**Disclaimer- If you take offense to this all I will say is that I'm sorry you feel that way. This is my opinion.
I know that I’m about to offend several people with what I’m
about to say. We can all agree that what happened at Sandy Hook
Elementary School in Newtown, CT
is a horrible tragedy. It’s something that when you hear about it, you hear
what those children and adults went through and it strikes this fear and pain
inside you. How could someone not only kill his own mother but then murder 6
adults and 20 children? This coward took away the lives of 20 babies and
destroyed every single one of their families in the process. These are children
that will never go to prom, experience college life or grow old. But that’s not
the part that’s going to offend some of you. The next part is.
What I’m having a hard time understanding (besides why this guy would
do this) is what I’ve been seeing on Facebook and Twitter. There are so many
posts and pictures being shared stating that it’s time to put God back into
schools. It seems as if it’s being implied that this atrocious incident is the
result of prayer no longer being allowed in school.
Before I go any further I just want to explain that I do believe in
God. I may not go to church or completely follow my Catholic faith; however I
do believe that God is with me and in my heart. What I do not believe is that
this heart wrenching massacre is the result of prayer not being allowed in
schools. If that is truly the reason will someone please explain why the Amish
school shooting happened? Just to refresh, October 2, 2006, a milk man took a
small Amish school hostage, shot 10 girls, killed 5 and my understanding of
that culture is that they are a highly religious people.
All of these posts about letting God back into the school system is
making it seem like God is this egotistical and vengeful being and that in
order for the poor fella to get any attention is to somehow make this guy force
his way into an elementary school and murder innocent children and adults. I
really doubt that God has the attitude of an angry 14 year old girl and is
sitting up in Heaven with Elvis and James Dean saying, “See! I told you this
would happen when they banned me from school.” It shouldn’t matter if prayer is
or isn’t allowed in school. What would the argument be if he had gone to a
Christian or Catholic or Quaker or Muslim or whatever other religious school. The
actions that were committed that day were done by a man with guns, not God.
As I said earlier, God is with me and in my heart and I believe that
when those shots rang out he was with those students and faculty. I believe
that he was with them and apologized that their lives were cut so short and so tragically.
I also view those teachers and faculty members that protected those students as
angels and as heroes. They went above
and beyond the call of duty to protect all those children and that just warms
my heart to know there are people like that in the world. A person that would
do anything, risk their own life, for someone else. We need more people like
that in this world.
