Everything about this picture is so messed up
Violence has been all over the news lately. We have seen the pictures and read the stories from Paris and it’s all heartbreaking. And obviously before any of the latest turmoil surfaced in France there were horrible things happening all over the world. You don’t have to look very hard to find reports of evil being carried out somewhere on the planet. We are supposed to care. We are supposed to be affected when we see or hear about violence. We are supposed to want to do something to help. We are supposed to be peacemakers.
But how? What do we do? How do we fix this? Even as I typed those last couple sentences, everything in me screams, “You can’t. Evil has been around for a very long time and it isn’t going away.”
So maybe we can’t make this go away. We probably can’t save the entire world. We probably can’t protect every innocent person from the evil that sometimes seems to go unchecked. But one thing we must seek are places of refuge for our children. Sports ought to be a refuge for our children. So while I would not compare the events in Miami last Friday night to anything we’ve see in Paris or the Middle East lately, the Miami story hit me differently.
It certainly doesn’t appear this was a terrorist situation. I don’t have a ton of facts, which may or may not ever be comprehensively reported. All I know is there were shots fired at a high school football playoff game in South Florida. As I write this, reports indicate the shots appear to have been fired from within the stadium over some kind of disagreement between spectators. I honestly don’t care much about the particulars. I just want kids’ football games to be a place where kids can go play, while their families and friends enjoy watching them play.
Yes, that’s a naive statement. Yes, that’s idealistic. Of course, guns have been showing up at high school games for decades. I know this isn’t a football or sports issue. I know this isn’t a uniquely 2015 problem. It’s an insanely complex societal issue that’s been building for many years, probably a couple centuries actually. I know I don’t have solutions. I’m just angry. And I’m sad. So while maybe I’m just shouting for the sake of shouting, today I can’t help but shout. We have to work to fix this. Our kids are worth it.