Myriad (Thoughts on Newtown, CT)

An old song, if you consider going back to the 70's, as ancient is "Love Hurts," by a group called of all things, "Nazareth." It describes a bitter breakup of a young couple. The beginning lyrics  came back to me today, haunting and capturing the feelings I have when I think of the young Innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Love hurts
Love scars
Love wounds and mars
Any heart, not tough,
or strong enough,
to take a lot of pain
Love is like a cloud,
holds a lot of rain...

All I can think of is the agony of the parents of Newtown, CT.

So many questions. So many thoughts.

My grief is only superficial. My experience as a stranger...only vicarious.

Over the last 3 days, I wake up with a brick on my chest. I ponder the 27 year old teacher who died a martyr. Would I have the courage to do the same?

The lead in my chest may weigh heavy but it doesn't come close to what I imagine these poor parents are feeling.

How much more can we stand? How long will the Lord tarry?

Why does God allow free will? Why is that built into our gene pool?

Where were these kids' guardian angels?

Did not one parent pray for safety or swipe the sign of the cross of Holy Water across the forehead as their son or daughter walked out the door that morning?

It's hard to fathom that God would allow this.

Where is the grace? Is it through suffering?

Is it the laws of our land visiting their results upon our children? How unfair.

When will we take responsibility?

Then there is the issue of the guy with the gun. We won't ever know here on earth the mental anguish he endured throughout his young life.

I live very close to this with a son born on the Autism spectrum.

The disorder itself is not mental insanity.

Unfortunately, there are secondary side dishes that accompany a full entree of the disorder of Autism itself.

Here are a few: Depression, Anxiety, Cognitive processing issues, Fixation, Alienation, Isolation, and a whole host of physical health problems that serve as just desserts.

Those of you who are close to my family know what we deal with and how it affects all of us-- namely my son.

I don't know the family dynamics of the killer from CT. I do know that 80% of all marriages in which there is a child with a disability, end in divorce.

People aren't made for hardship. When life gets difficult, they tend to bail.

This young man's mother was missing a husband and a father to protect her and her son.

This is our society today.

Oh, and the guns?! His Mom's!!!!

Why weren't they locked up in a safe that only she had the keys?!

There is all kinds of wrong here.

All I can say as a voyeur on this tragedy is that in my own life, I've never been prepared for suffering. Except maybe childbirth. I knew what that entailed.

In free will, if I think of myself, I alone have control over myself. But I do have control.

My thoughts, words, and actions.

What a great influence, if I choose right over wrong.

The following is a passage I found written by the venerable, Fulton J. Sheen.

In the light of this horrific event, it is a hard truth.

But, so far as a Catholic Christian....these words only, make sense.

[Mary’s] sacrifice... gave courage to those whose burdens are heavier than their pleasures—to those who have children destined for death when they are hardly launched on the sea of life, to those who find their love’s surrender betrayed and...

even despised. If Our Lord allowed Mary to suffer the trials that even the most grieved mother could suffer—such as to have her Son pursued by the totalitarian soldiers at two years of age, to be a refugee in a foreign country, to point to a Father’s business that would end in death, to be arrested falsely, to be condemned by His own people, and to suffer the taking-off in the prime of life—it was in order to convince mothers with sorrows that trials without pleasures and that the final issues of life are not solved here below. If the Father gave His Son a Cross and the Mother a sword, then somehow sorrow does fit into the Divine plan of life. If Divine Innocence and His Mother, who was a sinless creature, both underwent agonies, it cannot be that life is a snare and a mockery, but rather it is made clear that love and sorrow often go together in this life and that only in the next life is sorrow left behind.