It's Time to Do Something Now

Whatever Happen to Frogger or Jumping Super Mario?

                I have a new Surface Tablet by Microsoft.  As some of you know I enjoy a good game.  The gaming sight on my Surface led me to a list of XBOX games.  I stopped after reading fewer than 100 titles. I was nauseated by the preponderance of games that fostered violence.  Nearly 2/3 of the titles were designated “action” or “first person shooter.”  You have to love the “first person shooter” designation on some of these.  To make sure I was reading it correctly I went to Wikipedia to gain further insight.  "First-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre centered on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through a first-person perspective; that is, the player experiences the action through the eyes of the protagonist."  Well isn’t that special and disgusting!  There were five Assassin’s Creed related games.  There was Bayonet, a game that focuses on hacking and slashing your enemy.  In Battlefield 3 we are given assault rifles, sniper rifles, machine guns, sub-machine guns and carbines, shot guns and pistols, rocket launchers, etc.  And I understand the graphics are fabulous. 

                I am sure that one loner, outcast person who has lots of time for interaction with his or her gaming endeavors can kill hundreds of people each day.  Donkey Kong and Super Mario never provided such “terminator” action as this!  I know that I’m just a fading preacher who has too much time on his hands.  Feeding the poor in soup kitchens and working with in need youth in values education through sports just can’t match the action of one “first person shooter” game.  Being a person who gets committed to things I am afraid that if I get hooked on one of these games I might want to go “first person shooting” in real life.  And if I would ever get angry because I didn’t fit in, I believe now I have a game plan how to get even with my enemies.  Forget the Jesus loving enemies stuff – let’s hack and slash and assault them with multiple weapons. 

                I think by now you can see where I’m going.  20 children and 6 adults are dead in Newtown, CT.  And I am getting angry about the violence perpetrated by lonely – possibly high-volume video game playing – youth.  It’s time to become an action figure in getting youth and their parents to halt the addiction to violent video gaming and movies.  Maybe we need parents and youth to go to war with the violent gaming and media industry by pledging to not purchase games that promote violence or attend movies that are filled with violence.  It’s Christmas and maybe that’s the best gift we can give to the Christ child, the Prince of Peace.

A Blessed Weapon Free and First-Person-Perspective Free Game Christmas to You,  

Bob,   The One Time Gun Owner of Several Cap Pistols

P.S. In all seriousness you will be hearing from me again about concrete actions – on individual and local church levels that need to be taken to stop this madness!

A Response to the Loss of Innocents

Are We Becoming a “Shoot Down” Society?

Maybe what follows is my way of dealing with the death of 20 young children and 8 adults – including a sad sole young man who turned to violence in dealing with the demons inside his soul.  I am trying to make sense of a senseless and truly unexplainable situation.  While even stricter gun control laws and mental resources need to be put into place, there is a  core issue that needs to be addressed!  We live in a society where children are exposed constantly to a “shoot down” society.  Increasinged exposure to anger and violence is their daily fare.  Whether it is shooting people down in the public or political arena of the exchange of ideas with less than civil words or the scenes of violence from around the world; whether it is visible increase in violence in sports or in film or in “shoot’em” dead video games where the more dead gives the gamer more points, children and youth are probably exposed to anger and more violent behavior than in any other time in the history of the world.  Before 24-hour news which can bring the bellicose, disrespectful words, dead bodies into our living room or the games that allow the players to kill the enemy without experiencing the finality of their actions, there was a greater possibility of innocent souls having a longer age of innocence.  Guns were for killing wild game for the dinner table or as sport.  Guns were used by soldiers in faraway lands to fight for freedom and justice.  Except for an occasional arcade sharp shooting contest, children had little exposure to a “shoot’em” dead world.  Yes access to guns needs to be more strictly controlled, but it is the mindset of those who would shoot that needs to be addressed.  Civility in speech and less access to violence in the media for children and youth needs to be unequivocally addressed.

In this season we need to commit ourselves more boldly to an action figure, the child of Bethlehem.  The Prince of Peace came to terminate hatred and anger through weapons of love and grace.  The Herods of the world will try to kill his message, but it is our duty to protect the Child and his message.   Violence in our society must subside and no children of God should suffer the fate of 20 little ones in Newtown, CT.

Prayer – God of Christmas, Good Friday and Easter, with the birth of a Child heal our broken hearts for we once again have experienced the pain of our loss of innocent children and our innocence.  More than ever, we now need the hope and joy of Christmas to enter our hearts.   May the child be born in us again so that we might be vehicles of your love and instruments of your peace.  Amen.

 

Trying to celebrate a birth of a Little One who brings a message that can bring true peace to a violent world!     Bob