We all know each of those little children who died yesterday.  We know them through the little ones who fill our days, beguile, challenge and amuse us endlessly.  I keep thinking of the eyes that shine so bright as they start each day during our summer reading camp and every Sunday, when I call the children of the New River Ministry up for their blessing. I thought of little Blossom, who is autistic and took months finding her way to allowing me to bless her. At first, all I was allowed to do was look at her, then to touch her hand briefly, and finally, finally, in recent weeks to be at eye level with her as I make the sign of the cross on her forehead.  Each of them so infinitely precious and infinitely in need of our protection.

When I was a small child and couldn’t sleep, my mother used to sing Sov Du Lilla Videung, an old Swedish lullaby to me, and when I had my little girl, I sang it to her as well.  Last night I thought about the Good Shepherd, and what He might have sung to all the little children, the ones who didn’t make it and the ones still entrusted to our care. I wondered if perhaps the song might have gone like this: