When I was growing up, I don't remember being afraid of much. Life in my small town was pretty pleasant. My siblings and I spent a lot of time running around our neighborhoods, playing out of sight of our mother and father, walking downtown by ourselves to the local dime store to buy candy, and spending lots of time on the playground behind our elementary school. The greatest fear we had as children of the seventies, and teens of the eighties, was the possibility of nuclear war. Even that was something distant and not too real to us. The Soviet Union was the ultimate evil, and fear of your own society was uncommon. Compare that life to today. Today, students in the small town school I teach at and all over America are living much more endangered lives.
The first big change that causes concern for parents, teachers, and community members regards drugs. Why is it the first to come to mind? Well, it has to do with proximity. Drug-use is no longer something we can push off as a “big city” problem. Drugs affect every economic group, social group, and cultural group in America in some way, shape, or form. No longer is there a fear of teenagers and young adults getting their hands on marijuana. Instead, it's a fear of elementary school children obtaining crack, cocaine, and Meth. It's not even just illegal drugs that are a problem; it's the prescription drugs in your medicine cabinet that kids are stealing. Why? For Pharm parties where everyone brings something, and then they pass it around. It's no longer an issue of danger simply because there are drug-pushers out there; it's an issue because of the abundance of drugs that are out there. It's an issue of prolific choices for drug-users. It's an issue of availability. The danger goes beyond simple person-to-person exchange to potential innocents being blown to smithereens because of the highly volatile nature of Meth production. And, finally, it's an issue because our media, whether music or television or movies or those who play roles in the industries, glamorizes the use of drugs. Because of the attention given to famous individuals, especially young adults, and their struggle with abuse, the abuse looks sensational since it only brings more attention.
What's the next concern in our society? It's violence! Every where we look, it exists. Recently, a young man in my small town was attacked while changing a tire for a woman whose ex-husband had slashed it. He was beaten to the point of potential brain damage because he got caught in the middle of a domestic violence situation. That's the world we live in today-one where people assault innocent bystanders to “get” our wives, husbands, lovers back. Yesterday, a disturbed young man took a gun and blew away 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech and injured 20+ others. Who knows what caused the student to commit this level of slaughter; but, though this is the worst gun-related massacre in modern history in America, it IS just another in a long series of carnage. Abuse is at an all-time high (at least since people became more likely to report it). Violence by and to children is rising. Children and teens more and more are the target of bullying, and bullying is no longer a face-to-face issue. It's been taken to a new level with cell phone and computer technology. Now, you can bully someone by posting hateful, mean, violent words and pictures about them online; you can send them anonymous text messages and IM's, and you can target them in your emails. It's not just one kid versus another now; it's hundreds, thousands, and potentially millions of people versus one individual. It's no wonder that more and more kids are hanging themselves, blowing themselves away, and playing games with inhalants with potentially devastating results.
Violence isn't just an American issue, either. In our world today, we have access to more information than we've ever had. News is plentiful. We not only have knowledge about our own small corner of the world, we have information about events world-wide. And yet, we still operate, even in our quest for this knowledge, as though all of the pain and suffering in our world is far away and distant. It disturbs me when I hear my students, people in the mall, individuals on the street, express feelings of carelessness about these concerns. How can we, as human beings, ignore the fact that there are children in Uganda who daily and nightly struggle to avoid the Lord's Resistance Army which is bent on stealing them and making them into soldiers? How can we ignore the ongoing fight that the people of Darfur go through daily to simply survive? How can we disregard the fact that slavery does still exist and that people are daily kidnapped and sold into service somewhere in our world? How can we ignore the fact that poverty still exists anywhere in our world, and that some children do not have access to an education? Realizing that not all of us have the resources to fix the problems, one wonders how we can ignore and downplay the evils that exist elsewhere. The least we could do is care, pray, spread the word so that those with the resources are aware of what they could potentially do to help. We could discuss openly with people, including adolescents and young adults, these issues so that they realize that they are not living in a bubble and the world is larger than they are and their current status. We may not have the solution or the answer, but if we allow people to continue to walk around with blinkers on their eyes, their hearts, and their brains, then we may potentially hinder the resolution to some of these same problems in our world. The person you allow to continue to live blind is the person who may save the world.
So, why should we care? Well, it goes back to the oft-quoted phrase by George Santayana. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” History isn't something old and long-ago. History happened one second ago; it happened one minute ago; it happened one hour, day, week ago. Recent events are history already. Do we want to repeat any of the things that have happened recently that have caused tragedy and grief? Do we want to continue to allow our children to live endangered by drugs, bullying, domestic and other violence? Can we change it? Can we do something about any of these things before our children, our siblings, our friends, our neighbors, and our fellow human beings become history, too? Some of you out there have the answers. The challenge is to do something about what you can. If you have the money, use it for good. If you have the time, use it for good. If you only have you, then spread the word and open up the floodgates of conversation and bring attention to the world we live in. Pastor Martin Neimoller wrote in 1976, “When the Nazis came for the communists,/ I remained silent;/I was not a communist./When they locked up the social democrats,/I remained silent;/I was not a social democrat./When they came for the trade unionists,/I did not speak out;/I was not a trade unionist./When they came for me,/there was no one left to speak out.” Over the years, it's been revised and changed to fit the times. But, the idea still fits. Care about what's happening to the people in your world because if you don't, you may regret it later. When “they” find what you stand for and believe in unacceptable, you may have no one to protect you. And, finally, what you cannot fix, pray about! Ultimately, whether you believe in the Christian God or another spiritual head, the fact remains that prayer changes things because people are focused on change for the better.
