Holding the Value for Children

ISN'T THIS A WONDERFUL PICTURE? Oh, that every child on the planet were so loved. After the February 9th post about Saint Valentine, a few people wrote, interested in the Latin roots of his name: valorem = value and tenens = holding. The name Valentine means holding the value. What's the value? "But the greatest of these is love," Saint Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians.

Then someone else wrote about a post from a long time ago on holy tears. Putting the two together we might reflect upon holding the value of holy tears for love. Recently we heard of the parent who left a baby for an hour in a car with an inside temperature of 22 degrees. And the baby sitting young man who got the toddler in his care to inhale his marijuana pipe.

So maybe the Pauca Verba post today can be a silent prayer of holding the value of love for children. We needn't worry if the prayer will effect any global change. The bottom line, the only thing that matters, is that our own hearts be made conscious and warmed. The world is a better place for there being even one heart that is conscious and warmed. And so, we are...

Conscious of children forming in the womb

Conscious of children unschooled

Conscious of children enslaved

Conscious of children sexually violated

Conscious of children disposed of 

Conscious of children made soldiers

Conscious of children with special needs

Conscious of children brutalized

Conscious of children unfed

Conscious of children left dirty

Conscious of children where there is war

Conscious of children refugees

Conscious of children orphaned

Conscious of children terrorized

Conscious of children wandering and lost

Conscious of children where there's divorce

Conscious of children whose consciences are not formed

Conscious of children where there's disaster

Conscious of children used for profit

Conscious of children forsaken

Conscious of children in tears.
Conscious of children who beg
Conscious of children withering
Conscious of children who don't play
Conscious of children who are silent