and compare formula and diaper prices with them in Wal Mart, you can't help but identify with them when something like what happened yesterday invades their peaceful existence and shatters all sense of security.

So this bumper sticker annoyed me. Really annoyed me. "Live Your Own Revolution" was not a good bumper sticker to have on your car on a day like yesterday, especially when your car is parked in the parking lot of a grocery store near where many Amish farms are located. "Live Your Own Revolution." That is exactly what Charles Carl Roberts IV was doing. He was living his own revolution. AP wire reports that he was "angry at life, he was angry at God." What better reason to start your own revolution, right? Something is wrong when innocent children, especially children being raised in an Amish society, are shot execution style in their one-room school house just because some lunatic was "angry at life...angry at God." There are many days that I am angry at life and angry at God. Today I'm angry at life and angry at God for allowing this to have happened. Any mother whose child is overseas fighting in Iraq is probably angry at life and angry at God. Any mother whose child is in the hospital with cancer or some other terminal illness is probably angry at life and angry at God, too. And the mothers of the children who were killed and injured yesterday I'm sure are angry at life and angry at God, too. If everyone who was angry at life and angry at God acted upon it and decided to live their own revolution we would have total anarchy. It just isn't American to have such a bumper sticker on your car, especially on day when "living your own revolution" is taken literally and innocent children and adults are the victim of your revolution.

So this bumper sticker and, of course, the news out of Lancaster, really upset me. And I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop being angry about it all--the bumper sticker; the girls shot execution style; the Amish; the world we live in--the world where I am trying to raise two sons to know right from wrong. Starting your own revolution because you are angry at life and angry at God, well that is sadly becoming a way of life in America. Three deadly school shootings, including this one, occurred this week throughout the nation. Makes a mother scared to send her child to school...

When Thomas Jefferson said that "every generation needs a new revolution," I really doubt he meant for individuals to enter a school to terrorize and kill teachers and students for the reason that he/she is "angry with life, angry with God." This whole concept of "revolution" has been warped over the ages--warped to the extent that cars display bumper stickers that encourage us to start our own revolutions and leave it up to the reader to decide their own definition of "revolution," be it violent or peaceful.

When JFK said that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable," he was right on the money. One man's revolution in Lancaster county is proof of just how inevitable violence is in our society.