Teach Our Children Well

In my young days I ran a lot and maybe it helped me to run from fights, violence and a troubled life. I have to thank my great parents more than my running prowess. They taught me great values and morals by both word and deed and their guidance was always consistent. They taught me well. The teaching I refer to cannot be relegated to our schools, it begins in the home with families and neighborhoods caring for each child. The few fights I ever got into were mainly pushing matches, in which I met the guy in a dirt alleyway after school. We both got beat up and a week later we were friends as we had to “make up” as a part of our schools disciplinary directive. Today, the anger has escalated and our time might be dubbed the “age of rage.” Now it is no longer letting the air out of a bike tire, or pushing a guy into the bushes or a scrap in the dirt alley – we now have weapons and a disregard for life itself. Last Sunday night marked another homicide in Lompoc and a night in which families would lose young members. First the family of the victim, a 21 year old from out of our city would be stabbed numerous times and despite the heroic life-saving measures by our first responders and our hospital personnel he would pass away. As a Police Chaplain, I was called to comfort the family and assist the officers in the death notification process and simply be a supportive presence for them. Though I have served in this capacity numerous times, it is always heart wrenching to look into the eyes of a Mom or Dad and to tell them their son or daughter has passed away. Not only the victim’s family looses, the suspect’s lives will never be the same either or that of their families. What a week - Monday was Holocaust Remembrance Day – a day in which we remember the atrocities of hatred and loss of millions of lives during Nazi persecution. This week also marks the anniversary of the Columbine High School tragedy, and now the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history – the tragic events at Virginia Tech. I found Bishop Desmond Tutu’s words helpful: “We inhabit a universe -- that is it has order and laws and we human creatures have a precious gift, the freedom to choose which makes us moral agents. Our God who is omnipotent is also weak in that God has imposed limitations on God’s omnipotence to give us the space to have a real autonomy. We inhabit a universe -- that is it has order and laws and we human creatures have a precious gift, the freedom to choose and some of our choices as such lead to incidents such as this tragedy. God could not intervene without nullifying the freedom of the perpetrator. Life is vulnerable and is a pure gift. We are utterly, completely dependent on God for we are fragile and God upholds us gently and caringly. Our God cares, for this God is Immanuel, God with us, who joins us in our dumbfounded speechlessness and bewilderment and this God does not give advice from a safe distance but enters the fiery furnace of our anguish and God wipes away our tears, this God who knows us by name, from whose nothing, not even death can separate us. But we must not pretend we know everything. It is ultimately a mystery…” President Bush also offered insightful words as he addressed those at Virginia Tech this past Tuesday. He said: “This is a day of mourning for the Virginia Tech community -- and it is a day of sadness for our entire nation…it was the worst day of violence on a college campus in American history -- and for many of you here today, it was the worst day of your lives. It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. People who have never met you are praying for you; they're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers, real power. In times like this, we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God. As the Scriptures tell us, "Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." May we all do good and may we hold our children close and teach them well. They are a gift from God and how we raise them, mold them, guide them and shape them is our gift back to God and to the world in which our children will live and eventually become functioning contributive adults.