I Feel Another Loss…

As many of you know, I lost my Dad in July.  It hurt, still hurts, and I do that thing of thinking of calling or of going to the nursing home to see him, then remember.

However, in early November, there was another loss.  I didn’t know or I would have been at the funeral.  I won’t go into a name, but he was one of my students.  Apparently, he was on a couch and three guys came in the back and one of them shot him and another person.  I was told almost 600 people came to the funeral or visitation.

I am just a bit in shock.  I used to talk with this student a lot.  We got to be, well, friends.  I did that with many of my students and they remember that.  So do I.  He loved playing his guitar and skateboarding.  I won’t say he loved school, but he did enjoy being in my class most of the time.  We listened to music a lot and I would preach at him about doing something with his life here at school and beyond and he would laugh and just keep on doing his thing.

I had told him we would meet at Pizza Hut some day for lunch and catch up.  He never could quite seem to make it.  He got mad that he missed it one time  I told him not to worry, we would do it again.  Now, that’s gone.  He probably doesn’t mind now, but I do.

Hey, your friends, your students, your teachers, your family, your church members, and a lot of other groups of people or individuals…say hi, tell them how you feel, … you just…never…know.

Gonna miss you, Guy!

Namaste,

Scott

The Darker Side of Some Things

A few nights ago, this was one of the main stories in a town near me.  I spend a lot of time there, and so, this could have been me or I could have been a bystander.  It is a restaurant I go to and my neighbor works there.

http://fox59.com/2014/06/29/shooting-at-anderson-restaurant/#axzz36GpPFmp4   (Shown Below)

Police investigate shooting at Anderson IHOP

ANDERSON, Ind. (June 29, 2014) — Police are investigating after a teenager was shot outside an Anderson IHOP.

Cops responded to a report of ‘shots fired’ at the restaurant around 2:45 a.m. Sunday. When they arrived, they found a 17-year-old male with a gunshot wound to the chest. The teenager was transported to St Vincent hospital and is listed in stable condition.

Police made two arrests in the shooting. Eighteen-year-old Michael Wright has been preliminarily charged with attempted murder. Nineteen-year-old Christopher McGregor has been arrested on a preliminary charge of aiding, causing and inducing attempted murder. Both suspects are from Indianapolis.

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This was another article that came out soon after the first.

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2014/06/29/indy-teens-arrested-ihop-shooting/11726343/   (shown below)

 

2 Indy teens arrested in IHOP shooting

IndyStar 9:51 p.m. EDT June 29, 2014

(Photo: Jan Priems, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

CONNECTTWEETLINKEDINCOMMENTEMAILMORE

ANDERSON — Two Indianapolis teenagers are facing charges after a shooting outside an Anderson restaurant that seriously injured a 17-year-old boy.

Anderson police say 18-year-old Michael J. Wright is charged with attempted murder and 19-year-old Christopher L. McGregor is charged with aiding, inducing or causing attempted murder. It was not immediately clear if they had attorneys.

Police say the shooting occurred about 2:45 a.m. Sunday in the parking lot of an IHOP restaurant near I-69.

The victim’s name was not immediately released by police. He was shot in the chest and was in stable condition Sunday night at an Indianapolis hospital.

Investigators say the victim and Wright had been having an ongoing argument in recent weeks.

Shortly after the shooting, the suspects were stopped by Fishers police on I-69.

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Now, granted I am reading some into this, but if those 2 young men were stopped in Fishers, then they had left Anderson and were on their way back to Indianapolis.  It doesn’t read as if they were evading police, nor did it sound like they were particularly concerned about the whole thing.

This is what has come to concern me in recent years.  I see a growing tolerance of violence, injustice, and pain.  I watch a lot of horror movies.  I watch, read, and write a lot of violence.  Still, it affects me.  Even in the movies or in a book or in something I am writing, I feel the violence and the pain.  I get angry at injustice; I abhor someone who has no feelings and cannot think about something and the pain or whatever not bother them at all.

I have sat and probably will sit in that restaurant.  The waitress/friend was telling me about all the blood that was everywhere.  It is my understanding that the human body has around 6 quarts of blood.  Now, a person is in sad shape if they lose an entire quart.  I don’t know how much this person lost, but even if it was only 2/3 of one quart or about 1 1 /2 pints, think about how much that is if it sprays everywhere.  It bothers me that those 2 could do that and then just drive away.  A disregard for human life is what it amounts to.  And that is where I believe our society is slowly heading.

Do I think that movies have caused this?  No, they are a symptom

Do I think that the Internet has caused this?  No, it is also a symptom

We are, in my opinion, always so quick to blame, often without looking deep for the true problem’s base.

Let’s look a bit deeper and realize that, most likely, all of us contribute to this problem by ignoring the situations that are real and that exist all around us.  If we would truly look, we could well see the problems and then muster up some courage to start the ball rolling concerning changing the attitudes.

We just need to look and truly see, then to simply do some small thing.  It could be as simple as making a comment on this post that someone else reads and decides to take it up and start something big.

You really don’t know, so let’s go!

Namaste,

Scott

Read more: http://fox59.com/2014/06/29/shooting-at-anderson-restaurant/#ixzz36Gq7BZTy