When I arrived home Wednesday night and turned on the news, I felt sick. Another senseless act of violence. This time in San Bernadino, CA. On top of the recent mass shootings in France, attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic, downed jetliners… it is truly hard to make sense of it all. And how do we support our children through these challenging times in our world when we can’t explain it ourselves? What action can we take?
Some of you may find answers through your spiritual community, others might want to take action politically, but what I have been thinking a lot about is how we can create the very best environment for our families and community, while modeling the very best aspects of our own humanity. In spite of what happens around us, we can choose kindness. We can choose compassion. We can demonstrate love and empathy. And we can choose to make our school—Shorecrest—a haven of kindness.
This morning I remembered a song that resonates with me at a very deep level given the events taking place around us. You may know it. Here are the first stanzas of the song:
So many things you can’t control
So many hurts that happen every day
So many heartaches that pierce the soul
So much pain that won’t ever go away
How do we make it better?
How do we make it through?
What can we do when there’s nothing we can do?
We can be kind
We can take care of each other
We can remember that deep down inside
We all need the same thing
And maybe we’ll find
If we are there for each other
That together we’ll weather whatever tomorrow may bring.
I was attracted to come to Shorecrest back in 2010, not just because it is a great school academically, but because it is a great community. In these challenging times, I believe we can come together as an even stronger community if, in every situation, we choose kindness—it is our most powerful choice.
