Dear Mr. President.
I must respectfully disagree with your statement that we have all become numb to the recurrence of mass murders in our country in response to the senseless shootings in Oregon. I for one, recognize the face of evil when I see it; in helpless outrage, I too, have noted the frequency of these things occurring on your watch.
I think the question that you, we all, must ask is “what has changed in our culture, our society, our lives that has made this now an expectation that there will be more of these kinds of things happening?” Until we can answer this question honestly we cannot truly address the issues that we abhor. Legislation is just words on a page. Mr. President, a course correction is needed. You cannot make this correction for the nation. We the people must be the instigators of change. It must begin with each one of us. In each one of us.
We have to acknowledge the evil in this world and stand up to it. We can only fight with goodness. With what we know is true. We must call for that standard- truth- to be applied in every situation, we must teach our children respect by respecting them. We must remind them it’s one thing to respectfully disagree; another entirely to argue and treat others as if they were “less than”. We must give them the tools necessary to get along with others and practice what we preach.
How can we expect that there will be checks and balances in their world view if there are none in ours ?
Without boundaries there is no restraint.
Without a standard to live by everyone lives in anarchy.
There is within each of us an inborn moral compass. Whether that compass functions correctly is determined, in part, by what is learned at home, at school and in the society of our peers.
If we live in a society that continues to give mixed signals how can we know what is “right” and what is “wrong”?
Unless we cultivate that sense of right and wrong, our children will flounder with no clear direction.
Unless we show them where that moral compass came from, that sense of right and wrong, they will not understand why they need to listen to it.
Unless we admit to ourselves that our moral compass is from the Author and Creator of this Universe, the One who Is the Word, Who laid down his life as payment in full for each and every person who lives in this world and that He took up His life again and is returning to earth to claim His Kingdom there will always be something missing and out of place as more and more people struggle to determine what is right for themselves without The Standard.
Mr. President, what this world and this country needs is simply:
Jesus.
‘Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
23 By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.
24 They will say of me, “In the Lord alone are deliverance and strength.”’
All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. Isaiah 45:22-24
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very natureGod, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death –even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11
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