There is a quote in a recent feature in the Washington Post that I have not been able to get out of my head for a few days. The story is a bout a group of mothers from the Covenant School who have been doing the hard work of trying to get Tennessee state legislators to hear their stories in hopes of some sort of reform to the Volunteer State’s gun laws. There is presently a special session of the Tennessee Legislature that was called in the wake of the March school shooting in which three children and three adults committed to serving children were killed.

You should read the entire article just to get a sense of the grinding boots-on-the-ground efforts that many people have taken up in the midst of tragedy. But the quote that I cannot get out of my mind comes from a state senator by the name of Todd Gardenhire.

In a pair of quoted interviews, Gardenhire declared, “Where were these young, rich white mothers when the Black kids in my district and Memphis were getting slaughtered?…It doesn’t mean their issues aren’t valid, but it’s a little hypocritical.” and “They’ve never been involved until it hits them, and now they want to change the world. I’m not minimizing the pain and agony that they felt. But where have they been in the past?”

First, the man is absolutely minimizing their pain and agony. Secondly, you would think that someone actually concerned about the Black kids in his district getting murdered would be more sympathetic to…well, anyone. But instead he is using the victims of tragedy as a prop to discredit other victims of a tragedy. I do not know Gardenhire’s heart, but his comments read as extremely callous and cynical and insulting to mothers of both Black kids and white kids. Like Gardenhire, I am a white, college-educated male and I am aware that we are way over-represented in governing bodies. If you would like to remove all of us from legislatures for one term, go for it. It would probably do some good; kind of like turning off your computer and turning it back on.

Bedtime has been a not-so-exciting adventure in our home of late. At least one of our boys will typically have a difficult time going to sleep. With yesterday being the night before the first day of school, that was exponentially true of everyone. Excitement, anxiety, and nerves were crushing every suggestion that we had on how to go to sleep. That is how I found myself driving through Nashville sometime after 10 PM with our youngest son in the passenger seat. His mind could not shut off and so his mom suggested we go for a drive.

Knowing that anxiety about returning to school was at the forefront of his concerns, Liam and I took our normal route to his school. We pulled into an empty parking lot and stopped where he would be dropped off the next morning. As we sat there, I asked him if it would be okay if we prayed about the new school year. He nodded his head and then looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if he wanted to say some words too.

So I prayed and he held my hand. We asked God that this school would be a safe place of learning. That Liam would remember that there were friends and adults in that building that loved and cared for him. We prayed that God would help his relationships grow and that he would form new friendships. We prayed that he would remember that God was with him when he was in school each day and that he was always on the mind of his parents. We said, “Amen” and he hugged me. Then he asked if we could drive around a little more and listen to some music.

There is a massive industry that revolves around people trying to figure out what makes them tick. We want to know our strengths and weaknesses so that we can hopefully go about contributing to the world. Some of the most popular tools for exploring these aspects are the Enneagram (I’m a type 9) and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (INTP or INFP depending on when I have taken it). Yet there is another way of assessing personality types that has been used by amateur clinicians on elementary school playgrounds since the late 1980s: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

For the poor folks who don’t know about these modern mythological heroes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is about four brothers who are—follow me closely here—teenaged mutant turtles who practice martial arts. For multiple generations of children, TMNT have been featured in countless cartoons, video games, and movies including a delightful film that just came out this week. And from the beginning, kids would find themselves drawn to either Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, or Michelangelo.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Personality Index (TMNTPI) seeds to codify what these playground and dorm room conversations have been doing for years: helping people figure out their strengths and weaknesses based upon the turtle with which they most identify. This is not necessarily your favorite turtle though your favorite may be the one with which the TMNTPI links you. Also, most of us will actually have aspects of all the turtles. Yet there is typically one that is strongest.

(This post contains spoilers for a bunch of movies that came out from May to July)

The oldest and I were in a Saturday night showing of Haunted Mansion when something occurred to me: Is every movie this summer about grief in some way? Granted I have not seen every movie this summer. I don’t do horror movies. I have not seen Barbie yet though I am going to because EA says it’s amazing and our rector spent a good chunk of a sermon talking about the movie. I also did not see the newest Transformers movie because I was forced to see Revenge of the Fallen many years ago and swore I would never go to one of those movies again.

But the summer blockbusters that I have seen? All have characters haunted by grief.

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - We learn Rocket belligerent exterior is masking the immense pain of losing his first friends Lylla, Teefs, and Floor. Peter is grieved by the loss of his relationship with Gamora and grappling with having been taken from his home as a child.

Ever since I started blogging some (muttering) years ago, I have struggled with how much of my life to share. That’s been especially true of late. I feel like there is more than enough “Chris is sad/angry/confused” material out there and I would have been insufferable the last 4 months (maybe I already was). Yet I feel the need to seek some closure concerning my time at Woodmont. So this is (probably, most likely) the last time I am going to write publicly about this season.

This is not the saga. This is simply me trying to close the chapter so that I can continue to heal and get back to writing about what I am learning about faith or who would win if all the lead characters from this summer’s blockbusters got into a fight (spoiler alert: if weapons are allowed then it is definitely Robert Oppenheimer).

First of all, I want to thank every person who reached out, checked in on us, grabbed a meal, sent a text, and everything else. It would be melodramatic to say that you have saved my life, but you were definitely a barricade that kept me from getting too close to the ledge. Thinking about that analogy, I guess you did save my life in a less dramatic way. Those gestures of kindness kept me moving when I felt desperately alone and like I was going crazy.