Another senseless tragedy. Another few days of hand wringing and question-asking. Another bad memory fades with time. And we simply wait for the next one to jostle us a bit in our moral slumber.
So why you ask? Here's one answer. As C.S. Lewis so aptly put it, "And all the time---such is the tragi-comedy of our situation---we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible.....In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."
How many parents will shake their heads in horror over the latest school shooting, and then without hardly missing a beat, enroll their child in a school where a mere affirmation of the existence of God brings scorn and ridicule (from classmates and teachers alike)? Where mass slaughter of the unborn is taught as a viable form of birth control, and we change meanings of words which are as old as language itself to accommodate those who fancy themselves and their base passions a special class of citizen due particular special rights.
Our collective contradictions and culture of death and disrespect for the most defenseless among us has not gone unnoticed by the last few generations of American kids. We stand there and tell them its wrong to kill wantonly, for no good reason, while parts of our culture openly celebrate their "freedom" to kill for whatever reason sounds good at the moment. We tell them there is no such thing as truth, but then insist to them that they tell it. A six-year-old could see the glaring contradiction.
We have gutted our society of anything with even the slightest moral message or grounding, and we've done it with worshipful ignorance as we bow to the gods of political correctness and some twisted new definition of tolerance. And then we wring our hands over Connecticut or Aurora or Columbine and wonder why? We have castrated the stallion and are clueless as to why he won't reproduce. We, the insane, are doing the same thing, which is to say, nothing, over and over again, and expecting a different outcome.
I suppose I can offer this solace: After a few dozen more they will become old hat. We will have been desensitized to the point that we just stare blankly at the TV screen that brings us the message, pause for perhaps a moment, then change the channel. Kind of like news about abortion now. Or somebody finding a baby in a dumpster. This is the world our Godless, vacuous, self-centered policies have birthed. We have sown to the wind and are reaping the whirlwind. Had enough yet?
Randall Beck
Collierville, Tn.