Tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut

Like the president, and like all parents, everywhere, my heart is broken today by the news from Newtown, Connecticut.  I cannot wrap my mind around the tragedy, the horror.  Who would be so disturbed as to attack without warning a school, focusing on a classroom of kindergarten children?  I cannot understand how my God of peace and love can allow this to have happened?  And, I am reminded, as Father Martin, SJ, tweeted earlier, that God, too, had a child who died and I think perhaps that God is as appalled and as hurt as I am.  I believe He is there with those parents who wait...with those teachers who did the best they could to save as many as they could...with those children who somehow escaped the carnage but will forever have to live with the memory of what happened today.  God walks with us and He weeps with us.

The answers cannot be found in fear or hatred...in a retreat to homeschooling and the purchase of your own gun to keep your loved ones safe.  The answer lies in changing our society where violence is endemic, where it is okay to make fun of others, where it is acceptable to make excuses about behavior.  We have to hold each other accountable...to be kinder and gentler...we have to speak up for the voiceless, for the quiet kid in the back of the room, for the student who is bullied and for the bully.  We have to find ways to help families in trouble, to reach out to those who need resources....food, mental health care, friends.  We adults have to reach out to the kids that we know and even to those we don't know.  We have to be less absorbed in what we have and more absorbed in what we can give. 

We cannot change the world, all at once, in a big way, or at least most of us cannot.  We can, however, change our little piece of the world by giving more of our time and our money.  Smile.  Talk to someone who is lonely or afraid or lost.  Don't be afraid to ask, "how are you?" and mean it.  Buy fewer things at Apple and Target and give more to the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities.  Write your Congressman.  Volunteer. Be actively in the world so that when people see you, they see the face of God.  If each of us does what we can, when we can, we can bring about change.  We must be the change that we want to see in the world.  

And, if you know a teacher or a principal or a school nurse, hug them and pray for them.  My heart goes out to the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary who shepherded their kids to safety as they could.  I cannot get out of my head the first grade teacher who hid her children in cabinets and told the gunman that they were in the gym.  That young, brave teacher, only 27, is my newest hero.  Each day teachers make a difference for good in the world.  Sometimes we, they, make mistakes, but mostly they do a difficult job for not enough pay.   Like policemen and social workers and nurses, teachers make a difference.  Encourage young people to teach, to take up the challenge of reaching kids who are troubled and afraid and lost and alone.  We can bemoan the world we live in or we can make an effort to change it for the better.  Let's do that.