We Need More Gold Diggers

Did you think you read the title of this blog wrong?

You didn't.

My heart has been heavy this week, as I'm sure like many of yours. The amount of injustice, pain and violence happening in our world is nothing short of heartbreaking. In our own community it is as if a war has broken out on our streets. Teenagers are dying. Children are making adult decisions and being tried as adults.  Families are being torn apart. I have a habit of listening to the police scanner app on my phone. The past week it has been non stop with call ins of shootings, many of them involving juveniles.  We have caught a group of boys hiding a semi automatic BB gun behind our fence. People are finding empty packaging for those types of guns in yards on the east side of Savannah. We have become guardians to some children who need a place to stay and we are on a huge learning curve with parenting hurting and angry kids 24/7. All of it is just overwhelming if you stop and think about it for too long. The brokenness and pain on every side of each situation is absolutely gut wrenching. The bigness of the problem often feels insurmountable.

Our media outlets are filled with these types of stories. I cringe every time I click on a news story and read the comments section beneath. Comments and pictures filled with hate and judgement. I have always hated labels and boxes. I have lived my life trying to break free of any labels put on me. Labels are stifling. Labels are limiting. So when I read comments like, "I hope those Young THUGS get life in prison," speaking about teenagers in our community or "Why don't those good for nothin thugs all just kill each other off," a piece of my heart breaks. 

Dirt. People are really good at throwing it on other people.  Every single time I hear a story of crime I wonder how many people threw dirt on them. How many people took a look at them, labeled them and walked away? How can we call it justice for a child to spend the rest of his life in prison? Where was the justice when that little boy was looking around him for cues on how to be a man? Where was justice when someone redefined and distorted the meaning of family, acceptance and love for him? I believe in consequences for actions...but that is not the same as justice. Justice is not death. Justice is not a retaliation. Justice is not rallying around an issue or a person with handfuls of dirt.

What would happen if we released our fistfuls of dirt and picked up a shovel? What if we started to let that dirt sift through the grates until we start to find the specks of gold? What if we all just found a way to offer a word of hope instead a devastating label? What if the people who are picking up those guns had more Gold Diggers in their life?  It is much easier to be the accuser and release a handful of dirt than it is to take the time to sift through it all to discover something beautiful. So before you pick up the dirt, ask yourself if you want to be a part of that persons story line. 

I am convinced that the only way to justice is to pick up shovels and sift our way to the truth and beauty of who a person is at their core.   It can be messy.  Messy but worth it.

Bang Bo Nang Ching, Sa Kaeo, THAILAND - September 16, 2011: A gold prospector sifts the soil tirelessly in the hope of finding a speck of gold, near Bang Bo Ching Nang, east Thailand.

We need to celebrate the good. We need to look a child in the eye and speak hope and give them a shovel at an early age.

We need to become Gold Diggers.