Premature

Alert!  This is not a Sunday jolly.  Sometimes, it just doesn’t  work out like that.  So, read on at your own peril.  It’s an observation; just not a happy one.  And it may not be a new one at that.

Yes.  There was another school shooting not so long ago in Santa Fe, Texas.  We all know that.

Many of us have become so inured to the reality of violence that we knew it would happen again.  And we also know that it will most certainly happen yet again.  We’ve been around long enough to understand, sadly, that it’s not over.

But what really threw me at that time and has stuck with me since was the realization that young people are starting to share and accept that regrettable perspective of inevitability.

Amid the anticipated expressions of shock and despair from the Texas horror came a voice from one student.  She said, simply and quietly: “I wasn’t surprised.”

We aren’t only taking lives.  We’re taking innocence, promise and hope.  All of it way, way, way too soon.

 

 

 

Image from “The Loss of Innocence” by Hoppymon Jacob