“’Stay angry, little Meg,’ Mrs Whatsit whispered. ‘You will need all your anger now.’” A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

I am angry.

I am angry about school shootings and mass shootings and drive-by shootings and shootings, period.

I am angry as the mother of a public school student, who has been practicing intruder drills for as long as he can remember. School should be a safe place. Of course it never has been 100% safe, but as a kid, my biggest worry was being bullied on the playground, not whether my classroom would be shot up.

I am angry as the mother of a college student who is training to be a teacher. When I was going into the field of education a lifetime ago, I never would have dreamt I would have to help children navigate gun scenarios at school, and yet in her first year of college, it’s already something that has been discussed.

I am angry as the member of a church that is loudly pro-life, but shockingly silent on the issue of gun control. The hypocrisy is breathtaking at times, and has occasionally made me wonder if I’m in the right place, not in terms of my own faith, but where I practice it.

I am angry as an American, because at times I don’t feel like the majority view is truly represented here, and other times, I feel like I just don’t belong here at all. Guns are a god in this country, and for all people talk of “In God we Trust” and “One Nation Under God” I we’re not talking about the same god at all.

I am angry as a human being, as I see lives of people of all walks of life, from all age groups, casually snuffed out. The hardened way our society has come to view these incidents scares me, and it’s clear that not even the lives of innocent children lost are enough to wake us up and demand a change.

I am angry. And I am tired. But I am trying to hold onto hope for a better future, if not for me, for my children, and the world’s children.