Leaving Las Vegas

By Jeff Long

This week, for the first time in nearly 59 years of life, my socks matched perfectly coming out of the dryer. Wait! Keep reading! Nearly a dozen socks found their pair without one stray left over. Never happened before; may never happen again. My sock dilemma has been a mystery that has long confounded and befuddled. It's a silly happenstance. Something to laugh about with a co-worker at the office copier. Trivial, of no importance.

Other things confound and befuddle that cannot be easily dismissed over a cup of coffee. A week ago, a 64-year-old divorced and childless accountant and lover of poker, did the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. From the 32nd floor of his Las Vegas hotel room Oct. 1, Stephen Paddock, a man police said had "no significant criminal history," shot and killed at least 59 people and injured well over 500. Tens of thousands had gathered for a country music festival on a cool desert night in the gambling metropolis of Las Vegas.

Paddock killed himself before police caught up with him and his cache of weapons. Two rifles were on tripods facing the shattered window that overlooked the scene filled with the dying and the incapacitated. His brother in Florida claims to be shocked by Paddock's behavior. Yes, no one who wakes up to discover a family member is responsible for one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history would say anything else. My gut tells me Stephen Paddock had long repressed, long-denied mental illness, but there is no evidence to suggest this -- at least not at the time this column was accepted for publication.

When we have no words, when carnage like this finds no rational explanation, we seek the comfort of the ancients. For those in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the best of those words are found in the Hebrew Bible, better known as the Old Testament.

Even President Trump, a man who it can be fairly said is the least religious American president in memory, went looking in a book he knows very little about searching for solace to offer the country. A speechwriter found it for him: "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18, words attributed to King David).

Our minds resist senseless, unprovoked acts that bespeak a rage none of us reading this column is capable of mustering.

Vaughn Baker, a church security expert based in Kansas City, says most of us are afflicted by what he calls "normalcy bias," an unwillingness to accept the violence that plays out before our very eyes. Congregants in one U.S. church once saw a man rise from his seat and fire a weapon at the pastor. The bullet passed through the cleric's Bible, pages fluttering everywhere. The people in the pews that day thought it was all part of a skit -- that is until the pastor took off running and the gunman continued firing. Again, no real explanation but lots of solace and comforting words were offered afterward.

We feel helpless in the face of such barbarity, once our minds allow that it has really occurred. But perhaps we can look at the words of another ancient and do more than wring our hands in lament. This particular character, around whom the church has long centered its focus, calls on us to be vigilant in watchfulness. His long-ago call is to be proactive, to pay attention to what is going on around us.

"What I say to you, I say to all: 'Keep awake!'" (Mark 13:37).

Jesus of Nazareth didn't miss much.