The week before my freshman year at the university officially began, I headed to Cincinnati to attend band camp. I had the “honor” of being assigned the cabin of the drum major. He was a pompous little guy and a bully. He picked on a freshman trumpeter. And the more the guy took it, the more the drum major piled on the vile comments.
I was just relieved that there was someone weaker than I to whom the bully decided to aim his aggressive tongue. It could have been me.
High in the news cycle these days is the saga of Harry and Meghan, aka the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. This couple who evidently were not introduced to the history of the English throne married for love rather than political expediency. The facts that Meghan was not only not from the aristocracy but she also had a black mother gave those inimitable English bullies–the tabloid “newspapers”–fodder for article after article. And the more Harry tried to defend, of course the louder the bullies got.
In America, the tone of discourse is not better. We had a presidential candidate leading cheers at political rallies of slogans like “lock her up”, but his opponents would pile vindictive comments right back.
Christians, who once wrote books using the Bible to explain how Africans were an inferior race and that slavery was therefore justified, now use the same thought pattern pointed to homosexual people. Who will be the next target? Could be you.
Freedom of speech has a necessary companion–responsibility. Lacking that, we have undercut the freedom and it will not long live.
Repentance means recognizing we’re on the wrong path and changing direction. We could use some of that around the globe.
Faith Venture 
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