Friday, December 12, 2014

Play with Fire and YOU will get BURNED!

It’s unfathomable that someone with a family with lots of kids would choose to do drugs, sell drugs and put themselves in harms way intentionally! As a kid growing up my mom would always warn me about playing with fire or in a bigger context doing crazy things in life that eventually will get me hurt. The challenge especially as a teen or twenty something is that you truly believe that you are immortal until that friend is killed in a way that could have been preventable.

I received a text this morning from one of my teens telling me about a cousin who was killed in a drug deal gone bad. My heart breaks for the wife of this individual and her kids. How do you explain to your kids the WHY of what happened to their father? I’m around too many in my neighborhood that choose to live on the edge and it’s just a matter of time before they are caught in doing something totally foolish.

What has to happen for our society to WAKE up when it comes to living on the edge and making the foolish assumption that it could never happen to ME? I know that the riots and protest continue with the raised hands and chanting of ‘don’t shoot me’ and the T-shirts that have written on them ‘I can’t breathe’. It is so easy for everyone to blame someone else for their poor choices that have ongoing consequences. There is a clear correlation between your moral conscience, choices you make and your life expectancy.

I purposely live and work in an at risk neighborhood, where the news at night often has a story about a shooting or a stabbing. The life expectancy of most gang bangers or drug dealers in my neighborhood isn’t great. I tire of hearing about teens that are being exploited by corrupt adults who use them to do their dirty work. The end result is someone becomes another statistic that can be used to prove someone’s bias or prejudice.

What has to happen for men from tough neighborhoods to see that there aren’t any short cuts in life! If you drop out of school and choose to be a thug type ‘bad stuff’ is going to follow you. Much the same when you choose to stay in school take the high road and actually get a job then life will be so much better. Yet, the tension that exists in my area between those that truly think they can live without working a normal job and those that have jobs truly scares me.

I met with a good friend yesterday who is of color and the tragic news of our day is that we haven’t gotten any closer to seeing racial reconciliation happening in our society then back in the 50’s. The sense of entitlement and anger against the past has caused too many to opt out of life and choose a path that leads to death and destruction. The unfortunate reality is that one’s poor choices impact a family and a community.


As my mom would tell me time after time, ‘Don’t play with fire and you don’t have to worry about getting burned!’

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