Of course things like this happen there (here). You read about tragic events in small towns all the time. A friend of mine tried to commit suicide in a small town. Another friend was raped in a small town. Yet another friend worked as a pizza delivery guy and was killed for the less than $20 he was carrying at the time. Laramie, Wyoming. Columbine High School. Holcomb, Kansas. Just today, a man was charged with 1st degree murder of a 10 year old girl in Purcell, Oklahoma.

The one time I was physically assaulted and robbed was when I was in Oklahoma on business. Mind you, I live in Los Angeles and I have never been mugged here.

I guess I just think that nothing gets solved when people just go “oh, well that kind of stuff doesn’t happen here.” It’s like trying to brush the social ills that led to such a tragedy under the provebial rug. Communities need to take ownership and not hide its citizenry from real life problems.

To end my comment, I will refer to is a wonderful article in the Chicago Tribune about the atomization of culture:

“I think some geographies make it easier–if everyone’s white or everyone’s black or everyone’s Hispanic–to be insulated and less able to see other people’s human situations and problems. I think we’re seeing a redefining of the word ‘cocooning.’”

“It’s what sociologists call ‘the atomization of culture,’” said Deborah Caldwell, managing editor of Beliefnet.com, the highly regarded online spirituality magazine and virtual mega community.

“When you are affluent enough to live in a big house with a lot of property, you are walling yourself off,” she said. “You live in a bubble that contains your house, your car, your parking deck, your office.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-0604160316apr16,1,7000731.story

Spoken like a true suburbian!

As you know, Chicago has seen the murder of two girls in separate incidents in the same gang-infested neighborhood. Both were murdered by gang members aiming for someone else.(A 10-year-old was getting ready to eat her birthday cake). For those residents, there is nothing false about what is appearing. Some of us do have more to fear than others.

I do understand the need to take one day – and sometimes even one moment at a time – but there’s also such thing, I believe as healthy fear and worrying. They can move us to action that God would say is necessary and just. I also believe, however, that all is in God’s hands in the end. That is our ultimate comfort.

I also am thinking that fear and worrying don’t have to be synonymous.

Grace and peace

Wish we would have had the opportunity to have had the wisdom from the comments of Goetz’s book some 40 years ago.

Swede Roskam

Fear and Faith both project into the furture. Both take a decision of our will and expend our energies. I guess the thing to remember is this: what you feed grows and what you starve dies. Better to starve out the fear by developing our measure of faith in God. Whom by the way, holds our times in His hands.

Fear and Faith both project into the furture. Both take a decision of our will and expend our energies. I guess the thing to remember is this: what you feed grows and what you starve dies. Better to starve out the fear by developing our measure of faith in God, who by the way, holds our times in His hands.