As I’ve written and spoken about my month of broken things and how irritating it has been for my psyche, nothing has snapped me back to reality the way the school shooting has in Connecticut.  I, like many parents, can’t help but shed tears over the madness.  Our people are broken.  In a place where freedom reigns and the faithful flourish, even in a hamlet such as Newtown, evil can roar its ugly head.  There is no other way to describe the gunning down of small children and the adults who are there to teach them.  It is evil, pure and simple.  This tragedy can’t just become a discussion about gun violence, although we will have to have that conversation without people freaking out over second amendment rights.  It can’t become just a discussion about saving souls and what to do with those prone to this kind of behavior.  While those discussions must be had…I think we need to start looking at how rage, anger, vitriol, blame and ultimately despair have leaked into all of our lives and have taken hold.  There is no sensibility any more.  Our inability to handle conflict and divisiveness explodes more and more into blind rage, whether it be at a child’s sporting event, road rage, even in a vitriolic Congress.  We all have to be willing to do some soul-searching into how we want to move forward as a people and stop living in the denial that it can never happen to me, the fault lies somewhere else, or dump them in a prison somewhere.  There are many subtle ways we all add to the rage.   I know there are as many tears in heaven, as there are on this earth as we pray for all those affected by this tragedy.  While we are limited in our ability to understand why this happened, we have the power to move forward and bring light to our darkening world.  It will happen by the force of love, beyond any constricted definition.  And as I sit alone, and wonder what I can do…I can choose a simple but powerful action, to love my family, let go of anger regarding my petty broken things and be better agent of light.  My month of broken things has taught me that I am so much more than stuff…and even amidst the rubble…love will help me rise above.

“Someday after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, we will have discovered fire”

Teilhard de Chardin