The new school year had just started when we heard the news on August 20 of another school shooting, this time in Atlanta, Georgia. The gunman, who had multiple rounds of ammunition in magazine clips and a semi-automatic weapon, exchanged fire with police. Students and teachers, locked down in the building, were rescued by heavily armed officers going from classroom to classroom. But this time the situation ended in an unexpected way: no one shot, no one wounded, the suspect surrendering and apologizing.
This unexpected result came because over the course of an hour, a bookkeeper, who had just arrived for work in the school office, talked the gunman into surrendering. For most of that hour she was alone with him. She understood that she needed to keep him there with her because by doing so she could protect the children and the police. She even called him back when he started to walk out shooting. He reloaded and filled his pockets with bullets in front of her.
There are lots of conversations to be had about school safety and gun violence, but for one brief moment, I would like to focus on that bookkeeper, Antoinette Tuff.
In an uncut interview later that day, she gently and eloquently describes what having a spiritual center means. Spiritual “anchoring” allowed her to listen to and pray for the human being in front of her. Her spiritual center allowed her to relate her story to him in a way that created a connection. The spiritual anchoring or centering that grounded her and gave her strength was not learned that day but though years of prayer: “I was praying hard.”
The spiritually healthy person has an anchor that allows them to let go and let God. Or in Antoinette’s words, “I give it all to God. I’m not the hero. I was terrified.”
