Implanted GPS chips in your kids and real-time sexual offender tracking lead to Blackberry proximity alerts. Searchable databases reveal that a predator was within 10 feet of your child three weeks ago. What do you do?

Do you remember when the change began? The town I grew up in had a population of about 100,000 when I was coming of age. And we had Houston as a playground to boot during the late 60′s and early 70′s. I don’t remember being worried about much of anything other than being hassled by the cops because we had long hair in a redneck society. We walked half the night away many times just for the pleasure of moving, and the nights were the only time it was cool (we are talking temperature here).

I don’t remember why or when it changed, but I raised the first two of my children in the same house and neighborhood I grew up in, and I wouldn’t think of letting them play out without keeping a close eye on them. I know I had the run of my block once I was 6 or 7…No questions, no problems. And by the time I was 10 we played over what was probably a square mile of suburbia. What’s happened?

An amazing, a wonderful post. One that touches me to the quick, as I am a mother of two young boys who shall inherit this place.

I was reading Beverly Cleary’s Henry Huggins series aloud to my boys and became choked up at the simple,. freewheeling life Henry led, wandering over the streets of Portland, limited only by how far he could go on his bike.

The word that is part of the answer to all this is found in your last paragraph– community. Somewhere along the way we lost the sense of who our neighbor is, and our definition shrank and shrank.

Connectedness and grace– if there is anything I try to convey to my boys– this is it. We are all connected, and we need each other.