Can we learn from Newtown?

   Every morning, I wake my wife up at 6:30, fix her coffee, and head off to work.
   She wakes up our oldest and sends him off to middle school. She wakes up our 2 younger boys, feeds them, gets them ready, and takes them to school.
   Like millions of parents across the country, she sends them off to school with the expectation that, at the end of the school day, they will step off the bus, smiling, frowning, whining about wanting a snack, but safe.
   Like millions of parents across the country, this little dance of normality will be very different tomorrow.
   The senseless tragedy in Newtown CT does not only affect the residents of that idyllic little town. It cuts to the very core of our being as a nation.
   Nobody but the parents of those poor little children can feel the pain, anger, and frustration that they must be going through, but all parents can imagine it.
   A parent's greatest fear is the loss of a child, and so we try not to think about it. We do all we can to keep them safe, while willfully ignoring the things we are trying to protect them from. That is no longer possible.
   Mankind's greatest gift is the urge to make sense of the things around him. The greatest advances in science, technology, and humanity are the result of someone asking a simple question..."why?" As humans, we seek to rationalize, explain, make sense of the senseless. It is how our brains are wired. We have a need to compartmentalize, to take something, label it, put it in a binder, and move on with our lives. The longer we have no answer to that question..."why?", the more uncomfortable we become, and the more likely we are to assign reasons to events that have no reason.
   This is already happening.
   Gun control will be much discussed over the next several weeks. It is a discussion worth having, as long as we understand that it has nothing to do with the tragedy. There are, basically 3 types of gun owners. One group owns them for sport, either for hunting or shooting. Another group owns them for their own protection. The last group, and the most important in this case, are the people that own guns in order to do harm to others. The people that wish to kill, steal from, or otherwise hurt us. If guns are banned, the first 2 groups, and the rest of us, will be at the mercy of the 3rd. That is not what anyone wants.
   Information will come out about the murderer. He has been called a loner, alienated, isolated from his peers, a gamer, a techno-geek. Some have alluded to mental problems. None of these are reasons for his actions. Millions of people play video games, violent ones, millions have been bullied, millions deal with alienation, depression, loneliness. People deal with these issues all the time without feeling the need to force their way into a school and murder nearly 30 innocent people, most of them 6-7 year-old children. This line of discussion does nothing but serve to make the perpetrator the victim, while losing sight of the true victims.
   Religion and faith will certainly come up. The irony can't be ignored that, in an affluent suburb of a decidedly liberal state, the first reaction of everyone is to turn to God and to prayer for solace. This is not a bad thing, but it must be understood that God and religion are personal choices, we cannot stand on our pulpits or soapboxes and shout that, "If only there was more God in our lives, this would not have happened." While there is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole, someone is only in a foxhole because of a war, and renouncing atheism will not prevent war.
   School safety will be a topic, albeit a short-lived one. It appears that, not only did the school take every possible precaution to protect it's students, some of the faculty and staff acted heroically in a time of great crisis in order to save lives. As frightening as this sounds, it could have been a lot worse if not for the actions of these brave souls.
   There are many ways to rationalize the tragedy in Connecticut. To explain to ourselves why it can't happen to us. The fact remains that it can happen to us. And this is why millions of parents across the nation will hug their children a little tighter tomorrow morning as they put them on the bus.  This is why schools across the country will seek to adopt the same high level of security that failed to work in Newtown. This is why millions of people around the world, religious or not, will find themselves saying a little prayer for the community of Newtown, for the tragic loss and unimaginable grief that hangs over that town, and will for a long time.
   We will think of the silence that exists where the laughter of little children should ring. We will think of the parents, trying to cope with their loss. We will think of the presents under trees that will never be opened, the lives that will never be lived. We will do all of these things because we are human. We know, in spite of any attempts at rationalization, deep in our souls, that it can happen anywhere. We know that a monster, bent on destruction, will wreak it, and there is nothing we can do but pray for the victims, and pray that it doesn't happen to us.