Safety and Sleeping Beauty

    I want to protect them all. I want to build a giant fence around them and them safe beside me. Not just my girls but every child every where. Teachers have this thing in them. The thing that makes us see every child we ever interact with as "ours". We want to protect them from every harmful thing they might possibly find.  After Friday, the urge to protect is almost overwhelming. I'm sure that if we enacted just the right laws everyone would be safe. I'm sure if we came up with just the right program no one would feel the need to do such awful thing. Maybe, if we got rid of all the guns, knives, fertilizer, peanuts, etc we would be safe. Maybe if my girls and I hid in our house we could avoid all the dangers outside.
  Maybe if we destroyed all the spinning wheels in the kingdom our kids would be safe.
  Sleeping Beauty was the beloved princess who was cursed from birth. Her curse was that she would die from a prick of a spinning wheel.  So her loving parents did the only thing loving parents could do. They destroyed all the spinning wheels in the kingdom.  I can see the spinners wondering why on earth all their tools were being destroyed. After all, spinning wheels don't kill people, curses do. These people though were good followers of their king and they gave up their spinning wheels.  Everyone gave up the spinning wheels except the palace spinner. She kept hers hidden in a back room in the palace. It was hidden so deeply that she thought it would be ok. Secrets though never turn out ok and some things happen no matter how diligent you are.  Sleeping Beauty went wandering around the castle one day and saw this strange machine. She reached out and touched it.
  We are all under a curse. We will all die even if we do everything in our power to avoid it.  I think of Sleeping Beauty's parents trying so hard to make everything perfect.  Then I think of my own attempts to control the uncontrollable.  Then I think of the parents whose children are gone. I think of the parents of the children who are hurt. I think of the children who are bullied.  All this innocence lying broken all around us hurts. Tears threaten to overwhelm me. Despair looms like a deep cloud. But God.
  God moves in the midst of this cloud. God is love and love is light and despair is forced to leave.  There is a joy that transcends all this mess. There is a love that allows me to put aside my need to control things I cannot control.
  We cannot legislate safety. There will always be at least one spinning wheel hidden in the castle. We can teach love. We can show light. We can hold on to the firm assurance that God is with us.  God is with us and that is enough.