I have been listening to the music of Dear Evan Hanson over the last few days. Several of the songs really resonate with me.”You Will Be Found” is one of those.

Jeannie Mayo, one of our nation’s foremost youth pastors gave a prophetic warning at a youth conference I attended almost a decade back. She stated that as a church and as a culture we must begin remembering and loving our “question mark kids”…the kids on the fringes…the kids left alone by society. She pointed out that almost all of the school shooters to that point had come from the fringes of school society. They were not popular. They were not loved. They were often bullied. They felt given up on and had given up on themselves. She warned that the subgroup called “question mark kids” was growing and that if we did not begin to love them, then the violence we had seen to that point was a drop in the bucket.

 Truer words I guess were never spoken. We seem as a culture to be missing the proverbial forest for the trees here. I guess it’s easier to blame guns than ourselves for what has happened in our country. I guess it’s more convenient to think this is a problem for Capitol Hill to solve rather than to think this is a problem our community, our church, our families need to do something about. I am pretty sure nothing is changing on Capitol Hill anytime soon where the issues of school violence are concerned. This is our job folks. We are a dot in the snowstorm called life. The question mark kids can’t find us. We must find them!

All these thoughts inspired this poem called “Blanks”.

Blanks

By JE Lillie

Blank

Canvas

One dot says

“I’m here for you.”

Somewhere in the vast

Snowstorm called life someone

Waits for me and promises love.

But the blizzard obscures my sight.

I can’t find that dot. Hope turns to hate.

Hate turns to madness. Madness begets

Violence. It stirs a plan.

I write it down, practice.

Someone help me

Please! While I’m

Shooting

Blanks.