what in the world?

I've been keeping up with the news. But really, I shouldn't.

What kind of world is this? Bullies in schools driving young people to suicide? Female RCMP officers being sexually assaulted by their partners and harassed by senior officers? Children being molested by teachers? by Cub Scout leaders? by hockey coaches and by Mr. Sandusky. The Roman Catholic Church no longer needs to bear its burden alone. It looks like lots of organizations are trying to cover up their messes.

But after my anger, after my outrage, I'm just feeling drained and cynical.

Then I hear the worst stories. A woman recounts how she was sexually abused by her father. Another describes how his mother used to cut him with a steak knife, when he was three years old. Or a woman who when arrested for beating her...

I couldn't even finish reading it.

I don't know. How is my son going to handle all this, when he finds out about the inhumanities in our society? He can't even stand watching Voldemort, a fictional character, on TV.

One day, he might read this blog, and he will learn that I did have real fears, which I hid from him. For now, whenever he comes across something in the news, I'll say something about bad people and that it'll never happen to him and change the subject. But the fact that it happens to someone else in our society is something I can't reconcile. What do we do? Put our heads in the sand? Acknowledge that there is evil in the world? Fight it? Lock the doors and turn on the alarm system? Pray?
Although I want him to grow up with a positive outlook, there are times when I've felt something much less.

-MO