Professor of law at the University of Arizona, James Diamond, wonders “Is Healing Possible in the Wake of Rampage Shootings?” Good question, Jim. And normally I ask this question of myself, about myself. Individual shootings like mine don’t make the headlines for the most part. But their cumulative effect is considerable. Take my word for it. Or don’t. Just do the math. People are killed in ones and twos around the country every day…in circumstances that can be clearly linked to crime (a term not always clearly defined), and frequently in domestic disputes. And often in downright accidents. To cover all this in the realm of journalism requires lists. Charts. Statistics. It takes a great writer to bring many scattered tragedies into collective focus. It also takes great readers.

Unfortunately, reality intervenes in the form of what Diamond rebrands as rampage shootings. After all, we need a generalized term. With the sub-genre of school shootings, supermarket shootings, synagogue/church shootings, shopping-mall shootings, not to mention the workplace shootings, sometimes termed “going postal.” Oy. And I’m just setting the stage.

The stage being in the San Francisco Opera House this June when “Innocence” makes its American debut. The Finnish opera deals with a school shooting and its aftermath. And since we’re talking about June in late March…here’s what happened. Through Gabby Giffords’ organization (I am a volunteer), the San Francisco Opera invited several of us to look at the production we will be seeing in a couple of months. Why? To gauge reaction. And to imagine what to do with that reaction. Which explains why one afternoon last week I found myself in a screening room in the center of town with a few other people. We watched the Aix-en-Provence festival production, taped a couple of years ago.

So? When the lights came up, I didn’t. I sat there stunned, trying to control myself, that is, not cry too much. After all, it was just an opera, wasn’t it?

Opera echoes some ancient, primitive, ur…in the human psyche. The Greek tragedies were chanted. The great stories and myths were chanted too…just by way of explanation, justification. I respect that opera is not everyone’s thing. Whatever. What’s important here is that in 90 minutes, despite a lifetime of experience with the impact of gun violence aftermath of gun violence…I absorbed something else. The gestalt of shootings. Somehow, there it was, the plot of the opera involving one day 10 years after a high school campus bloodbath. Time had healed nothing. Perhaps the opposite was true. In any case past and present, pain and karma rippling over time….

Not that I had an enhanced understanding, more an intensified awareness of how human cruelty can permeate our experience. And what now? I am reengaged in the struggle to rein in the nation’s gun madness. It’s everyone’s struggle. And even if in my lifetime things get worse before they get better…. I know it’s what has to be done. So as always, gentle reader, stay tuned.