GREENFIELD — In the wake of the tragic mass shooting in Orlando Sunday, faith leaders and mental health professionals across western Massachusetts are offering guidance, thoughts of peace and words of comfort.
From the New England Peace Pagoda, to the western Mass. Muslim community, to Christian church pulpits around the Pioneer Valley, a message of peace in the face of unspeakable violence resounds in unison.
“The grief is profound,” said Leslie Fraser, multifaith chaplain at Mount Holyoke College and a board member of the Interfaith Council of Franklin County, “because we have communities all the way out here in western Massachusetts who are (grieving).”
Around closing time early Sunday morning, Omar Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, Fla., walked into the Pulse night club in Orlando, aimed into a crowd of people and pulled the trigger on a semi-automatic assault style rifle. The shooting spree went on for three hours, before he was shot and killed by police.
During the attack, Mateen called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIL.
Witnesses said they thought the crack of gunfire was part of the show at first; others pulled bodies over themselves and pretended to be dead in order to survive.
Sunday’s terror attack is the largest mass shooting in United States’ history.
Franklin County is far from Florida, but Deborah Ekstrom, vice president of Clinical and Support Options, a behavioral health agency serving Franklin County, said that for many, the incident hits close to home because they can relate to the victims.
“An incident like this causes people’s sympathy to kick into gear,” she said. “It’s relatable. People have been in a nightclub before, and they can imagine losing a family member or friend. It’s a sympathetic grief.”
Fraser called this feeling interconnectionality, or the idea that every action or event — whether physical or abstract — is connected. Often, she said, the response to interconnectionality after a tragedy such as the attack in Orlando, is anger.
“We are so deeply touched, so it’s natural to have a whole gamut of emotions,” said Rev. Storm Roberts, a member of the interfaith council and ordained Tzaddi minister. “There is sadness, hurt, anger, terror, fear, and all of these are part of the grieving process.”
Across the region, people are gathering in community to share their pain, and express solidarity with families and friends of the victims. On Sunday, a vigil for victims of the mass shooting was held on the Greenfield Town Common. Thursday, the Interfaith Council of Franklin County will hold another vigil in front of the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Greenfield, at 5:30 p.m.
“The trauma of this is just unbelievable,” said Sister Clair Carter, from the New England Peace Pagoda. “In this case, it’s clearly a targeted (attack), and there’s a tremendous amount of vulnerability.”
“There is a sadness in that,” said Rev. Roberts about the focus of the attack, adding that because there wasn’t a defined battle line or a reasonable motive in the attack, the violence is difficult to come to grips with.
He also said that social media immediately connects people around the globe and makes traumatic events hit closer to home.
“At such moments, it’s important to stop and try to feel the pain of others,” Elizavita Lozovaya, Muslim chaplain at Mount Holyoke College said, “because each one of us has felt hurt. And not only to feel it, but to do something about it.”
Even though the violence of the act doesn’t make sense, faith leaders agreed that the best response to violence is forgiveness.
“Separate the action from the human being,” Carter said. “See his humanity. Clearly, the act itself is evil.”
She added that during difficult times, she reads “the “The Dhammapada,” which says that “hatred is never ceased by hatred. Only through the practice of goodness, can hatred by ceased.”
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