gatitude not attitude

 Do you think social attitude has anything to do with these mass shootings ? I do, and I think I can identify that change in social attitude. We have, as a society, gone from gratitude to attitude ! That's correct. Where we were once thankful for the things given to us by our creator, we now demand them. It has gone way beyond hopeful, beyond expectation, to demands. In the our founding documents there is the acknowledgement of a creator that endowed us with certain unalienable rights. We, as a nation , prayed to that creator, for guidance. We, as a nation, were grateful for that guidance and accepting of his grace. That, I fear, is no longer the case in America and the results are obvious.

 Now I'm not saying we all need to be evangelists, but we all need to be grateful. We are given the freedom to worship our god as we see fit.

 The key part of that statement is worshiping a God. John Adams stated that clearly enough when he said, " Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. " The morality he was speaking of was understood to be the moral foundation taught in the Christian Bible and the religious people ? The religious people acknowledge the presence of God. In doing so the people worship that God. There are roughly 450,000 churches in the United States. That number has been on the decline in the last few decades. In 1990 86% of the population said they were Christians. In 2015 that number was down to 75 % with only 62% of those folks saying they belonged to a specific congregation. Today we are not supposed to say, we are a Christian nation ! Is there a correlation between this decline and the rise of mass shootings ? I'll leave that determination to the statisticians. In my mind I believe there is.     

 It has been commanded of us. Honor thy father and thy mother. Everyone knows that. What does the Bible say immediately following that ? The verse goes on to say, " that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the lord. " I'm thinking we could use more of that nurturing and admonition ! 

 Are we bringing up our children to wrath ? Are we provoking them  ? Under this false narrative of rights and entitlements are we causing this anger, this resentment we see manifested in these shootings ? What could cause such anger, such contempt for life ? When we fail to raise our children, giving them the attention and yes, nurturing they require we should expect bad results. Families seldom sit at the dinner table anymore, families seldom " play " together, and more and more every year families fail to acknowledge God or attend church together. Only 62% of those saying they are Christians say they belong to a church ! Think about that. Was a day in America when asked a person would identify with a particular church. Where we once taught our children to pray we now teach them to protest !  Are we provoking our children to wrath ! Yes, I think we are.