Pray and put up a (nonviolent) fight

It hasn’t even been six months since I quaked irrationally with fear as my husband went off with a friend to a sleepy little cinema in western Pennsylvania, weeks after the Aurora shooting. If my kids went to elementary school, I’d be quaking with fear this morning. As it is, all is not well with my soul, and I am willing to bet that a good many of my friends gave their kids an extra squeeze before putting them on the bus today.

Statistically speaking, these fears are without foundation. Statistically speaking, Mother Julian of Norwich was totally right: all shall be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well, and my loved ones will never have to fold themselves into a ball in a janitorial closet to escape the spray of ammunition. But statistically speaking, reflecting on the statistics comforts me perhaps 1% of the time. Mostly six and seven year olds. My God. I have a seven year old.

When my mind wanders across the bay from the house where I grew up to the lovely old town where families sit by Christmas trees where presents will lie unopened, where there will be no begging to stay up until midnight to ring in the New Year, where children will return after the holidays to new teachers because the ‘old’ ones were killed in the line of duty, where the children themselves are no more…I can just barely gasp out one of the essential prayers: God, help. God help them.