Recently in Santa Clarita, California, another school shooting has sent hundreds of students running from the same locations where they come early five days a week.

They come to continue an educational process designed to prepare them for living. Far too many have lost their lives by simply going to school.

Questions shout through the grief and pain; why, what is the motive, or is there one? How do we prevent the next shooting, or can we?

The senseless violence is not limited to schools. It’s happening in the workplace, business and industry, even in homes and families.

Back to the motive question. Let me encourage us to view our predicaments as an absence of motive, a spiritual vacuum, a loss of conscience. Even our systems of schooling have abandoned the sacred laws of conscience to observe the secular law of the land.

A 1962 Supreme Court denied a simple prayer approved by New York state, which read: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee, and we beg thy blessing upon our parents, our teachers and our country.

One year later, Bible reading was banned in public schools. In a span of less than two years Almighty God and his only begotten son, Jesus the Christ, were invited out of the classrooms of America.

A tiny fraction of unbelievers pushed laws through the courts and at least three generations of students have suffered the terrible consequences.

That forbidden book has taught me everything I know about life at its best. My motives are products of the Ten Commandments.

Senseless acts of violence aimed at others are conceived in the minds of those who have no motive, not even for living or letting live. Our violent culture is a reflection of division and hostility from Washington to California — we are a house divided.

Any motivational recovery will include faith, facts, divine revelation, holy scripture, much prayer and caring for others.

Glenn Martin is a retired Methodist minister.