By Jannie Johnson

Jackson Advocate Guest Writer

“…we are in a period of uncertainty, of danger in which not only for our own safety, but that of all mankind is threatened.”

I cried real tears when I heard about the 4 teens killed and 8 injured at a birthday party in Daveville, Ala. I said to myself, we don’t want to get used to shooting and killing people as if it’s a game. Death is real; it’s final, no coming back like on T.V.

My momma said that there will be days like this, lawlessness, disrespect and looseness. I did NOT believe her. I certainly didn’t believe that it would happen in my life time. My Big Momma would often say: … without God, we can do no-thing, do NOTHING! That made no sense to me. We are doing something all the time, day in and day out.

I excused my momma and Big Momma’s sayings because they had limited education. But… today’s realities are making me a believer. I hear myself saying now: we can do nothing by going against the truth, God’s truth. 

There is an art to living.

Our President Joe Biden and state and local leaders are trying to assure us that we are going to find solutions to the violence problem. They say that they are going to get to the bottom of it. We will strengthen our gun laws and get mental health care available for our youth. These shooting incidents do not define who we are. Well… as we live on, we’ll see, hopefully.

We are educated and some of us are highly educated, but the unleashed violence we are experiencing across our nation makes us to know that it takes more than intellect to tame the savageness of man and make life gentle. Your truth/my truth can’t touch that. We need the Truth, God’s truth that is found in the Bible Book. In that life manual, we can find and learn the principles of life by which we are to live, non-violently.                            . 

BEHAVIOR IS LEARNED; IT’S PERSONAL CHOICE.       

In Johnathan Swift’s classic satirical fable, Gulliver’s Travels, he describes the country of the Houyhnhnms. The horses are endowed with reasons and virtues,   but not the humans. The Houyhnhnms succeeded in demonstrating that human is NOT sufficient for conduct of life. He needs divine intervention in his affairs.

Of course, we are not in the country of the Houyhnhnms. but we do need divine intervention in our affairs lest we destroy our civilization in the name of progress while going in the wrong direction.