Blame Culture and sloping shoulders

I have to admit that I have great problems with the blame culture in which I find myself living. An accident happens and the first response is usually to seek out the person, or persons, who are to blame and then extract revenge. It seems to me that we are no longer concerned with justice and rarely do I see people exhibit mercy. Couple with this to the fact that we no longer appear to regard accountability as a positive character trait and you can see why the nation, nay - the world, is going to hell in a handcart.

This evening I have been affronted by a Police spokesman who 'apologised' for the fact that having made a 999 call a young woman found her life ended by her ex-boyfriend, an act that most likely was able to happen because no on responded to the call. This was then followed by another story relating to an awful attack upon two young boys aged nine and eleven by two other boys who were ten and eleven (in Edlington, Nr. Doncaster).  An awful account of the acts and the parental conditions followed and then a well-fed and suited gentleman sat before the microphone and apologised for what was preventable and yet hadn't been!

I don't understand how institutional failures of the magnitude we are seeing can occur. More than that I am stunned at the frequency of such incidents and the amazingly, apparently, glib manner in which these apologies are issued. Time and time again workload, poor leadership and resources are blamed but it is so very obvious that things are wrong in some familial circumstances and yet nothing is done, or at least not until the horse has surely bolted.

Taking the Doncaster situation, where seven children have died since 2004 (DESPITE BEING ON THE REGISTER) and where it has been disclosed that thirty-one chances to intervene were missed over the past fourteen years with this family. I come across so many cases like this in prospect. I have seen families who have terrorised, bullied, burgled and physically abused neighbours and yet those employed to protect children and communities did nothing about them. In this year where we will soon be approaching the hustings we need to be asking the candidate's the right questions about the way this nation is being run and the moral standards maintained and managed. And, as the boys are sentenced to an 'indefinite' period in detention (with a five year minimum) what of the parents? They, as is the way with cases such as this might be pilloried by some and branded as 'scum' by many but they remain free and their guilt is also ours because we see and yet do no act.

We have been called to act as watchmen - so stand and alert those who sleep as to the approaching danger. Seems like many of us are asleep on our watch doesn't it? We need to pray for the victims and the perpetrators, the families involved and the people who try, through Police, Social Services and other agencies, to make our society a safe place for children and a place where community can be seen to thrive. We need to alert others to situations, preferably before rather than after, and for us to be salt and light to those who live such that their kids grow to be less than one would want.

Justice and mercy, coupled with humility - meet at the Cross before they real in the lives of others - won't you help take them there?

Pax.