"I'm not allowed in schools." God

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In the wake of the horrific shootings in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, I have seen numerous posts that have included a T-shirt indicating that God de facto allows violence in schools because He Himself is not allowed there.

I strongly disagree.  Here are a couple of thoughts that I would like to share with you from my perspective as someone who went to Catholic school from kindergarten through my senior year of high school.  This is in no way an attempt to be the final word on the matter, nor is it an attempt to convert you from your personal beliefs.

1.  I learned that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.

http://dictionary.reference.com defines these terms as follows:

omniscient:  having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things.

omnipotent:  almighty or infinite in power.

omnipresent:  present everywhere at the same time.

For someone who believes in  God, those characteristics mean that God is in schools.  No amount of secular legislation is ever going to prevent that from being the case.  This does not mean that other people have to acknowledge that He is there or even believe in Him, but it's kind of like "I am here - as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be - and, as such, I will be here whenever you need Me."

Interfaith Symbols
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2.  God has a lot of company.  The photo on the left contains images from Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Shintoism, Judaism, Taoism, Unitarian Universalism, Aboriginal beliefs, Wicca, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and Sikhism.

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs allows 54 different religious beliefs to be represented on gravestones, as described in this Wikipedia article.

I used to volunteer, and then eventually work, for a faith-based non-profit organization that provided shelter and meals to the needy.  The very first thing that the volunteer coordinator told me was that we would be serving hundreds of people on a daily basis, and that if I extended an out-of-the-ordinary courtesy to one individual, I had to provide that same service to everyone.  Since that was not physically, economically, or otherwise possible, it was forbidden to deviate from the guidelines.  Let me give you an example:  at lunchtime, we served a salad, a casserole, a dessert, and one carton of milk.  If someone asked for two cartons of milk, we had to deny him, because that would mean giving everyone two cartons, and there just wasn't enough to do that.  If, at the end of the meal, it turned out  that there was enough, that would often be taken back into the kitchen and refrigerated, to be served at  the next meal.  Additionally, if we were serving dessert from a tray of pie, but there was a tray of cake ready when that ran out, and someone said "I would prefer cake," we were instructed to offer them the pie or nothing, as it was not feasible to tailor the serving to anyone's individual requests.  The goal was to serve people a meal as rapidly as possible, so that we could clean the kitchen and prepare for the next meal.

I offer this experience as a means of explanation:  if we allow prayer in schools, then to which God to we pray?  Yahweh?  Allah?  Gitche Manitou?  If we extend privileges to one, we must extend them to all, and that is just not feasible in a public school setting.

3.  School is for school, church is for church.  People can not be with their children at school, but when a family attends a worship service together, it is there - and at home, of course - that a child learns faith values.  Even though my education was at Catholic schools, there were occasions when my classmates and I had questions that exceeded an individual teacher's ability to respond intelligently.  Our educators were teachers, not theologians or members of the clergy.  

4.  In closing, the concept that God allows violence runs counter to a teaching in the New Testament of the Holy Bible, in First Epistle of Saint John, chapter 4, verse 8, which reads "He who does not know love does not know God, for God is love."

So, please don't insult my intelligence, and for goodness sake, if you say that you believe in God, don't insult His.  He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, and He is love.  For someone who believes in God, no human law can countermand His supremacy, and no human condition can overpower His love.

In spite of this, horrific things continue to happen.  In my entry dated December 6, "When Will It End?", I delineated seven incidents in which guns were used to kill people, but failing to mention a workplace shooting in Minneapolis on 09/27/2012 that resulted in the deaths of seven people or an incident that took place in Little Falls, Minnesota on Thanksgiving (11/22/2012), in which two teen intruders were killed with "more shots than needed" instead of being wounded.  Since then, of course, there have been the incidents at the shopping mall in Portland, Oregon on December 11, and in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14.  

"Hope Springs Eternal" by Josephine Wall
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We have also had, for example, the sexual assault in Egypt of CBS correspondent Lara Logan on 02/11/2011; the destruction of Joplin, Missouri from a tornado on 05/22/2011; a terrible multi-vehicle accident on 01/29/2012 on Florida's Interstate 75 that resulted in the deaths of ten people; the devastation wrought upon America's northeastern seaboard by Superstorm Sandy in October 2012; ad infinitum.

My sphere of knowledge is not within criminology, meteorology, theology, or any number of other things, so I could not possibly begin to understand why these things continue to happen or suggest a remedy for them, but my guess is that it doesn't have anything to do with prayer in  schools.

In closing, I do not yield to despair.  Hope springs eternal.  The verse that accompanies the painting shown on  the right reads

"An angel's loving hand directs a rainbow of hope towards a fertile and beautiful earth, and like a bulb in spring life bursts forth - another gem in the vast garden of the universe."

In days of darkness, I hope that you can find inspiration in something - family, faith, art, whatever it may be - and let your light shine as a beacon for others.

Your respectful comments are welcome below.