Let me tell you a story. Only, it isn’t a story. Let me tell you the truth. At 8:30 this morning, I engage a distraught first grader; spinning on the floor, raging, yelling in the corner, throwing trash on the floor. I hold him, talk to him, stroke his head and ask if he won’t try to be good for me; just for a while. He nods and quickly explodes again as I leave.
At 9:00, an unpredictable, wild fourth grader I know bounds through the doors, exploding with energy, gives me a huge hug saying, ‘Oh! You’re working on the main idea, details…right?!’ He leaps and spins away and I call after him, ‘You’re looking as handsome as ever!’ ‘Thanks!’ he yells and disappears. Minutes later he is racing around, tipping over the large garbage bins in the cafeteria; shrieking.
At 9:40 I have a rather disconcerting conversation with another fourth grader; a strange and silent boy. He is the one who sits at his desk, quietly pulling out all of his eyelashes. I sit down next to him. ‘I’ve been out because I have a new dog’, he offers. I know this is not true. I smile. He looks up. ‘Do you know there’s a red planet?’ ‘Mars?’ I respond. ‘No”. He shakes his head. He is silent. He looks at me and speaks from somewhere else, ‘Like the future when cars can fly?’ I look at him carefully. I respond, ‘Maybe. I don’t know’. He looks away. After a brief period of silence he says quietly, ‘I wish that were now’.
This is a small corner of my day in my school. In our schools. This is our city. These are our streets. This is a snapshot of our nation. We are suffering moral, societal and spiritual bankruptcy. For God’s love, we don’t need any more laws. We need healing of the highest order.
690 Saint Paul 