Crazy times?

Earlier today, I, without deep thought, posted "these are evil times" upon a friend's Facebook status.  Even though I claim to be deeply spiritual, I'm usually not prone to throw words which often have supernatural connotations around.  It's somewhat uncharacteristic.  So I thought about it.  Much of my thoughts today have been spurred with the news of a young high schooler in my hometown who took her own life earlier this week.  Vague news spread like wildfire through all of my, and my wife's connections back home.  Next thing we know there's an anti-bullying awareness march in her memory that garnered, according to the local paper "thousands" to march.  Yet, the head-line read:  "No link found between girl's death and bullying."  I don't believe it.  Grassroots movements don't begin and get thousands to follow without some foundation of truth.  When it starts from the ground up, there's a reason.  Evil times?

I'm not one of those who looks back at high school as "the best times of my life."  It was school.  It was mandatory, and at the end of the day, I was glad to go the Y for swim practice, teaching swim lessons, and lifeguard alongside people whom I consider the greatest friends cultivated.  School.  It's become one of those places where, as a parent, I don't look forward to sending my child.  I want her to have friends other than me, but to quote a good friend of mine:

we will be homeschooling...and yes, we will be sheltering them until we have trained them and they are ready to face the evil that is in the world. I refuse to throw my five year old into what Christian pastors have called a "war zone" and "a pagan culture." My five year old is not equipped or mature enough to make it in "the world." It is our job as her parents to shelter her. A friend told me last night, we all shelter our children, it's just a matter of how much we shelter them is different. We have an abundant amount of reasons why we are choosing to homeschool our children...but I know this, if I send them away for 8 hours a day, I can't protect them...their hearts, their minds, or their bodies. I saw a father of a child in Columbine take the blame for what happened to his son. Why? Because he sent his child there every day. He now homeschools his other children. We can't protect our children from God's providential plan for their lives, but we can ensure we don't purposely send them out there to learn how to deal with it before they are ready. Besides how can I train them in God's ways, "when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up," if they're never with us? Deuteronomy 6:7

School.  It's not a place that's safe.  It never was really.  I think we all come out of high school with various scars, but now we keep reading news report of kids getting bullied to death, teachers sexually assaulting kids, coaches practicing players to death, etc....  But this isn't all that's got me going this morning.  In a relatively small town close to the urban area where I live, not much makes the news...except in the past month:  one teenager killed over selling a dimebag of weed, twin 2 year olds killed by their dad (who then killed himself), another DV situation where a woman was killed.  Lest we forget the dad who killed himself and sons this past week in Washington, and the list grows and grows and grows.

As a parent, at least today, I'm struggling with how to protect my daughter long enough to equip her for this world...and how do you honestly equip someone for this world?  Half the time, I don't think I'm equipped for this world, and as of now, I feel I'm decently adjusted to my existence.  Well, if not, I at least haven't earned a diagnosis from the DSM-IV.