Prayers for Sandy Hook

I’d planned to write a cute piece about Thomas today and was going over it in my head, when my Dad called about the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Suddenly, following through on my original plan seemed frivolous and just plain wrong.

But I will say this about Thomas. Thomas is a student in elementary school, and I can imagine, just a little, how crazed with grief I would be today were Thomas a student at Sandy Hook. As it is, I am heartbroken for these parents and the community at large, and I am angry at the wickedness of this heinous act.

Right now there are more questions than answers, but the shooter has been identified as twenty-year-old Adam Lanza. Lanza committed suicide during the rampage and also is reported to have murdered his mother in her home sometime before the school shooting.

Megyn Kelly, a Fox News reporter, said that understanding this tragedy is “impossible,” and I agree. We will try, because that’s a natural human instinct, but we’ll never understand how anyone could walk into an elementary school and proceed to slaughter innocent children, many as young as six years old. As of this writing, twenty children and six adults are reported dead.

In the next few days, we’re going to be hearing about the state of the shooter’s mental health, his family relationships, and his video game habits. We’re going to hear about a need for more meaningful gun control laws and more effective psychiatric intervention methods. We’ll hear about school security. We’re going to hear all kinds of opinions about everything that is believed to be wrong with our society—a lack of regard for human life, a general lack of civility, a lack of skill in resolving conflict, and a lack of respect for God. We’re going to hear a lot, because we’re all in shock, and we need to make some sense of this horrible crime.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School, and to the family of Adam Lanza. I have a twenty-year-old son, too. I am crying with all of you, and I hope to God that something positive can be redeemed from this tragedy. Right now, it’s darkness, and it’s devastating.