Pissed!

I know the title is blunt and maybe even offensive to some—but it’s the best description of the way I feel right now and I don’t have time to try to find a word that everyone would approve of! 

This morning on my drive to work I decided to listen to the news…

BIG MISTAKE! 

For ten minutes I heard about Vester Lee Flanagan, the 41-year-old disgruntled former television reporter who murdered two people yesterday. 

They reported about his 23-page manifesto he faxed in to ABC’s newsroom two hours after the shooting, actually reading excerpts from it. 

They talked about the fact he used social media to broadcast and boast about the killings. 

They mentioned the names of other people in the past 20 years (starting with Columbine High School) who had done things like this. 

They talked about his history of employment at the news station. 

They literally talked about him the entire time—and then at the end of their “reporting” asked the question, “Why in the world would someone do something like this?” 

I would like to offer a solution…

Maybe, just maybe, the media in this country should stop making heroes out of morons!! 

Not one single time in this news reports did they mention the names of Alison Parker or Adam Ward, the two people who were brutally murdered by this idiot!  Their lives were taken, their friends and family have to be rocked to the core—and yet they were an afterthought.    

In fact, when I came to work this AM and started scrolling through news sites, an overwhelming majority of them had Flanagan’s name everywhere while the actual victims names were several paragraphs later. 

More attention was given to the moron than the two people who were the victims. 

And the media wonders why? 

Really? 

Right now there is someone watching this story, and they are lonely and desperate for attention.  All of a sudden they see something like this and realize if they shoot up a school, movie theatre or just people on the street then they can be famous because the news will make them famous by sharing with the entire world their history, their social media accounts and anything else they can find. 

The names that should have been talked about today are Alison Parker and Adam Ward—NOT the person who murdered them. 

Some say legislation and gun control is the problem. 

Others say mental health is the problem. 

I would like to raise my hand and say I believe the media must accept the blame for things like this as well.  When people are “rewarded” for killing people by getting all sorts of attention, others will follow. 

Before I go I have to say that I believe that, at the core, I was reminded of how desperate the world is for some good news. 

We began the week with the media telling us the stock market was going to crash, possibly sending us into a depression. 

A hurricane is on the way toward the Eastern seaboard. 

Last night I saw on the news that the body of a dead baby was found in a trash bin at an apartment complex in Greenwood. 

Bad news, bad news, bad news—all of it leading to stress, anxiety and maybe has even caused some people to ask, “Why do I even try?” 

Which is why I believe what we are doing at NewSpring this weekend is SO IMPORTANT. 

Because…we are sharing the GOOD NEWS!  The Gospel!  That life can actually have meaning and a person can be filled with joy.  That even in the middle of our storms we have a Savior that will sustain us through them. 

The world has NEVER needed good news more than it does right now—and we, as the church have GOT to be the ones to tell it.