I just turned on the computer to catch the news and of course there’s news of yet another shooting at a school, this one in Oregon.
Gun violence is so casual that it’s hardly news at all anymore.
But violence, not just the kind involving guns, is now thoroughly embedded in the American heart and soul. I do believe that our problems are not so much about guns nor even about mental illness–even the most peaceful countries have their share of the mentally ill–as about our discontented hearts and minds.
Our culture is saturated and soaking with blood and violence and small wonder given the amount of violence that a child is exposed to on TV, movies and games, the amount of violence children are exposed to in the language that we adults use, the amount of vitriol in politics and in the casual demonizing and hatred expressed for people who are “different” and don’t fit the cultural “norms.”
We have seen the enemy and guess who it is?
Be the peace you want to see in the world.
“Lord in your mercy, hear this prayer for an America that is a genuine peaceable kingdom of the sort envisioned in Isaiah 11, where …..
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
This country is awash with guns and it has the dubious distinction of having the most murders. Gee, do ya think there may be a connection?