Candles light.I will never forget that April day in 1999 when my mother called to tell me to turn on the news. There on the screen I watched the horror unfold of the deaths of 12 young victims, 1 teacher and the suicides of the two shooters at my beloved high school, Columbine. It had been many years since I had visited the school….but the current principal had been one of my favorite history teachers.    My husband had always joked about how I thought my hometown of Littleton was a piece of heaven on earth. But on this day, as I nursed my infant son, everything changed.

Mother Mary would say, on that day, the sea of conscious thought was polluted with a poison of the idea that people can kill if they are simply angry at the world. On that day, millions of people were made aware of the vulnerabilities of schools and more importantly, people’s feelings. On that day, millions of people were given the impression that bad attention is better than no attention. From this we should learn.

Two weeks ago my children spent a day with a strong presence of law enforcement officials roaming the halls due to a rumor of someone planning an attack on the school. Last week a homecoming prince opened fire on his cousins in the school cafeteria.   Today a good friend called to say there was a bomb threat at her children’s school and she needed to find where her children were taken.

Our children’s everyday safety is at risk.   Threats happen often enough that students feel paranoid walking down the hallway and on days like last week, I feel paranoid sending my children to school. So what would Mother Mary do?

First of all I think Mother Mary would leverage the power of the community. When a community is concerned for the welfare of the whole, there is a sense of responsibility to make sure everyone’s primary needs are met including their safety and sense of belonging. Our individual safety and acceptance are prerequisites to our ability to be open to receive love. If any of the perpetrators of mass shootings had been open to receive love, they could have not fathomed performing the acts they did.

In the community Mother Mary belonged to, it was essential that each member have a contributing and worthy role to create a thriving sustainable environment. Not only would Mother Mary offer her love to all, so would all the other community members. Do our children feel the worthiness of their contributions to the community? If not, perhaps a change is necessary.

In addition, Mother Mary relied on members of her community to watch over her child. As mothers we owe it to our children to not only have a good pulse on our children’s thoughts, feelings and actions, but also on our neighbor’s children.

I have never felt so supported as when I received a text from a friend letting me know my son was being a responsible driver on his first outing alone after he received his driver’s license. She happened to be at the same softball game he was attending and saw him drive in. It is wonderful to have extra eyes in the community watching out for my son.

I was talking with another friend the other day who was concerned about her son’s friend after her son reported seeing cutting marks on his arm. Does she bring it up to the mother? What if the child is just doing it to get attention rather than cutting himself to relieve the pain he feels inside? If you were the mother of that child, would you want to know?

In a world of Instagram and Facebook posts, we need to create more conversations with our kids to know about their inner and outer community. We also need to create more conversations with our children’s friends’ parents to have eyes and ears wherever our children go. Building a strong community would be Mother Mary’s first objective but in last week’s circumstance, family was shot so a strong community is not enough.

The next objective of Mother Mary would be to teach peace. Mother Mary made peace the cornerstone of her spirituality.

There is good evidence Mary was strongly influenced by the Essenes.  The Essenes practiced the Sevenfold Peace and if Mary did then everyday at noon she would pray, contemplate and meditate on peace. Mother Mary practiced peace within her mind to make wise decisions and choose superior life giving thoughts over inferior, life depleting thoughts. She practiced peace within her family community to keep the flow of love alive, and she practiced peace with humanity to produce social and economic justice that brings peace.

How often do we lose our temper and make rash decisions? If we held peace in our heart, we would be more likely to think before we acted. If we held peace in our heart, we could forgive with more ease. If we held peace in our heart, we could access the love from others, particularly from God that would allow us to know – with God on our side, who can be against us? If no one is against us, there is no reason for anything but peace.

Practice peace, pray for peace, promote peace just as Mother Mary would do.