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Remembering Sandy Hook 12/30/2012 4:29:05 PM
The following was printed as a Letter to the Editor, in the San Francisco Chronicle, Insight Section, "2012 A Year in Review", 30Dec2012. Titled: "God was present in each teacher and child." I’d like to answer those who say it was the absence of God from classrooms that allowed the horror in Newtown, Connecticut. God was in the classroom at Sandy Hook before 12/14/12, but it was not the god of institutionalized religion, it was the ineffable spirit in each soul: the patience of parental love, which formed and encouraged each child; the daily devotion of teachers to their students; the innocent trust of students for those teachers; the youthful enthusiasm and joy for life.
On that sorrowful Friday, God was in the classroom: the unquestioning protective actions of staff and teachers; their self-sacrifice in shielding students; the compassionate embrace of a dying teacher and a dying child.
The horror was man-made: a lost, enraged, unstable person with access to weapons of war.
We must look directly at the shadow side of these twin problems, and not hide behind old attitudes and positions. We can truly heal one another, and in the process truly protect our communities and our society. The depth of our sorrow shows us the depth of our love. Let us do this.
