Murder and the value of life..

Chicago has gained a reputation as the murder capital of America. That is a sad reputation to have, but it has certainly earned it. According to statistics, there were 599 murders in the city in the year 2003 alone. However, until recently those numbers were only statistics as I had never had a connection to any of the victims of the Chicago crime problem. The story is quite different for my friends, Karen and Darnell, however. They come from Chicago. They are currently living here in Scotland, but their family is still in Chicago, and this week their family has been hit again. Karen had to return to Chicago on Tuesday so she could be at the funeral of her nephew, Larry, who was shot and killed on the weekend. Somebody came up to him on the street and popped four bullets into his chest. Larry's brother had been killed on the very same street 12 years earlier, and Darnell's cousin was also murdered in the same place. I went over to Karen and Darnell's house the night before she returned to Chicago, and we had a good talk about it all. It never ceases to amaze me that people could value life so little as to take someone else's life away!

Of course, Chicago isn't the only place where bad things happen. It was exactly two years ago this past Wednesday that my friend, Larry Whitefield, was shot and killed in Woodlake, California. And, of course, Scotland is not immune to crime. In the year 2003 there were 108 reported murders in Scotland. Of course, that's still less than in Chicago even when you consider that there are 8 million people in Chicago and 5 million in Scotland, but its still 108 people too many. A friend of mine here also grew up in a family of gangsters and used to be friends with a hitman. Another friend of mine used to "collect" money in rather violent ways for rather questionable purposes. And the drug culture is killing many many more here in the Glasgow area. We were just discussing with someone how another friend had been surprised when he found out that there are drug dealers in Kirkie! But of course there are! We truly live in a broken world, and this is truly nothing new. People have been killing people since Cain and Able.

I'm just glad for the comfort of knowing that all life does have meaning. A problem I have noticed with a lot of people who are in the world of gangsters, drug-pushers and crime of varying degrees is that they feel like they are stuck in that world and that there is no way out. I remember one friend in America who kept trying to straighten his life out but became convinced that the world he was in was one that he could never escape. He has since spent his life in and out of prison. However, I also know many who have come out and are changed people. I hope and pray that in my life I will continue to be able to reach some with hope so that they don't have to live and die in a world that sees no value in life.