Newtown, CT

I have clothes that need folding. My kitchen isn't as clean as it needs to be. There are things to do. But tonight, these things just don't seem to matter very much.

It's nights like these that I hate living alone. Not because of fear. But because there's no one to talk to. Nothing to connect to except the images on a tv screen or thoughts on social media or a text. It's not the same as either coping together or at least having a distraction. So I write because it's what I can do. And of course, I pray.

I ache for the families. I ache for the community. I ache for the children that survived and pray that they can do whatever they need to do in order to heal and feel safe again. I weep for the fear that must have been felt in those classrooms. I pray the physical pain was quick. The emotional pain will not be. I grieve for the parents who got the call, went to the school, and received the most horrific news.

After the Colorado theater shooting I wrote about the need to pay closer attention to what's going on around us and perhaps stopping the next tragedy from happening. And over the next few days, we'll see the shooter's picture and find out his story. There will be people who knew things. All the same questions will be raised. And, of course, the gun control debate will rage. This guy killed with hand guns, but there were assault weapons in his car. [Editor's note: it was later confirmed that the shooter actually did use the assault weapon to kill the children and adults, shooting each one multiple times. The hand guns were in his pockets.] Why the hell anyone needs one of those is beyond me.

But today was different. Today was too much. It was in the tone of the reporters as they tried to keep up with information. It was in the faces of law enforcement. It was in the tears of our President.

They were babies, most of them. They were innocent, beautiful babies.

I am not a parent, and I doubt, at this point, that I will be. For whatever reason, God, in His infintite mystery, has not blessed me with that precious opportunity. However, one does not have to be a parent to love the children in their lives. My office and home are covered with pictures of Grayton and Henry. Parents will tell you that they never knew they could love so deeply as they do their own children. I'm here to tell you - that feeling applies to aunts as well. I never understood it until I held both of them for the first time, and I know how precious my time and relationship is with them. It was impossible to keep their faces out of my head today.  I can't imagine. I just can't imagine.

In a text exchange tonight my sister wrote this: "There is an evil in this world that makes my bones shiver...this evil that infiltrates the hearts of the most vulberable and then unspeakable things happen and the most innocent suffer. And my only comfort is that those babies are in the warm arms of God."

Indeed, the only comfort.

O merciful Father, whose face the angels of thy little ones do always behold in heaven; Grant us stedfastly to believe that these thy children hath been taken into the safe keeping of thine eternal love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen