Everybody's Problem: Violence, Guns and Children

A number of years ago an African-American friend recommended that I read a book titled Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun by Geoffrey Canada.  It is a very disturbing account of what it meant for the author to grow up in the Bronx.  Written in  the nineties about earlier decades, it recalls what he describes as "A Personal History of Violence in America."

I'd forgotten about it until this morning when I happened to glance at that shelf of books and saw it wedged between two other volumes.  Re-reading a bit of it in this post-Aurora, post-Newtown era, I was struck by something he wrote back in 1993:  "It is because most people in this country don't have to think about their personal safety everyday that our society is still complacent about the violence that is engulfing our cities and towns."  (x) 

For many folks, especially those with young children, that is no longer true.  Safe and secure spots like suburban Connecticut no longer feel so safe.  For the moment, America seems to have awoken to the reality that we have a problem and it's name is violence.  No longer is it "simply" the concern of inner city residents, no longer is it "simply" an issue for the poor and members of minority groups.  (It never was, of course, but to hear folks talk you'd think that was the case.)  No, now it is everybody's problem.

So what are we going to do about it?  Are we going to let the issue slip out of sight, like the Geoffrey Canada book did on my shelf?  Or, are we going to do something about it?  Personally, I have decided to preach a series of sermons on the issue during Lent. While I've preached anti-war sermons and I've addressed the issue of domestic violence, I've never taken on the underlying themes of violence in our culture or the slap-dash way we approach gun control.  Some folks won't like it, I'm fairly sure.  But there are things that need to be said--and they should have been said back when my friend recommended the book, if not before.

Here's a bit of how Canada closes his book.  The tragedy is that it could have been written yesterday!  "We have failed our children," he writes.  "They live in a world where danger lurks all around them . . . . And the stuff of our nightmares when we were children is the common reality for children today. . . . And so we must stand up and be visible heroes, fighting for our children."  (179)

The time is now.  We must indeed fight for our children, but not with fists, sticks, knives, or guns.  Rather with loving concern, with well-chosen words, and with legislation that leads to positive action.  Our children, and their children, are depending on us.