One More Day Alive

With Independence Day just around the corner, it might be a nice time to reflect on how fortunate we all are to live in this amazing nation, even when it seems like everywhere you turn things have gone wrong  over the past few years. But some amazing things have also gone right — pinpointing some very special attributes of our country.

Yes, there are still way too many people without jobs and the housing market is still in a slump, but all of us have adjusted remarkably well to one of the worst economic struggles in the last 100 years. Report after report and study after study show that Americans have used the experience to reexamine their values and adjust their desires.

Despite the fact that many people had to drastically cut their own personal budgets, they still felt compelled to give to others around $300 billion last year; that’s remarkable. We did it not because our government forced us to, but because we wanted to. Incidentally that’s the key difference between socialism — where government supplants our moral right and obligation to help, which the Catholic Church squarely condemns — and social justice — where we choose to help because of our moral character. That character is alive and well in America!

And it seems that when the chips are down Americans go to church — attendance has continued to rise in America since 2008, when the whole economic turmoil started according to the most recent Gallup reports. Maybe that’s because nine out of 10 Americans say they believe in God (that number is only one in five in nations like Denmark and Sweden) — and most believe our nation was founded upon the divinely derived innate value of human beings. When times get tough, we go back to the source of our strength, our beliefs and our nation.

When times get tough in America, we stick together, especially with our mates. A report from the CDC released in May shows that the divorce rate has gone down for two years running after years of rising. Though some cynics say it’s because people can’t afford to get divorced, others point to the more sensible conclusion that since the number one reason for divorce is historically financial, maybe Americans are starting to revaluate their reasons for splitting as they reevaluate all their other economic indicators.

Finally, let’s take a look at crime in America. You would think that tough times would make crime rise, especially when it comes to theft. On the contrary, the overall crime rate is dropping like crazy across the board according to the FBI’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report. Robbery dropped 8.1 percent, murder decreased 7.2 percent, aggravated assault declined 4.2 percent, and rape decreased 3.1 percent.

Experts can’t really point to a reason for that decline. Maybe money really is the root of all evil — when we are too obsessed with it. Or maybe we simply need a wake-up call every once in a while in America to remind us of our commitment to each other, to God and to the values that this country was founded upon. After all, this wasn’t the land of wealth of and wonton pleasure, but the land of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we Americans don’t give up on that, or each other.

When times are tough, we respond, ready to fight arm in arm not just for our own selfish needs but for what’s right, what’s just and for the rights and welfare of others. That’s what God created us to do, and He gave us this blessed nation, unlike any other on earth, to do it in.

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Last week a teenage boy stuck a gun to my head. The peach fuzz on his face was still not mature enough to make a real beard, but the gun was all too real.

As I stared down the shiny black, cold-steel barrel of the gun, I wasn’t as scared as I was shocked — that a boy this young could be so desperate and so willing to destroy life.

It was just after dusk, when I parked my car at the edge of the parking lot at a local restaurant in Central Phoenix, only a few blocks from my home.

I emerged from the car and only made it a few steps before a young, wiry youth, donning a black-hooded sweatshirt pounced on me, pointing a small caliber gun in my face and screaming at me.

I had just given a teen talk at a local church a few nights earlier, and as strange as it sounds, the first thing that popped into my head was that he reminded me of one of those kids. Was this for real? Could this be some badly conceived prank? But the gun was no joke, and as I hesitated he became more irate.

I pulled a wad of five singles from my wallet and threw them at him. The flying cash distracted him long enough for me to make it into the restaurant and call the police.

Within minutes the place was swarming with cops, and half an hour later they had three suspects in custody down the street.

As a police cruiser drove me a few blocks away to where they were being held, I reflected on the whole event for the first time. I wasn’t as angry as I was sad. As I thought about the years of jail time he would receive for armed robbery, I wanted to sit this foolish boy down and drum into his brain exactly what he had done, and what he jeopardized.

What might have been

I thought about my mother who recently had a stroke and depends on me. I thought about my friends and the rest of my family who would be so extraordinarily traumatized by the event if this kid would have shot me.

I thought about his family and what they would lose if I were armed and shot him.

I thought about all the people this young man could help in the future.

I thought about the children I would never have, he would never have and all the ways the world would be deprived of one or both of us.

I know how much I have to offer; he obviously had no idea how much he could give, and he was willing to throw both of our lives away for a few dollars.

I wanted to tell him all of that and more as we neared the sea of flashing lights sitting atop the caravan of cop cars surrounding the suspects. The cruiser stopped 20 feet away, and three suspects were dragged from the back of an SUV and paraded in front of the headlights. None of them were him.

My heart sank a little. I could never look this misled youth in the eye and tell him why what he did was so insane!

But I am still here to help and to make a difference. And maybe there still is a way to get to him, by telling you to share this story with every young man and woman you know, so that they never make the same stupid mistake.

So that maybe eventually every one of them will know what he didn’t — that God created us to live, to let live, and to revel in the love that surrounds us no matter how much we have or don’t have everything we want. And that blessed mission is priceless.

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