There were no flags hanging from the tops of utility trucks, like I had seen in pictures of Umpqua College Road on Monday, but I did drive past many signs showing support.
There was also a large purple RV with the words "Billy Graham" splashed across it, sitting on the side of the road by the college's first driveway. I assume that was as close as they could get legally. There was a man sitting in the open door. He wasn't Billy or his son Franklin. The ministry people had obviously thought that we didn't have any churches in Roseburg, so they sent a Port-A-Preacher.
There wasn't anything else that had changed, when I walked into the small theater in which I had my acting class. Of course, I had arrived a few minutes early.
The substitute for our teacher arrived and I shook hands with her. The original teacher had had to take time off, after what happened. Apparently it had affected her very closely.
I was only the second student to arrive. After all of the others had arrived, that was when the parade began.
In addition to the nine students and our new teacher, there were, crowded in that space:
Two therapy dogs
Two dog handlers
Another guy from the therapy dog agency
Three social workers from an organization known as Community Health Alliance
Two people from the community college in Salem
The director of the art and theater department
The famous comedian, Carol Burnett, was one of the dog handlers, but she lied and said that her name was Barb. We're onto you, Carol.
"There are people all across the country thinking about you--and praying for you," Carol said, significantly. The dog people made us all take business cards for both of the dogs, Hannah and Moses, whom they said each had their own Facebook pages.
This is what the cards looked like:
And the bible verses on their cards match the bible verses on their Facebook pages, in the "About" tab.
"They're like Pokemon cards," the man who wasn't a handler said. "You gotta collect them all. Except they all have the same power. They throw Comfort-Bombs!" he said enthusiastically.
His joke made me uncomfortable.
As far as I could tell, all the dogs have biblical names. I found a "Jonah" puppy on Facebook, but that was all I could find in a cursory search. (Edit: I have since found a Cubby, a Susie, a Zippy, a Tabby, and an Angel, though "Angel" doesn't really count as secular. There are still a lot of biblical names, though, Jacob, for example.)
There were also large Jesus-fishes splashed across the dogs' vests, in addition to the fishes and bible verses on their cards. All of this is a huge violation, in my opinion, of these dogs' freedom of religion. You can't tell me that every single one of those dogs is a Christian. That's statistically impossible.
These "Lutheran Church Charities" people are obviously compensating for not being able to preach or give out gospel tracts in the places where they go to help. And I thought I was a little militant by wearing my tiny rainbow flag pins everywhere. (Yes, I wore them that day, and I was glad that I had.)
Of course, I did appreciate all of these offers of help, from many different people and animals. But I knew that the people who really needed help the most were probably absent. And these helping people couldn't reach out to them.
I also knew that at least for me, it is most difficult long after a tragedy, not right after. I can easily say, "My cat died yesterday," for example, but a week or month afterwards, it's extremely difficult to even think about it, much less talk about it.
I didn't really need it (though others might have), but it was neat having dogs in the class, and petting them, because they were cleaner and calmer than my two large, difficult-to-wash dogs.
And I was polite to the Lutherans and the others. I smiled, and said "Thank you," for their prayers and cards, though I was a little uncomfortable with so much attention and their overly soothing tones of voice. I smiled, but (with church people) they didn't know that I wasn't always smiling with them...
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