To everything there is a season...

Time for Action

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to mourn and a time to dance...”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

I have been following the responses of young people in Parkland, Florida to the mass-shooting at Douglas High School. They are mad, really mad, and they don't plan to stay in the background and let their parents do the talking. I find that incredibly heartening. It's inconceivable to me that we haven't instituted common sense gun laws already, given the number of human beings who have been shot dead in this country for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What kind of country puts its passion for guns, or anything else, ahead of the lives of its children? The answer is, a country that has gone badly astray.

There is a time for everything under heaven—and now is the time for action. That is what young people in Parkland are saying. Several students indicated that they did not want that horrible day of carnage to be what they will remember most about High School. They are organizing and I believe they will be instruments of change. Politicians who say, “this is not the time,” and “this is about people who are mentally ill,” will not be in the spotlight saying such idiotic things once these young folks get to the voting booths. As a counselor, I worked with many people suffering from anxiety, depression, bi-polar and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and not one of them went out and shot up a school. I, myself, have been treated for depression, and have friends who are diagnosed with mental illness, and none of us are violent people—far from it. Blaming people who are diagnosed with mental illness makes no more sense than blaming people who are diabetic, or have heart disease.

Here is what I believe to be true—we have allowed our vitriolic discord to go on long enough—too long, really. We have yelled and cursed and blamed one another, gotten in each other's faces with taunts and insults, and raised the level of hatred and distrust to such a degree that it is now boiling over. And it's killing our children. It's time to stop. This is the time for hearts to change, for us to take responsibility for making the decisions our politicians don't have the guts or the will to make. There is “a time to be silent and a time to speak”—and this is the time to speak. And this is the time to act.

                                                              In the Spirit,

                                                                  Jane