I could be wrong in my views, but I think I might be right. The root cause of violence is not in the gun, it's in the anger of hurting youth. Stop the hurt by addressing the pain and we can say, "Turn in your guns! Stop the Violence!
Turn in your guns! Stop the Violence! Part IV
Ooowee!
The letters, e-mails, radio talk shows covering my Bishop Speaks columns and the many of you that have stopped me while I’m pumping gas in my car at the gas station about how to handle the violence, has made me understand you know where I'm coming from in making my point loud and clear. One cannot deal with stopping the violence or turning in your gun, knife or whatever else you might use when not being able to address anger management, until you deal with addressing your anger for starters.
First, if you didn't read my last week’s Bishop Speaks Column please go to the Website www.callandpost.com and look up Bishop Speaks. Follow along with me as I share from my point of view using the Word of God as my foundation, what one must do and start from, in dealing with violence, anger, stress, and even depression for starters.
The sixteen year old kid was angry, hurt, confused when his father left him, his other brothers and sisters and walked out on, his wife, their mother. The father left them with no food, the kids needed cloths for school, shoes and what hurt this sixteen year old the most was seeing his mother cry. Boys love their mothers and often I hear many of the young boys say, "I'm gonna buy my moma a house when I get big".
The sixteen year old in this state of mind, to make matters worse, got hold of a gun. He could not process all this in his mind – of his father leaving them – but he knew it did not make his mother happy, nor his other brothers and sisters. When he finally came across his father with another woman, it was then that this sixteen year old start shooting. Someone said, "These kids have gone crazy," while another person yelled, "Stop the Violence."
Ok, remember the true story I just shared, as I ask each of you my readers to go with me to the Word of God.
Turn your Bible to the book of Ephesians, the 6th Chapter, starting at the 1st verse. It reads, "Children, it is your Christian duty to obey your parents, for this is the right thing to do. Respect your father and mother is the first commandment that has a promise added: so that all may go well with you, and you may live a long time in the land. Parents, do not treat your children in such a way as to make them angry. Instead raise them with Christian discipline and instruction.”
Many times I hear parents say to their kids, "I'm your father, I'm your mother, respect me." But my question today is this: How can your children respect you as their parent when in all reality you deserve NO RESPECT AND HAVE IN REALITY MADE THEM ANGRY WITH YOUR MESS AND MADNESS? Many of the children and young adults I see in court and behind bars share with me what their parent or parents did or did not do. Many of these precious children are NOT WRONG, as I often try and find myself trying to take up for the parent, since they are the parent, but often I find myself speechless at what I'm hearing the child share with me.
The fourteen year old girl went with her mother and her mother’s new boyfriend to the grocery store. The girl said "Moma, we need milk", and the mother said, "shut up and let me shop." But her boyfriend said, "Baby we need beer," and her response was, "Ok, baby." I ask each of you my readers the question, which is, should that fourteen year old girl, the women's daughter be angry? "Hell to the Yes!"
Now I'm angry! The girl's mother values her thug male boyfriend more than her daughter and setting her daughter up to not only have low self esteem but a whole lot of anger which will lead into violence.
I hear story after story of young kids confused from what their mother and or father have done to them to cause anger.
You say, "Stop the Violence?" I say, "Parents, stop the madness!"
No more meetings dealing with violence and all we are seeing our youth do unless parents attend the meetings, and get into some counseling sessions and get real by coming clean with their children and keeping it real and start making wrongs right by their children. Boys need their fathers and young girls need their mothers.
I could be wrong in my views, but I think I might be right. The root cause of violence is not in the gun, it's in the anger of hurting youth. Stop the hurt by addressing the pain and we can say, "Turn in your guns! Stop the Violence!
You can e-mail the bishop at bishopspeaks@aol.com or look him up on Facebook under Bishop Prince J. Moultry. You can find him also on the church website at www.intouchforchrist.com. Join the bishop each Sunday morning 11a.m. sharp at the church 969 E. 140th St. (Off St. Clair Ave) in the heart of the Collinwood Community. Call the church at (216) 761-7100.
