darkness

There just seems to be a darkness throughout the school.  I suppose that part of why I am there is to be light.

I wanted - needed - to go to Mass Tuesday.  But it didn't happen.  There was a Saints game on Monday Night Football, and getting the younger teen out of bed nearly required an act of God.  So I ended up at a Math department meeting instead.  I figured maybe that was where God thought I needed to be.

In the context of talking about our student who was murdered over the weekend, one of my students told me on Monday that she thinks about hanging herself sometimes.  But then in the next breath, she said/asked, "But I'd go to hell if I did that, right?"  There is such a cheapness to life in our society.  We kill little babies before they take their first breath.  I think sometimes we contribute to the cheapness of life when we don't recognize all life - even aggravating teens - for the gift that it is.

On the way home, I saw the most perfect rainbow.  I needed to see this.  It was a whole rainbow.  You often see a part of a rainbow, but this was the whole thing - from one pot of gold to the other.  I think it was God reminding me that He is there with us in the storm, and that everything will be OK.

My sister-in-law hosts a rosary group on some Tuesday nights.  I always ask my boys if they want to come.  Sometimes they do; sometimes not.  Last night they both came and prayed the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows along with the group of women.  That was a blessing.  The conversation on the way home was priceless.  The younger - feeling safe in the darkness of the back seat -  saying how "good" he felt about praying, and how he was trying to be better; to get his life together.  We talked about how God doesn't call us to be good; He calls us to be holy.  It was a great conversation.  Wish I could remember it all. It was good for my mom-ears to hear.  Light in the darkness.