The neighbors often saw the 8-year-old boy with his fishing pole riding his bike to Minnehaha Creek. I picture dappled sunlight on the grassy parkway, where he would have dropped his bike to scamper down to the muddy banks (maybe finding a foothold on a fallen tree) to cast his line into the clear, shallow water flowing over the sandy bottom. A Norman Rockwell image. But the little boy died a very un-Norman Rockwell-like death, killed in a hailstorm of bullets shot through the stained-glass windows of a church.
There were 200 children in that sanctuary when Hell broke loose. It was the first Mass of the school year. The school had a buddy system. You know the concept: a third grader might be paired with a kindergartner, providing a mentor for the younger and responsibility for the older. Do you know that the older children instinctively fell on their younger buddies, shielding them from the bullets that morning? Children sacrificing for other children. Can you even imagine it? Dear God.
Obsessed with school shootings, possessing an incoherent world view, and marinating in his self-loathing, the killer, Westman, wrote prolifically in his journals: “In regards to my motivation behind the attack I can’t really put my finger on a specific purpose. It definitely wouldn’t be for racism or white supremacy. I don’t want to do it to spread a message. I do it to please myself. I do it because I am sick.”1 “I have a loving family and a good support system of people that want to see me thrive. For some reason, the fact that I have a pretty good life and the fact that I want to kill people have never correlated to me.”2 He overrode every one of his moral impulses as he carefully plotted the attack. He considered exit doors, unarmed security, floor plans, and timing. Children. Morning. New Beginnings. Church. All incongruous with Death. The disconnect was the point. The drama was a feature, not a bug, for a person so thoroughly self-absorbed.
After firing 116 rounds, he shot and killed himself, thereby eliminating the possibility that he would live out his natural life with the knowledge of what he had wrought. He also prevented the victims an opportunity to witness earthly justice. Any justice will have to be meted out in the afterlife, and I, at least, don’t know how that works.
By his own admission, the killer felt emotional pain. I can’t diagnose the causes of his pain, nor do I want to. I don’t know the intensity of his pain, nor does it matter. In seeking to comprehend the incomprehensible, it’s too easy to excuse the inexcusable. Nonetheless, I have been contemplating pain and suffering.
We live in an age with a multitude of ways to mask our pain—alcohol, gambling, porn, drugs, food, social media, rage. But whereas most of those diversions have been available for centuries (with the exception of those the internet makes possible or more accessible), today we also have an abundance of available time. Our age of abundance frees us from what used to be the time-consuming work of staying alive. We have free time to indulge in our self-absorption. When we feel some angst or loneliness, it’s easier to retreat into a chat room or a social media feed of disembodied people than to walk next door and visit with the flesh-and-blood neighbor—an option that might transform the loneliness. When we feel agitated or restless, there is no wood to chop, no field to plow—heck, most people don’t even mow their own grass—options that could transform the restlessness.
We mask suffering instead of transforming suffering. After a while, because there are so many easy options for escape, do we begin to believe there shouldn’t be any suffering? Do we feel entitled to a life free from thwarted dreams, disappointment, unhappiness, frustration, and grief? When the difficulties of life arrive—and some difficulties are truly awful—do we wonder, “Why me? Woe is me!” If we avoid the hard work of living through the tough times, how do we build strength and resilience?
Recently, Jesus as the Suffering Servant surfaced for me again. Usually “Jesus, the Suffering Servant” brings to my mind Jesus suffering through the death of crucifixion. But the other day I thought about Jesus “suffering” through life—his needy, obtuse companions, his baffled family members, his exhausting work load, the judgmental members of his religious congregation, the betrayals, the misunderstandings, his sore feet, aching bones, and tired joints—the very human experiences we all face. You don’t have to be a Christian to recognize that he bore the suffering. He carried it. He lived with it. He transformed it. And I’m not confusing “resurrection” with “transformation.” He transformed the human suffering of life—his personal pain—into friendships, and healing, and caring, and teaching, and loving.
“If you do not transform your pain, you will always transmit it.”3
Westman surely transmitted his pain. Like a virus spread by the aerosol droplets expelled in a sneeze, his pain was carried by bullets and shards of stained-glass to infect the innocent bystanders. As I contemplate this pain and suffering, I wonder: Is Westman’s pain contagious? Ten years from now, will one of those victims of, or witnesses to, the horror of that morning succumb to the infection of this trauma and commit some new horror? Or will these victims and witnesses have the immunity to fight off an infection of this pain? A 10-year old girl also died that morning. Her mother’s grief feels like being at the bottom of the ocean under a crushing weight, in utter darkness. Will she have the strength and resilience to emerge? Will she be able to fight off the infection and transform the pain?
I keep coming back to the image of young children throwing their small bodies on top of their little buddies to protect them. Focused on somebody else, those children were the opposite of self-absorbed. May that instinct for friendship, care, and love enable them to transform this pain—bear the suffering—build strength and resilience—and thereby not transmit it. Dear God.
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1 https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/minneapolis-shooting-neighbor-robin-westman-b2816075.html
2 https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/28/us/journal-minneapolis-shooter-robin-westman-invs
3 Richard Rohr
