One of the results
of being over inundated with constant noise and words is that it is very easy
to shut them out. At some point I just
stop listening. I have learned to take a
different approach. I limit the amount
of noise and words so I can truly listen and hear what is important; the person
right in front of me who is speaking gets my undivided attention.
Listening has
become a lost art and we are paying the price.
When I fail to listen I miss cues.
I would venture a guess that the young men in the news who are doing
these mass shootings are not being listened to by parents, teachers, or anyone
in their lives. These senseless acts of
violence are their ways of being heard and paid attention to. It’s not the only reason, but it is a big
one.
I remember back in
the 60’s learning about “Throw Away Children”.
Parents were beginning to break from traditional values and were turning
their kids over to other people to be responsible for. Day Care Centers, schools, after school
programs, organized team sports, and even camps became receptacles for kids to
be put and watched after all day. Other
people began the ones raising these kids then sending them home to parents who
were exhausted from working all day at their jobs. This left little time for learning or
listening between parents and their children.
Social media has only exasperated the problem even more. Kids aren’t stupid. They know that feeling of abandonment and
alienation, even if every physical need is met in abundance.
When things go
wrong with their kids everyone else is blamed; the schools, the gun laws, the
world situation, are where the fingers are being pointed. But as I heard a minister once say, “When one
finger is pointed at someone else, there are three pointed back at you.” When I heard the father of one of these mass
murders say, “How come he was able to buy so many guns?” my response was “How
could you not know your son had all those guns?” We as a nation have not done well by our
children. We all stand guilty. We can argue forever who is to blame or we
can stop, repent, and change our ways.
God gave human
beings the responsibility of tending to His creation; first the plants and
animals in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1:28) and then the children (Deuteronomy
6:7). This nation has failed at
both. Let’s buck it up, realize where we
have gone wrong, and change our ways.
Let’s begin by listening to God and then truly listening to one another;
those who are needy, those who are marginalized, and especially the
children. It is the children that will
become our future. It is with this
vision placed before us that we need to decide how should we then live.
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