I am happy to report that our bedroom window has finally been replaced! It was broken out by the massive hail storm last summer, along with a number of other windows in our complex. This morning, we finally have a wonderful, panoramic view of our commons area, instead of plywood! And, I’m noting all of this, of course, using Windows 10.
The events in our nation this past week have opened many windows. Windows into the vulnerability of our schools, our teachers and especially our children; the disparate positions concerning the regulation of gun ownership; and the failure of our government to keep guns out of our many school buildings. But perhaps the worst window it has opened is the lack of planning that has allowed the shootings to continue in the school buildings of our nation. For this, I lay the blame squarely on our government.
For many years, our schools have been neglected. Teachers underpaid, lean budgets, a lack of money for security enhancements, and especially for professional counselors for the many troubled kids in schools across the nation. None of this is new; my parents were both teachers in the Detroit area, and I clearly remember the gutted budgets and my Dad occasionally having to wrestle some kids to the office.
I don’t blame the teachers. Nor do I blame the kids. I blame the people who control the school funding. The education of our kids reflects who we are, or who we should be as a nation. To have our President suggest that we arm our teachers is the result of a lack of education.
I hope the windows being opened now will show just where the problems are. As St. Paul said so eloquently in the Scriptures, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult I put an end to childish ways.” May we move beyond the rhetoric and end our childish ways.
Blessings,
Fr Dave
Reflections on Dementia 