This week I volunteered at our annual church soccer camp. My wife is the camp director, and my official position, according to my ID, is “Melody Master / Field Keep-er-nator.” Basically, I’m the pianoman, door greeter and security, and doer-of-whatever-my-wife-tells-me-to-do. I participated and watched through each day: Make a New Friend Day, Backwards Day (yes, we wear our clothes backwards – try tying a tie behind your back), Team Colours Day (clothes and face-painting), Crazy Hat Day (there were some doozies) and, finally, today – Volunteer Appreciation Day.
This morning I woke up to yet another report of a mass shooting south of our border, after individual stories, it seems, of shootings every day this week. I hear “black lives matter.” “Blue lives matter.” Yet people are still shooting. Apparently life really doesn’t matter enough.
This week I saw kids; kids of all colours and backgrounds, sizes and shapes, from local kids to kids with international backgrounds. I saw them playing together. I saw them eating together. I saw a couple of ‘playground spats’ caused by one kid hogging the soccer ball, or not passing, or not getting to play ‘nets’ (goal) as much as someone else. What I didn’t see, or hear, was any kid make any comment about skin color. They were all smiling (most of the time). They were competing. There was lots of laughter. There was lots of shouting (after all, we’re playing soccer). There were even a couple of dives taken – just like they learned by watching professional soccer players!
It’s time we lay down our weapons. It’s time to beat our swords into ploughshares. It’s time adults go back to their childhood acceptance of everyone for who they are. You know, the time before we became bullies and treated people differently because they looked, spoke, or acted different than we did.
Black lives matter. Blue lives matter. All lives matter. Guns won’t fix this. Badges can’t fix this. Only respect for other people will fix this.