Mark Barden’s Sandy Hook Promise ad’s tug at my heart. You don’t get over losing a child to gun violence. I admire the Sandy Hook families for their persistence in the face  personal heartache, and the lobbying arms of the NRA.

There were many things I worried about when my children headed off to school. I worried about friends, school expectations, their emotional health, bus rides, bullies, their ability to learn and school lunches. Would they like their teachers and classmates? What I didn’t worry about, was if my children would be shot in their school. 

Today’s parents have a whole different set of worries. Their children are exposed to active shooter drills, learning how to protect themselves in them. There are lockdowns and tests of the building security system.

We’ve only begun a new school year, yet already two students and two teachers have been killed at Apalachee High School, in Winder Georgia, with nine others injured.

From all accounts, the 14-year-old shooter was a troubled teen, living in a turbulent home. His aunt talks about trying to get the mental health care help that he needed and wanted, and being unable to do so.

We hear of  a frightened mother warning  the school, and trying to get there, before her son acted.  There are multiple failures in the system, from the time this youth was on the FBI radar, to treatments that he didn’t get, to follow up that did not happen. Fingers will be pointing in multiple directions. But most glaring of all, was a 14 year old boy’s access to an AR-15 style rifle.  One,  he could spray a classroom with.

In a culture that values guns more than children and a Washington that votes against popular gun control measures . . . thoughts and prayers, are a shallow response to last weeks terror and trauma.

What we lack is a willingness to move the mountains of indifference, tired talking points, and entrenched corners of debate . . . into a solvable problem with real answers.

When Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20, Jesus wasn’t talking about magic.  He was talking about working with God,  in an effort to dig in, and do the work that will make a difference.  Not simply a wishful faith, but one that invests in moving  obstacles in our path.

James puts is so clearly, “My brothers and sisters, what good is it if people say they have faith but do nothing to show it? . . . In the same way, faith is dead when it doesn’t result in faithful activity.” James 2:14, 17