April 2 2001

ARTICLE TOOLS

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When I returned to Littleton in January 2000, six months after my initial trip, I sensed that healing was taking place. The grief, though evident, was not as raw, and the community seemed more normal. The families of those who had died had navigated the first holiday season without their loved ones, and the survivors had reconfigured their lives, learning to live in wheelchairs, with leg braces, with disfiguring scars, or with chronic pain from bullets too deep to remove.

The healing of internal wounds was less measurable and more complicated. Columbine High School's status as a public institution placed limits on what healing activities could be officially sanctioned. Notions such as "educating" kids to respect others and learning "tolerance" abounded at the school. Official references to prayer, use of religious symbols, and discussions about God were not part of the conversation. It didn't take long before religion became the flashpoint of controversy, first locally and later in broader spheres. The discussion assumed a cantankerous tone following the community memorial service five days after the massacre, and it intensified a larger national debate.