"Is Something Wrong With Society?"

I saw this phrase plastered at the top of a popular magazine recently, “Perception Is Not Reality.” I am glad to see that whoever wrote that can see the difference between the two. Now all I want to know is what they think reality is?

What we live is supposed to be reality, certainty. The news I hear on the TV of late leaves me wondering what reality the people involved in these stories were living when they carried out their awful plans.

Tell me that the days of leaving your home to run errands, go to school and church; and then return home without being killed or wounded by a crazed gunman aren’t gone. Daily it seems somewhere, someone is being shot; in many cases killed.

Where are the days when a human life meant something? I guess it’s hard to expect society will just “get that” since everywhere you turn there seems to be de-valuation. From the stock market to the housing market, this short list goes to show me we as a world…are out of control.

Possibly these people could have been aided by the connection of human contact, not to mention what a little heavenly contact may have yielded. It’s too late in many of these cases…to ask. Or find out just what was going on with them.

Maybe what the gunman could have benefited from was a distraction from themselves. They weren’t thinking about others when they caused the ending of lives, calamity and misery, pain and loss; to those wounded—and to the families and friends of those who were killed.

Perhaps they were thinking of others and that the pain they could cause someone else, might ease the pain that they themselves felt. No, that can’t be it; that would make them a madman.

It’s obvious that something was going on inside of these people. I don’t want to venture what that would have been. Only to pray that what ever it was, God is on top of the situation; and that what has happened WILL NEVER happen again.

There has to be a call to civility and decency—beyond politeness and courtesy.
In my opinion—a call to God.

We as a society need to get real. Let’s leave the raw behind. It’s time to return to respect—beyond giving props and shout outs.

It’s time to recognize the value of life. That it’s a gift from God; not made by us. But, that can be easily ended by us.

© A. Miller 2008

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