I find myself looking around a lot these days and wondering if we’ve lost our collective mind. So much killing. So much bloodshed. So much needless suffering. Worse, the rising body count brings us no closer to solving the problems and conflicts we face.
The idea that a lone gunman could randomly target police (Dallas and Baton Rouge being the most obvious, but certainly not only examples) is sickening. People doing the job they promised to do- protecting and serving the public- were assassinated for no other reason than…well, there IS no reason, nothing that could possibly make sense of such a senseless act.
My wife is a nurse practitioner in an oncology practice. She tells a story about a social worker in her clinic whose philosophy is “We can’t work harder for our patients than they’re willing to work for themselves.” The same holds true for society. We can’t expect law enforcement to solve our problems if we’re willing to work to achieve that goal. Law enforcement is the finger in the dike; it doesn’t solve problems, it tries to prevent problems from growing and becoming worse. Solving those problems is our collective responsibility, and if we believe we can cede that responsibility to law enforcement, we’re creating a recipe for failure.
Black lives matter. Blue lives matter. LIVES matter. Everyone deserves to return home to their loved ones. When someone is denied that opportunity, when a senseless act of violence rips them from their family, it diminishes all of us.
The Facebook post is from one of the officers murdered in Baton Rouge. It’s a simple statement from someone who wants only to be treated with respect. On Sunday he became another tragic story created by the confluence of police violence, rage, mental health issues, and the easy availability of guns in America. Where will it stop? WILL it stop? Can we find it within ourselves to work for peace and justice instead of taking up arms and randomly killing those simply trying to do their jobs? Can police stop killing innocent young men?
It’s a complex problem with no simple solution, but there IS a solution. There has to be…if only we could step back from the rage and recrimination and start talking- and LISTENING- to one another. Peace is not the absence of war; it’s not the absence of gunfire directed at human beings for no discernible reason. Peace starts with each of us…or it doesn’t start at all.
