Response to violence in the modern world

      It is interesting.  I have made 839 posts in the last couple of years as a priest on this blog.  The only negative reaction I have received is regarding liberation theology, which I know is a controversial topic to many.  There has been a lot of discussion and outrage regarding the Trayvon Martin case and the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the media, and I responded to that in a reflection of the violence in our world. Most of us in the modern world are not strangers to violence.  I have had my apartment broken into several times over the years.  I had my church offices broken into a couple of years ago and had the chalice that I used to celebrate mass stolen.  I had a knife held to my throat while I was being robbed as a missionary to Ecuador.  Last month, at the church where I served in Jackson, and at another Baptist Church nearby, two groups of women were robbed at gunpoint in front of those churches, with the robbers taking cell phones, cashes, and wallets.  A 19 year old and a 21 year old were taken into custody for those robberies.

        I received an email from someone saying I was very angry in that blog posting. If you look at a survey of the 839 entries I have made on my blog, I try to be very positive and also try to reach people where they are. What promoted that blog posting was an article I had just read on the internet that compared the city of Chicago, the city of my birth, to the city of Toronto, Canada.  Through mid-July of this year, Toronto had 64 total shootings and 12 shooting deaths so far, while Chicago had 72 shootings on the Fourth of July weekend alone, and 54 shooting deaths during the time of the George Zimmerman trial.  With Chicago being the adopted hometown of our esteemed President, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, and the city where one of his best friends is mayor, I would think that there would be a lot of attention and effort directed to what is going on in that great city, but I don't see leadership from our national governmental leaders in attempts to remedy this situation.

         I came to Mississippi in 2000 to teach at a very impoverished high school in the Mississippi Delta.  I came with the best of intentions, just wanting to make a difference in the world.  I did not come to become rich or to get honor or accolades on my own.  Teaching in that high school for four years, I was able to see through the eyes of my students: a culture that glorifies violence in movies and video games and hip-hop songs.  So I wondered: do we have the right to be outraged, or is this current situation we live under a consequence of our sins and our irresponsible actions? 

         I still wonder that.  And it is not out of anger and fear.  I wonder and I wrote about this because of who I am as a priest and who I am as a human being, out of the love I have for humanity and for the people who I serve.  It is simple as that.