caring

Jesus said that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This was the second of the two greatest commandments He gave us, according to the Bible.

The late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it bluntly. If we as human beings cannot live together, we'll eventually destroy ourselves. So when it comes down to it, it's all about love.

Love causes people to put others first. It causes us to look out for our neighbors.

It's the same old story when these rampages and killing sprees occur. Everyone in the affected community is shocked. People who knew the murderer all confess to having "missed all the signs." And this is because, I believe, we're too involved with ourselves and our family and immediate circle of friends that we don't really know our neighbors. We have never

known our neighbors well enough to be able to look into their eyes and see the pain.

I'm sure that many people in the communities of Jeff Weise and Robert Bonelli Jr. saw these guys often. But perhaps beyond some superficial greetings there was no neighborly bonding, and few if any outward expressions of concern.

We need to pray for our communities too. We should be bonding with those around us. And older adults need to be alert for adolescents who appear troubled, angry, or tormented.

Jeff Weise was clearly crying out for someone to notice him and recognize his pain. He cut his wrist with a box-cutter. He kept an online journal of his struggles with depression and feelings of worthlessness. And on his website he openly wrote about his emotionally tortured life.

Yet no one cared enough, it seems. Even the mental health workers who were seeing Jeff after his suicide attempt simply shuttled him through a series of routine interviews and decided

that the best treatment for Jeff would be to pump him up with Prozac.

As for Robert Bonelli, Jr., he was living at home with his father. I don't even know if he had a job. Aside from making bombs with his two friends, he spent many hours watching Columbine type videos.

I know that what I am suggesting sounds simplistic. But the truth is that it's going to take time, work and efffort to reach such outcasts and to break down their self-centered and even paranoid barriers in order to show them love, and that they're not worthless.

Let's face it, if we don't care enough to go up to someone and say, "How are you really doing?" or if we cannot say,

"Listen, I want you to know that I care about you, and if you want to talk, I am here for you," and if we do not take the risks to extend ourselves and show compassion and concern, then we will be opening our newspapers to read about more teen killers and adolescent murderers. We will be reading about the

victims, too.

And to think that maybe much of this could have been prevented!

But if, however, we choose to remain indifferent, then we'll never make a difference. As the late Dr. King said, "we will simply die together."

David Berkowitz

April 9, 2005