Are we becoming unhinged?

"We have become so tribal, so sliced and diced into encampments, we are one more Floyd incident away from having uncontrollable, open warfare on each other."

In the past, we would see on the news, or read in the print media, about other countries where lawlessness ruled the day. We would sit back in our comfortable chairs and think, "Tsk, tsk - what is wrong with those people? Why can't they be civilized like us?" Today? Not so much. Many people in other countries are wondering if the once safe country called the United States is coming unhinged. Truthfully - many of us who live here, are wondering that also.

As most of us know, the crime stats in most major cities in the country are off the charts. Even our once sleeping little village of Minneapolis, has not been spared from the carnage. In fact, after the George Floyd incident, it seems like the "wheels had fallen off the trolley". How so? Here are just some of the disturbing items to ponder, about Minneapolis, and the surrounding communities.

Kids being shot - in 2020, by the middle of May, 10 kids had been injured or killed by gunfire in Minneapolis. That was a terrible statistic. However, by May of this year, that number had jumped to 19 kids injured or killed by gunfire - almost double from 2020. The vast majority of the time, the kids shot were just innocent bystanders. Or collateral damage when someone tried to shoot an adult the kids were with. This is horrible. This is beyond tragic.

Road Rage Murder on 169 -  This one is really a head scratcher. A youth baseball coach, with his son in the car, were headed home on Highway 169 in Brooklyn Park. Some incident happened with another car, and road rage ensued. Instead of giving the baseball coach the finger, or honking his horn at him, the driver in the other car, took out a handgun, and shot the coach in the head. The coach died, and the perp has not yet been caught. Unbelievable.

Beheading in Shakopee - This one is going to sound like it came out of a horror movie. But it did not. If happened this past week in the quiet little town of Shakopee. A 42 year old man thought his girlfriend might have done something which this man did not like. Instead of calling her on it, or breaking up with her, he caught her in the middle of an intersection, and in broad daylight, decapitated her. This was so heinous, words escape me to go any further on this one.

What is happening to us? Where is our civility? Are we on the way of becoming another Chicago? Where life is so cheap, the sky high weekend murder count has become so ordinary, it is hardly reported? Where is our humanity? Our compassion? Our love for our fellow man? 

We have become so tribal, so sliced and diced into encampments, we are one more Floyd incident away from having uncontrollable, open warfare on each other. Last year we asked what we could do to slow this down, or maybe even turn it around. The result? The stats this year are even worse. It is so bad this year, the chances of being a victim of some kind of crime in Minneapolis are 1 in 18.  

Maybe it is time that we collectively, as a city, as a state, as a nation, return to God. We have tried throwing God out of many parts of our lives, and truthfully, it has not been going well for us.

The Holy Bible tells us to love others as ourselves, and love God more than anything. That might be a good place to start.