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.

Next Obama Speech: Youth Violence

Long before President Obama recently addressed school children, I had wanted a sitting president to address the subject of youth violence directly with our young people. There is good precedence for an Obama speech on this topic. Solomon, the wisest of ancient kings, addressed the youth of his day very directly on the subject of violence. Solomon was sought out by other monarchs (notably, the Queen of Sheba), and was paid handsomely for his Management Seminars; his writings are full of references to violence prevention--an important topic for heads of state.

Throughout his life, Solomon collected proverbs, those pithy, earthy sayings like our "a stitch in time will save you nine"--Benjamin Franklin. Solomon compiled these into a complete book to which he added little sermonettes, some of which would come under the heading of "What parents should tell their kids", since each one begins with "My son....". These lessons are essential tools for fatherhood and parenting.

In the Book of Proverbs, Solomon's first appeal is to avoid people who will get you in trouble. It doesn't take long to discover that the illustrated trouble is armed robbery--not the first thing we think of when talking with our kids. But the lesson is clear, and I will summarize it here:

Proverbs, chapter 1: "their feet run to evil" - this means that people skilled in something are going to do it faster than you can think the words, "maybe I'd better leave." A carpenter friend shows up at your house when you are working on a project; faster than you can say it, this person has a hammer in his hand. If you in the company of an experienced felon, and he or she sees the opportunity, a bad deed is done, and you are implicated, although it happened faster than you could think.

Kids always think that there is time to back out, like the good kids did on the TV show, "Walker, Texas Ranger". In that series, there was always a kid who had remorse, and at the right moment would change sides while a crime was in progress. But life is not like a TV show, unfortunately; when a crime is in progress, things happen too fast. Pretty soon, a group of older teens is standing before a bond judge--then there's time for remorse.

Another issue is gun violence: Because it's effective at a distance, the gun becomes too impersonal to be used with restraint. It is too easy to use. The person who would never hurt anyone has done the unthinkable. Solomon puts it like this: "They hasten to shed blood." It always happens too fast. The novice thinks that he won't shoot, and his more experienced partner in crime promises the same. Adrenalin, hard hearts, the heat of the moment--all take over, and someone who wasn't supposed to get hurt is lying in a pool of blood. And it gets repeated again the next night with another naive youth who gets in league with a criminal.

The solution, according to Solomon, is to "avoid their path", which I paraphrase as, "Don't let your feet get mixed up with their feet." As Jesus put it, "If your foot offends you, cut it off." Jesus meant, that we have to be ruthless with ourselves to stay out of trouble. This is true with any addiction, and violence is certainly one of the chief addictions, as a read through Proverbs will reveal.

The concept in Proverbs describes what you do with your feet. If your feet get mixed up with a troublemaker, you are going to get into trouble. On the other hand, if your feet get mixed up with someone on the way to swim practice, band practice, dance class, or horse camp, sometime someone is going to put a trumpet in your hand, you are going to dance, you are going to swim, or you are going to ride--am I right? But no one is going to come to your house and put a trumpet in your hand; you are not going to wake up on the sofa with a horse nibbling your hair. That is the concept of feet--the good and the bad of it.

The young person can get his or her feet mixed up with kids who are going places. A summer camp is a great place to do exciting things. Don and Debi Ethridge have a camp near Jackson, Mississippi called New Life. They recruit kids who could not otherwise afford to go to camp. They have horses, and for some kids it is quite a hurdle to get over their fears of horses. But horse people (like Debi) have a special patience that transcends definition, and these kids are soon enjoying those treks through the pines. They got their feet mixed up with with feet that were on the way to camp, and ended up on a horse.

For Christians, who believe the scriptures are God-breathed, i.e., directly inspired, Proverbs uniquely retains the personality and breadth of insight of an intriguing head of state. These directives have stood the test of time; moreover, they are more current than tomorrow's newspaper. Any sitting president would do well to model his appeals after those of this world-class leader, who was also a great man of peace.