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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thedialog.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/17143705\/20260916T1730-PARENTING-IMPOSSIBLE-TIMES-FANUCCI-1826398-scaled.jpg\" "\\"PRAYER")
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Today I have planned to write about artificial intelligence and family life. I have a gripping story to start. I have citations from Pope Leo\u2019s encyclical \u201cMagnifica Humanitas<\/a>.\u201d I have perspectives from Scripture, prayerful reflections and practical ways to engage the questions I\u2019ll raise.<\/p>\n Suddenly a text flashes on my phone: \u201cPlease check your email for an urgent update regarding the threat at school.\u201d<\/p>\n Heart in my throat, I drop the phone and pull up my email, pulse thrumming in my ears. Quick as a flash, I scan the words. Credible threat. Evacuating students. Police investigating. Continue to monitor.<\/p>\n I sit back, flooded with \u2014 what exactly? Relief that it\u2019s the neighboring high school, not my child\u2019s middle school? Fear that it will become more than a threat and someone will be hurt (or worse)? Anxiety that the next target could be one of my kids\u2019 schools? Numbness that such events are now commonplace in the country where we live?<\/p>\n All of it. All my words run dry. I stare out the window and pray.<\/p>\n God, save us from ourselves. God, keep all your children safe.<\/p>\n Artificial intelligence matters, sure; I\u2019ll write about it soon. But today is not a day for anything artificial. Whenever your community is threatened \u2014 and sadly, we all know this experience \u2014 the scales fall from your eyes.<\/p>\n Suddenly only life\u2019s basics matter. Safety. Peace. Protection. Health. The ones you love. How desperately I want safety and security for all families.<\/p>\n How deeply I believe that God desires it for us, too.<\/p>\n Some days I cannot believe the majesty we make on God\u2019s green earth: spaceships to explore the cosmos, medicines to save lives, skyscrapers that stretch to the heavens, lightning-fast technologies that our ancestors could never have dared to dream, let alone carry in their pockets. Other days I am filled with despair at the horrors we have perpetuated and manufactured here below.<\/p>\n My children know so many more dangers and threats than I did in my youth.<\/p>\n The Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us: \u201cNothing is new under the sun.\u201d From the beginning, humanity has dealt with violence, death and despair. We cannot fool ourselves that today\u2019s generations are unique in what we face.<\/p>\n Yet the dizzying rate of change, the scope of existential threats and a growing sense of helplessness loom large. We were not made to live this way.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are receiving this email because you are opted in to receive messages from your school,\u201d reads the last line of the email on my screen.<\/p>\n All of us have opted into this life by embracing the path of faith in a difficult world. I want to choose hope, compassion, goodness, justice, healing, peacemaking and love: all that Jesus came here to bring. This is the ultimate question asked by the trying times in which we find ourselves: How, then, shall we live?<\/p>\n The prophet Ezekiel responds, \u201cAnswer them: As I live \u2014 oracle of the Lord God \u2014 I swear I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways.\u201d We will go on as we have always tried to go, turning toward hope, faith, truth and love.<\/p>\n If I cannot build the world I want for my children, I will do this for my grandchildren. I will do it for yours, too. For strangers across the globe. For generations yet to come. For every new human life born into this marvelous, mysterious world we were given to tend.<\/p>\n Tomorrow will dawn a new day. Threats (and thrills) we cannot yet imagine will await us. But we will never go alone, and we can always turn back toward the Prince of Peace, the Good Shepherd who has already gone off in search of us.<\/p>\n In impossible times, we build our hope on God alone, for whom nothing is impossible.<\/p>\n Laura Kelly Fanucci is an author, speaker and founder of Mothering Spirit<\/a>. Her latest book is \u201cLiving Easter: 50 Days to Practice Resurrection.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/a>
Every time I watch the heartbreaking footage of parents and children reuniting after a school shooting, no one is talking about homework or grades or practice that night. Everyone is running for the relief of each other\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n