This job of keeping our children safe, and teaching them well, is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, the help of a community, and the help of a nation.  And in that way, we come to realize that we bear a responsibility for every child because we’re counting on everybody else to help look after ours; that we’re all parents; that they’re all our children. 

This is our first task — caring for our children.  It’s our first job.

You will recognize these words, spoken by President Obama, comforting the nation after the Newtown massacre. I came across them this morning, on the website of Obit magazine, one of Bob Hillier’s several publications. 

Reread the speech here.

Being a parent, he said, is “like having your heart outside of your body all the time, walking around.” He praised the teachers who gave their lives, the teachers who saved lives with encouragement “wait for the good guys, they’re coming”; “show me your smile,“ the first responders, the courage of the children. 

Where am I in this endeavor, where are you? What are you doing, what are we doing, to keep children safe and teach them well? How are we helping create a world where our children can grow up to be “self-reliant and capable and resilient, ready to face the world without fear?”

We each must come up with our own answer, our first resolution for 2013. I’m still pondering mine, trying to discern God’s plan. And you?