My Take On The Parkland Tragedy
By Jeff Whitaker
There is so much anguish, sadness and emotion surrounding the Parkland, Florida school tragedy. And with it, cries for action, laws, changes, reinforcements, something, anything. My heart breaks for the families, for the community and for our nation. I can’t even begin to imagine their pain and loss.
I’m going to leave the whole gun debate to someone else in a different forum. I have my very strong opinions on that topic, but I’ll keep them from what I feel compelled to share with you here. Everyone is talking about the weapons issue, but few are discussing what I believe to be an equally important view of the landscape.
I really feel that the “why” question needs to be addressed if we are to understand the “what”. I don’t by any means want to suggest that we gloss over or dismiss the what and make excuses for the why. On the contrary, I think all too often we (as a society) ask the why question in a cavalier way but never really stop to address what we witness all around us.
The conclusion I have come to will no doubt anger many and be discounted by others, but it’s my conclusion and I believe based on evidence right before our eyes. Our society today has virtually kicked to the curb any sense of absolutes; of right and wrong. Not only that, we have lost all respect for authority within our families, educational environment, law enforcement community and more. The family structure is broken. As a culture, we abdicate our parental responsibilities because we either don’t know how to effectively parent or we don’t make the time. In addition, we allow our children to be influenced and in many cases “parented’ by a moral standard they learn through Hollywood and the music industry. Our children’s hero’s are people who live in a carefully crafted bubble of contrived reality. We downplay and in many cases entirely discount the virtues and values that this nation was built on. Our history books rewrite the past and then wonder why the very foundational truths we cry for when tragedy strikes are ignored by this generation. We’ve intentionally kicked God out of our public discourse, our schools and our institutions. Yet, when tragedy strikes, we plead with Him for answers and comfort.
If we are to survive as a civilized society, we must be honest about the root of the problem. And you say, “but the guns.” And I say that in all of this, we have lost total respect for the value of human life. Whether it be someone suffering from mental illness or the person who is lonely, feels unloved and pushed to the brink or bullied, we have lost all sense of our responsibility to recognize and reach out to these people.
Ask me what the bottom, bottomline is? It’s a heart issue and until we address it head-on, boldly and free of politics and anger, we will never solve the problem. That’s how I see it for what it’s worth.
