The Shepherd's Heart/What's going on? Society has kicked morals to curb

A heavily armed man enters a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, takes hostages, and eventually opens fire on several girls before turning one of his guns on himself. Five girls are killed and at least five more are hospitalized in critical condition.

Sounds like a script from some tragic, mind-bending psycho thriller, doesn't it?

But we all know the truth. It actually happened. And not too long after other young girls lost their lives in a similar fashion in the mountain town of Bailey, Colorado. So the question arises …

"What is going on?"

A highly paid professional football player kicks another player in the head while he's on the ground before stomping the downed player in the head, leaving him with a gash that needs 30 stitches to be closed. And all of this while millions of fans watch on television.

"What's going on?"

The public library in a small rural Missouri town places on its shelves books with innocent, almost bucolic titles that invite and entice young readers to open the books. What the innocent young reader -- these books are aimed at "young readers age 12 and older" -- does not know is that the comic book style illustrations in these books show graphic, intimate situations between men and women, and between women and women. And I do mean graphic.

Again … "What's going on?"

We've given up. Plain and simple. We've let the way of the world take over and now we are reeling in the waves of outrage and disgust and shock that pour over us as we digest the news reports or investigate what passes for children's literature these days. We've abdicated our rightful place as concerned citizens and have allowed the vileness of a pleasure-seeking world gone mad to become the norm by repeating the mantra of complacency -- "it will never happen here."

I dare you to say that to the parents of those girls in Pennsylvania. Tell it to the parents of the girls gunned down in Colorado. Tell the parents of the little girl who brings home a copy of one of those books to read and has to ask mommy or daddy to explain what the two women shown in the illustrations are doing. Tell them that it could never happen here. Tell them that these things only happen in metropolitan areas or in urban population centers or in ultra-liberal Oregon or back east in Massachusetts. Tell them that they are safe and secure in the heartland of the nation.

We stand with our mouths agape and ask "What's going on?"

And deep in our hearts we know that we've held our peace one too many times; that we've stood idly by while this nation once "under God" slithered out from under the protection of the Almighty and into a deep, dark cave to hide its shameful face. We've watched as a loud, outspoken, lawsuit-hungry minority has brought this great nation to its knees with fear of legal judgment and cries of discrimination.

It's moral decline. More succinctly stated, it's moral decay. It's social depravity taking its toll on a society blinded by "personal feelings" that others dare not hurt or bruise. And it's getting out of control.

It's time to take a stand.

It's time to pray.

The Shepherd's Heart appears on Thursday.