I have new neighbors! They moved in about two weeks ago. He is a retired Marine, and it was fun watching from my lawn as the Realtor took pictures of him and his wife, accepting the keys to the front door.

A few days later, I saw his son come out of the front door, obviously in running gear. He put a neon belt around his waist and took off down the street. I will tell you, neon belts are a military thing. The military drives it into your cranium that if you are running on base, day or night, you wear a neon running belt. The next time I saw my neighbor, I asked him about it. I was hoping that my son might now have a JROTC buddy or at least a running partner across the street. His response surprised me.

“I tell him to wear it because of what just happened down in Georgia. We are new in the neighborhood, and people don’t know him. It may seem silly, but I don’t want my son to get shot at for just running.”

As you might guess, my neighbor is black. The thought that he had to be concerned for his son in my neighborhood startled me. It bothers me still. And his response is not isolated. A friend told me of how he instructs all his kids on how to behave when pulled over for a traffic stop. Here I am teaching my son how to change a tire as a prerequisite for driving. He is teaching his kids how to keep their hands on the steering wheel and make no sudden moves.

The recent deaths of two black men, Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and George Floyd in Minnesota remind us that America is not the safe place we all think it is. For millions of our Americans, a traffic stop, a walk around the neighborhood, or some exercise must be contemplated and considered before experienced.

As a pastor and retired military officer living in Virginia, why should I comment on something happening hundreds of miles away in Georgia or Minnesota? Why should I add my voice to the outcry? Because as Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.”

In the book of Isaiah, Chapter 3, the prophet speaks about the current state of affairs in Jerusalem. “The people will oppress one another, man against man, the neighbor against the neighbor, the young will act arrogantly toward the old and the worthless toward the honorable.” The people will call out for leaders, but potential leaders will be so preoccupied with their own affairs that they will neglect responsibilities to the greater good.

Something needed to be done but nobody seemed to want to do anything.

It seems like the current situation in the United States, hearkens back to that time in Isaiah. Prognosticators on both sides of the issue are attempting to turn cases of clear right and wrong into circumstances of us against them. They bully people into submission as they portray everything in this adversarial, us against them, motif. I was appalled last night as I switched on a news channel, and I heard a nationally syndicated commentator ranting about the rioting in Minneapolis as if to say, “what they are doing is not right either.” We call that deflection. Equally appalling was another commentator taking the opposing view that the rioting was a proper manifestation of pent up rage and anguish. Really?

Like many, I am at a loss for where the road leads from here. What is clear is we can’t stay here. I wish in good blogger fashion, I had 5 steps to ‘healing our land” or “3 things to bridge the racial divide.” I am still at the orient stage of this decision loop. But the first step is to realize we have a BIG problem. My neighbor is not a shrinking violet. He doesn’t see danger around every corner. But when he who has fought for our country is justifiably concerned about his son’s welfare when merely running in our neighborhood that needs to be fixed.

Let’s fix it. I AM ALL IN.