Article July 17, 1995 Issue

Violence: "What am I doing about this?"

Mildred D. Johnson

Recently I was deeply troubled by the intensified buildup and reporting of violence in various cities and suburbs. In particular, I was moved by the murder of an eleven-year-old boy whose life of poverty and despair had led him in the wrong direction.

Then I recalled a statement from Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy: "For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence" (p. 492). Remembering this, I sat bolt upright in my reclining mental chair and I thought: "What am I doing about this? What part do I play in these tragic events? Can I be a part of the healing process so necessary at this time? Or will I be swallowed up in pity for the victim, pity for the victimizers, and an apathetic, what's-the-use attitude? Will I blame the government, society, the family, the drug users, the drug pushers, alcohol, the schools?" I asked myself the question "Am I reasoning rightly?"

Christ Jesus said to the accusers of the woman taken in adultery, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7). Surely my thinking at that moment might be classified as stone casting.

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