Part II - Next Obama Speech - Youth Violence

In my previous post, I showed how good presidents, good parents, and in particular, good fathers will communicate to young people about how to avoid violence. Teen or youth violence may be gang violence in that there is an instigator and his followers, as in the recent Chicago brawl that killed an innocent young man. In the biblical Book of Proverbs, Solomon addressed youth violence in the context of a robbery, but whether it is a gang violence, jealousy, or robbery, the principles are the same.


Here, I follow Solomon's argument point by point. A president, a teacher, parent, or youth leader will do well to sprinkle these principles into several conversations, unless you are a skilled storyteller who can bring wisdom into everyday context. If you ever were incarcerated, you are in the best advantage to help others steer clear of the things that derailed your life.

MY SON, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, "Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause..." Proverbs, Chapter 1, verse 10.

Now, no young person decides to go out and rob someone. They have to be enticed. The good news is that before people stir up trouble, they talk about it. If our children are alert, when the talk starts, they can leave.

A young person is enticed with words, because there is little to show for a life of crime. There is the promise of riches--a fantasy. They want you to come with them. The young criminals lie in wait for blood, not realizing, as Solomon will soon tell us, that they lie in wait for their own blood.

Blood is the picture of life. When one has been shot, a rapid loss of blood will drain the life from the person. But in prison, life drains away too--our potential to live productive lives, to marry, to raise children, to help others--these hopes and opportunities drain away just as surely as if an artery were severed.

An ambush, as we remember from movies of the Old West, is where the outlaws wait for the stagecoach. Suddenly the robbers make their move, attacking the stagecoach, demanding the "payroll" tucked away in some strongbox. An ambush carries with it the idea of control--suddenly you have control of someone's life and possessions.

But Solomon would have us see that they ambush their own lives. Suddenly, a promising young person is diverted to jail and he or she is not in control. Those in the criminal justice system have control of your life. What few possessions you carry into a jail cell are regulated and searched. Some have complained that they could have only a certain number of letters from home or that they could not study for the GED. This is an ambush to be sure. One minute you are in control; suddenly, everything has changed.

Let us swallow them alive like Sheol [the place of the dead], and whole, as those who go down to the grave.

The “swallowing alive” is a picture of a snake, whose teeth are set pointing towards its throat. When a snake catches a mouse, all of the wiggling that animal does helps the snake swallow it faster, because of the set of those teeth. That's why the animal swallows its prey whole. When criminals attack, they think everything their target does will only make their work go quicker.

But when a young person gets into bad trouble with the law, they are swallowed alive and whole. You don't send your arm or leg to prison--your whole body goes to prison. The grave takes you alive and whole--one minute you are alive, and the next you are dead, the victim of a bullet from a robbery victim, the police, or a stray bullet from one of your pals.

The justice system swallows you whole, and all the kicking and screaming seems only to hasten the resolve of the police and prosecutors to put you away.

Jesus drew on this principle when he said, "If your eye [or hand, or foot] offends you, pluck it out [or cut it off]." The criminal won't send his hand or foot to prison or to the grave. The whole body will go. The eye (or something desirable), the hand (or its activity), the foot (or somewhere it can take us) are easy to part with when compared to having our entire bodies dragged through the criminal justice system, or having our families grieve over our untimely death. (Jesus used it to apply to one's eternal destiny.)

We shall find all precious wealth; we shall fill our houses with spoil. Throw in your lot with us; we shall all have one purse.

Here is the fantasy, again. First, the focus is on some special thing that will be stolen. But human greed always takes over. Soon, it is filling one's house with loot.

The word "spoil" comes from the "spoils of war"--taking by force the fruits of other's labors. But if it is the fruit of someone else's labor, it could be the fruit of our labor. A Playstation 2 is expensive, but if you delivered pizza, how many days would you have to work to buy one? This is how most of the world operates; it is not strange for people to buy what they want with money they have earned. How else could so many (nearly 150 million PS2s) be sold? It takes hard work and discipline each day until we have saved for what we want.

In Solomon’s “cast your lot with us”, the lot is like a lottery ticket. If five of your friends buy lottery tickets to share the winnings, that would be what is suggested here. You throw in your lot with criminals. You share the risk of coming out ahead with loot you have stolen. But you also share the much, much higher risk of losing. That is why on evening news we see young punks together before a bond judge; they threw in their lot together. They will go to prison together. You share equally in the outcome--as the saying goes, you will "hang together".

MY SON, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path.

When I was in college, I said the problem with making good grades was in my posterior. If I kept it in the chair, I would study. Otherwise, I wouldn't study. But the problem could have just as easily been my feet, because they could carry me away from my responsibility. Our hands will usually do what they are trained to do. If you have construction skills, and your feet take you to a construction site, your hands will naturally pick up a hammer and get to work. Job skills and study skills are indeed wonderful. If you are a reader, and you sit in front of a book, your hands and eyes are going to do what they have been accustomed to doing since your earliest days in school—READ.

This brings us to the points covered by the previous blog post, Part I of Youth Violence. I hope that together these two posts will give fathers some time-proven tools to convey to their children, and especially their young men, about how to avoid being sucked into the terrible vortex of escalating violence.