Invisible Children

Who:

·         The invisible children are children in Africa who have been abducted by Joseph Kony’s army. They are abducted during the night from villages without a large population, making it harder to defend themselves and their children from the abductors. These children are desensitized to violence and taught how to kill and sneak into schools to take other children for the child army.

What:

·         The child soldiers that are abducted from Ugandan villages are taught to fight and kill. They are also taught to sneak into schools and villages and take more children into the army. With children constantly moving about as they travel to and from the nearby towns and cities at night for protection no one notices an extra child or two entering the village that day. All these children know is how to hold a gun and kill.

When:

·         This has been going on for the past 17 years of the Uganda rebellion. The rebel group, led by Joseph Kony, has been abducting children to use in their army as soldiers. The children comprise a vast majority of the rebel force and are very dangerous soldiers because they have to kill in order to not get beaten by their adult captors and they were raised to fight from the young age at which they were abducted.

Where:

·         All of the abductions, as well as the fighting, have taken place in Uganda, Africa. At the beginning of the rebellion Kony’s cousin claimed to be possessed by a spirit that was telling her to overthrow the government; upon her death Kony took over and began the child abductions. Kony and his rebel army live out in the desert or the dense rain-forest  nearly inaccessible places. They train the children in the desert, where it is nearly impossible to escape because of the lack of water and places to hide from the soldiers.

Why:

·         The rebels believe that a war is the only way to bring about a change in the Ugandan governmental system. They use the children because they are easy to control with a few adults. Children also have modifiable minds, they can be taught that killing is what they are supposed to do and that’s it. Children require fewer resources than adults in terms of food, water, shelter, and clothing. 

The First Commandment in 2013

Teenagers, and most adults as well, give a lot of things in their lives more priority or importance than is really necessary. With all the technology and gadgets we have access to it becomes very easy to forget about things like God. Sure most of say were not idolizing our “stuff” but how many people are actually telling the truth when they say that they don’t put their belongings first, or near first, in their life. In the modern world idolatry is just as prevalent as it was in ancient times; we just go about in more subtle ways now. Instead of worshipping huge numbers of gods and goddesses we worship things like wealth and material goods.

The First Commandment states that you shall not commit idolatry; you shall only worship the one true God. Today teenagers especially idolize things before God. We no longer worship a pantheon of gods and goddesses like people did in ancient days; we put things like our iPods, computers, and phones before a majority of things in our lives, including God. These things become so important to us that we ignore our relationship with God. God should be the foremost part of our lives; he should be one of our, if not our first priority. We also hold many famous celebrities in high regard, and there is nothing wrong with that. It becomes a problem when we hold celebrities, or any person, in such a high level of regard that we almost deify them and make them more important than God.

Now many of the denominations of Christianity say that Catholics are guilty of the same sin they accuse so many others of committing when it comes to the saints. Although devote Catholics venerate the saints and relics, that is show great respect and reverence for these people and items, they do not idolize them. For everyday objects though even veneration is going too far; not only does it bring you closer to idolizing the object, but something like your phone or iPod doesn’t deserve that much respect and reverence. If your honest with yourself, it’s really not that important to have massive amounts of wealth or material goods; it’s certainly nice, but should never be desired to the point that it blocks out what’s really important in your life.

One way you could work on changing is by going to church. Instead of just going to church and suffering through it, try and actually listen to the message being given to you. Now you don’t need to put much effort into this either, you go to church for an hour a week and listen and then you’re done. For the rest of the week all you have to do is try and give God a moment or two out of your day to thank him for what you have or to just pray. Eventually the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love will allow you to gain a deeper understanding of God and grow closer to him.

The final thing that disobeying the First Commandment by creating idols to worship or place before God could lead to is belief in magic and other superstitions. The church describes superstition as giving someone or something a power that belongs exclusively to God and relying on said power to help you rather putting your faith and trust in God. 

Jordan Davis Post

In 1955 a 14 year old black boy named Emmett Till was brutally abused and murdered by two white men for whistling at a white woman. Emmett grew up in Chicago but had gone done to Mississippi for the cotton harvest. One day at a local store, Emmett whistled at the owner's wife on his way out of the store. When her husband returned home he and his accomplice kidnapped Emmett in the middle of the night and killed him, dropping his body into a river weighted to a cotton gin fan. Although his death was tragic, when his murderers were tried in a court in their hometown, the jury's verdict was that they were innocent. This completely biased decision sparked the civil rights movement of the 1950's and early 1960's.

Trayvon Martin was a 17 year old African American boy. He was at a gas station buying a pop and skittles in a gated, well off neighborhood when a white man saw him. According to the man, Zimmerman, Trayvon look suspicious and high. He called 911 and the police on the line told him to stay where he was and let them handle it. Zimmerman decided to plan law enforcement instead and pursued Trayvon, eventually shooting him in the chest. Florida has a “stand your ground law” that allows gun owners to shoot first and ask later if they feel threatened. Although this law’s makers had the right intentions when they created it, the law needs to be seriously changed in order for it to be truly effective and prevent needless deaths like Trayvon’s.

One final example of senseless murder of black males just because they “Look or act intimidating” is Jordan Davis. Jordan and his friends were in their truck at a public gas station blaring their music. 45 year old Michael Dunn told them to turn their music down and they ignored him. Dunn said he felt “threatened” by the group of teens in their truck blaring their music, though I don’t see how loud music is a threat to anyone other than the teens hearing, so he decided using a gun would be the correct answer to the problem. He then proceeded to fire not 1, but 8 or 9 shots, into the truck, killing Jordan Davis in the process.

So I would like to know, what on earth is so terrible about what each of these young men did to deserve being murdered? If I walked into a gas station with my hoodie on, would some crazy person find it necessary to shoot me, or is it just because Trayvon was black that Zimmerman thought he was a threat? It truly disgusts me how people feel that they have the right to shoot someone, usually killing or severely injuring them beyond healing, just because they felt threatened by loud music or a kid in a hoodie.