From December 16, 2012
Our world is a sad and sorrowful place this week following Adam Lanza's murder of 26 people--children and adults--at Sandy Hook School in Newtown.  May we honor their innocent lives by taking real steps toward meaningful gun control laws (which is to say, have some) and doing a better job of protecting ourselves from dangerous people.


The Wayfarer
The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun,
Or some green hill where shadows drifted by
Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown
And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;
Or children with bare feet upon the sands
Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets
Of little towns in Connacht,
Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me:
These will pass,
Will pass and change, will die and be no more,
Things bright and green, things young and happy;
And I have gone upon my way
Sorrowful.
(Padraic Pearse)