I am troubled by so many recent reports of murders. The recent one in New York was terrible, especially knowing the gunman barricaded the back door to prevent anyone from getting out, then walked in the front door with guns blazing. How terrifying. Or the policemen in Pennsylvania and California who were brutally murdered just trying to do their job. Especially distressing are the stories of family members murdering family members. Fathers killing their wives and children. Brothers brutally killing their sisters.

Some of the troubling stories don’t involve murder but are distressing nonetheless, such as the mom who really wanted to have a child with her boyfriend but wasn’t able to because she’d had a hysterectomy, so she decided to let her daughter have the child, and tried to get the daughter drunk and drugged so the boyfriend could rape her. How in the world did that idea ever make any sense?

The current headline on msnbc.com asks if America has become numb to tragedy. I think a more appropriate question to ask is, have we lost our sense of the value of life? I’m afraid that’s what we’ve become numb to. And I fear that until we can get back to honoring the gift of life, it’s only going to get worse.