there are no words for the amount of heartache the world has endured the past few days. humanity has been tested by demons greater than any weapon. tiny souls were ripped from their families...parents, siblings, friends, and strangers...each mourning for lives lost in seconds. i ache for the survivors, for the children who may never escape the sights and sounds of those moments. 20 children in one school, 20 children in a community about the same size as mine...children near m's age...gone.
my child is growing up in an age where they have "intruder" drills. "we put black paper over the windows and hide in the backpack area. or, if we have enough time we go to mrs. davis' class because she has no windows." she has practiced this. she knows why she would need to do this in a real-life situation, and that breaks my heart. i can't make sense of this, and i don't think i ever will. i am thankful that her school does what it can to protect her from such dangers, but absolutely hate that there is even a need for those children to "rehearse" what they would do if someone walked their halls with the intent to harm them. it makes me sick.
i don't want to talk about gun control. i don't want to know his name or see his face. i have no doubt he fought an illness our society doesn't do enough to treat, but that still gives no one the right, or the justification, to take innocent lives. keep your selfish misery to yourself, never turn it on defenseless children or those whose job it is to protect them.
friday's tragedy isn't the only one splattered across the newspapers and television...a mass stabbing in china, a family found shot to death less than 15 miles from here, senseless shootings at a mall...is there no place we are safe? is human life of so little value that to take it means nothing to the one holding the weapon? or is the possibility of going down in history, even as a monster, worth it? have we allowed our children to become so desensitized to violence that they don't know the true implications when it isn't on a screen under the auspices of "it's just a game"? i fear we, as parents, are much to blame. we fill our lives with so much, allow our children to be occupied by things other than us...we aren't present much of the time and they turn to whatever source of attention they can find. don't get me wrong, i'm not blaming tv or video games or whatever else you likely think i was referring to. it's a generalization. it is our job to raise our children. our job, our privilege to love them...to teach them how to love. we can't do that if we aren't paying attention to them.
so much of life is wasted on senseless cruelty. how do we preserve innocence? is it possible to protect without living in fear? or, is the answer to live each moment as if we don't know if we'll get another? nothing is promised. we get right now, this second. that is a sobering, yet absolutely liberating statistic. i pray to love with an open heart, to see the goodness in each moment, to look into another's eyes and see them as Jesus would. we all vowed friday to hold tighter, to love stronger, to be thankful for our children and loved ones...but, those promises fade with the buffer of time. ultimately we become more relaxed, taking for granted time and people without notice until our faith is shaken again. it's a cycle we all live without intent, yet i guess i hope that with each horrific story i revert less to my old pattern and appreciate those in my life a little more on a continuous basis. at least, that's my hope.
i think the best thing we can do to honor those lives is to love with all we have, to give more of ourselves to those around us and to take time to truly enjoy the gift of time. those families don't have that luxury...
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