I just read an article titled “Why do Christians need to
make it all better?” written by Stephanie S. Smith for Relevant magazine and it touched on why do Christians hurry to
hope in tough times and how it sometimes doesn’t get better. This article came out today in a time that
Chicago is reporting that 40 people were shot over this long weekend that
happens to be a memorial for those that have given their lives in the
military. Do we rush to say that there
is hope that things will get better and ignore the process of what needs to
happen for it to change?
As I have written before that 40 people being shot in a city
of more than 2.6million (9.4million if we look at it as a Metro area) is not a
large number but nonetheless it’s 40 more than anyone of us would like to see
and I use the term “anyone” very loosely.
I say that because I see that some people are more hurt over the
killings in Syria but make no mention of the killings here in Chicago. Syria’s population is just over 22million as
a whole country and not to say let’s play the number game here to see who’s
pain is worst but it does open the eyes a bit.
I cannot stress enough how frustrating this all is when
after a weekend like this most people that tag themselves as “progressive
community organizers” just ignore the issues and wants everyone they know to
sign some sort of petition for something else.
Why are they not worried about these shootings? Some people will even say “omg that’s not far
from my house! What did I move into!?”
is that really your reaction? Was the
trendy neighborhood not so “cool” anymore?
OK back to this article and how it relates to the shootings
and violence….
Stephanie S. Smith asks us to “resist the urge to resolve”
and that’s hard to do for any of us because we all feel like we have the
solution and I could sit here and write about how certain programs are not working
and which one’s might do better. I could
say that places like Cease Fire are NOT the solution and they are sucking up
all the funding for better services and they should be shut down BUT I just won’t
go there right now ;-) What the article
has brought to the forefront of all of my thoughts, as a follower of Jesus
teachings, is did Jesus have to die in a violent way to make His point?
For those of you that have watched The Passion of the Christ
by Mel Gibson he goes into some savage detail of what possibly happened to
Jesus as He walked with his cross to be crucified. I remember watching that and thinking why
didn’t they just snatch him up and yanked up on the cross and just nail him to
it, wouldn’t that have been traumatic as well not only for him but for those
watching? His along with many people of
that time, death was a gruesome event and meant to horrify people into NOT
committing crimes. So fast forward to
present time and I’m thinking are we subconsciously allowing for these
shootings to take place so that we can indirectly horrify our youth to the dangers
of becoming involved with gangs and drugs? And I say “we” as in the community
organizers, clergy, and educators that are supposed to be on the front lines of
these issues in a setting like the city of Chicago. The answer is YES and I dare to say that some
of us are doing it consciously as well.
So then what do we do?
It is a very complicated issue when we allow ourselves to get stuck on
this idea of hope and keeping that hope alive because we are unwilling to go
through the whole process. I feel like
we are waiting for our “Batman” to arrive and basically do everything that none
of us are willing or wanting to do and that is to deal with the pain and ugliness
of this all.
Over the weekend I had plans on enjoying the hot weather and
taking the time to do nothing instead I spent all of Sunday dealing with an
issue. A young Brother of mine had some
serious events take place in his life and reached out to me for help. If I didn’t answer him we could very well be
talking about 41 shootings and 11 deaths over the weekend. I knew what his expectation of me was and I
couldn’t play the role of “gangster” for him because that’s not what it called
for. I pledged to him as well to his
father that I would be a Brother to them and there when they needed me, they
could be right or wrong I would be there for them. So the process begun with an explanation of
what happened and I quickly assured him that I would be there for him but also
gave him some things to think about while I made my way to him. Once we meet up I knew that he was ready for
action as I was too but my action was different. We go up to his parents apartment and we sit
down and go through it all so I understood what was going on. Once I knew that the opposition was an
unknown character and there’s money at play I knew this could turn out
bad. So I gave him the layout of what my
thoughts were and what I felt was the right approach but in all of this I never
assured him that things would be “OK” and that “let’s hope things work out.” Instead I made him aware of his own responsibility
in this event and how he could address it properly with the least amount of
negative impact. I knew he didn’t want
to hear everything I had to say about certain things but he respected me enough to sit there and
listen. At the end of it things “worked
out” but the process wasn’t over because there shouldn’t always be a happy
ending in this case instead it just needs to end and it did.
I don’t say that in any way to sound like a jerk but the reality of
things is that sometimes things end and no one is happy and no one is sad it
just ended. What we try to focus on is
to always make a happy ending and we skip the learning part of these events. Well the evening ended with one more lesson
and that was that we can never control what others do but we sure can turn that
wheel and have a different outcome.
The violence in Chicago keeps going because many of us
refuse to put ourselves in the position of being that true advocate for
change.
What would be different if ALL pastors TRULY spoke of Gods
never ending LOVE without any bias as to whom you screwing in the bedroom?
What would be different if ALL community organizers TRULY fought
for EVERYONE in the community?
What would be different if ALL educators where given ALL the
tools they needed to TRULY educate our youth so that they were better prepared
to deal with issues?
I’m not trying to make myself out to be anything other than
a Brother that cares…
I’ll leave you with this because this is something I’ve been
thinking about for a long time…
If people believe that every single word in the Bible is
100% God then when we turn to the very last book in the Bible we come to
understand that a very violent act that cannot be duplicated by us will take
place to bring about Peace and Heaven, so does that mean that there are some
church folk that just see the violence on the streets as a process that God is
going through and that’s why it keeps happening?
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
