Not again. Please not again. Please not kids. We said those words again last week when news emerged that a gunman entered a Connecticut elementary school and killed 20 children, 6 adults and then himself.
We all know it is a special time of year when children are often at the epicenter of those unique holiday activities and traditions, but for inexplicable reasons, we again grapple with how the youngest and most innocent among us could be the majority of victims of senseless violence. Additionally, we wrestle with how a place so singularly dedicated to children’s welfare and upbringing can become a new capitol of violence. When these difficult realities come together in one singular moment – as they did at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut – the word “why” becomes the most asked and most unanswerable question.
What we know right now is a fog of horrors. Whatever investigators find in this case over the coming days, weeks and months, it will never be able to address the issue of what on earth could be so wrong with someone that they would think extinguishing children’s lives is the answer.
Violence is never an answer to any problem we might have. Yet it’s the lesson we never seem to learn, even in the Season of hope.
