Hearing all of the reports of school shootings this past week, I have been reflecting on the prevalence of violence in our society. It seems to me that we are teaching our children to deal with conflict through violence. Popular sentiment all too often seems to favor responding to violence with violence, from war to the death penalty. Why are we then surprised when our children respond to conflict in their own lives with violence? Yet for those of us who are supposed to be witnesses for the Christian tradition in this world, this is not what our tradition teaches us. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says

But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. . . . You have heard it said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. (Cf. Mt. 5:38-48 and Lk. 6: 27-36)

Paul also says in the Letter to the Romans, "Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good." (Cf. Romans 12: 9-21; Paul is drawing on the Hebrew Scriptures in this passage, cf. Proverbs 25:21-22) How can we, as Christians, witness to this ideal of non-violence in our society? Could we stop the cycle of violence by responding with goodness and love?

I saw the movie Crash last year, a movie that is explicitly about racism, but I really thought the underlying theme of the movie was anger. It made me reflect on how angry people seem to be in our society. That anger seems to bubble to the surface at the slightest provocation, such as someone cutting someone off in traffic. Where is this anger coming from? The tagline from the movie website is "Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other." Is it the speed of life, the stress we are feeling from being stretched too thin too much of the time that is a source of this anger? While I don't think that is the entire answer, I think it might be part of the answer. I think many people fall into a pattern of living life on the edge of their breaking point.

Going back to where this reflection started, a recent study by the American Academy of Pediatrics reported that our children do not have enough down time or unstructured playtime in their lives. As a result, more of our children are going to the doctor with medical problems related to stress. Rather than us being more childlike (as Jesus suggests we need to be to enter the kingdom of heaven), it seems we are making our children more adultlike. Perhaps we all need a little more down time. Maybe then, we can do as Paul tells us in the Letter to the Ephesians,

And do not grieve the holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. (And) be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. (Eph. 4:30-32)

Imagine what the world would look like if even just those of us who profess a Christian belief managed to live in this way!