On parenting in impossible times

Today I have planned to write about artificial intelligence and family life. I have a gripping story to start. I have citations from Pope Leo's encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas." I have perspectives from Scripture, prayerful reflections and practical ways to engage the questions I'll raise.

Suddenly a text flashes on my phone: "Please check your email for an urgent update regarding the threat at school."

Heart in my throat, I drop the phone and pull up my email, pulse thrumming in my ears. Quick as a flash, I scan the words. Credible threat. Evacuating students. Police investigating. Continue to monitor.

I sit back, flooded with -- what exactly? Relief that it's the neighboring high school, not my child's middle school? Fear that it will become more than a threat and someone will be hurt (or worse)? Anxiety that the next target could be one of my kids' schools? Numbness that such events are now commonplace in the country where we live?

All of it. All my words run dry. I stare out the window and pray.

God, save us from ourselves. God, keep all your children safe.

Artificial intelligence matters, sure; I'll write about it soon. But today is not a day for anything artificial. Whenever your community is threatened -- and sadly, we all know this experience -- the scales fall from your eyes.

Suddenly only life's basics matter. Safety. Peace. Protection. Health. The ones you love.

Every time I watch the heartbreaking footage of parents and children reuniting after a school shooting, no one is talking about homework or grades or practice that night. Everyone is running for the relief of each other's arms.

How desperately I want safety and security for all families.

How deeply I believe that God desires it for us, too.

Some days I cannot believe the majesty we make on God's green earth: spaceships to explore the cosmos, medicines to save lives, skyscrapers that stretch to the heavens, lightning-fast technologies that our ancestors could never have dared to dream, let alone carry in their pockets. Other days I am filled with despair at the horrors we have perpetuated and manufactured here below.

My children know so many more dangers and threats than I did in my youth.

The Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us: "Nothing is new under the sun." From the beginning, humanity has dealt with violence, death and despair. We cannot fool ourselves that today's generations are unique in what we face.

Yet the dizzying rate of change, the scope of existential threats and a growing sense of helplessness loom large. We were not made to live this way.

"You are receiving this email because you are opted in to receive messages from your school," reads the last line of the email on my screen.

All of us have opted into this life by embracing the path of faith in a difficult world. I want to choose hope, compassion, goodness, justice, healing, peacemaking and love: all that Jesus came here to bring. This is the ultimate question asked by the trying times in which we find ourselves: How, then, shall we live?

The prophet Ezekiel responds, "Answer them: As I live -- oracle of the Lord God -- I swear I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways." We will go on as we have always tried to go, turning toward hope, faith, truth and love.

If I cannot build the world I want for my children, I will do this for my grandchildren. I will do it for yours, too. For strangers across the globe. For generations yet to come. For every new human life born into this marvelous, mysterious world we were given to tend.

Tomorrow will dawn a new day. Threats (and thrills) we cannot yet imagine will await us. But we will never go alone, and we can always turn back toward the Prince of Peace, the Good Shepherd who has already gone off in search of us.

In impossible times, we build our hope on God alone, for whom nothing is impossible.