Hello, my friends.
It has been a difficult time for our nation, watching the news coming out of Newtown, Ct.
I feel so horribly sad at the loss of those 20 children and the 6 adults.  I wonder at the courage of those teachers and can feel the terror of those children as they crouched in corners and bathrooms away from the bad man and his guns.

There are a lot of people in our society who self-medicate to function in this society.  Alcohol and drugs to calm their anxieties, obsessive tv, reading, hobbies; anything to calm themselves so they can function.  I wonder if the Media has considered that anyone can become a "shooter".  Few people, whether they are mentally ill, disabled or "normal" have the capacity to detach from their fellows enough to kill them.
I don't pretend to understand the workings of the mind and that is not the point of this blog.  I feel that all of us, at one time or another has had enough rage to harm another person, but there is some connection within that does not allow us to step over the line and kill.

I am very concerned at the media reporting the shooter was autistic and prone to violence.
My son is autistic and has been known to have "violent" episodes. Those episodes were directly connected to some change in his environment that challenged his ability to cope.   I can not imagine that he could ever pull the trigger of a gun.  His inability to function in our chaotic world apparently caused his outbursts and yet they were few and far between.  He lives in a residential facility and they are organized and precise....bath at 6:15 am, breakfast at 6:45, work at 7:30, etc.  This gives him comfort and he manages very well.  He will never function appropriately in our society.  It is too chaotic and frightening for him.  So we made the decision to move him into a facility when he was 15 years old.  It is important to understand when a fellow human being needs something we don't.  The home he lives in is geared toward his needs as I said, with calendars and schedules he can check.  Knowing what is happening is the most important thing in his world.  The other thing about my son is his behavior is always geared towards his self-preservation.  I don't think he has the capacity for suicide.  The man who killed those children knew he was going to die and that is directly opposed to autistic behavior that I have experienced.
The horror of those babies dying  strikes a deep chord within and now we want to know why.
I don't know that finding out why really helps....it is a way to finger point.  If they had done this then that wouldn't have happened.  Every time there is a mass shooting, people come out looking for why and I don't know that it matters.  If we found out why, what would we do about it?  The children are still gone and it will happen again.
I believe that we no longer want to help those people who have mental illness, our country has eliminated housing and medical care for them.  I see them everyday on the street.  We used to care for our citizens with mental illness.  It took months of searching for my son to get into an appropriate home and there are a lot of people waiting to get their family member help.  It takes an extreme amount of perseverance to get through the system.  It also takes years to maneuver through the maze of bureaucracy.  Some people give up and live with an unpredictable person, hoping that they will make it through one more day without consequence.
I know it seems that these events are happening more and more but I think we have always had horrible things happening but now it is blasted on every channel as soon as it happens and continues on in great detail so that it seems unending.  The networks had coverage yesterday well into the afternoon.  It was mind numbing and shocking.
I will pray for those families that they are given the strength from their God to carry on.  I will pray for the family of the shooter that they are given the courage to continue and I will pray for all of us that we will honor those who have gone on before us.