Where are we? Who are we?

I believe we've established over the past year and a half that this world is, uh, nuts. If not, read on...

"A 15-year-old boy was beaten and branded with hot metal after a confrontation with a 12-year-old girl at a party in Mississippi where teens had been drinking, authorities said Friday. Five people are charged in the case, including the 12-year-old girl. Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie said Denise Randall, 46, was hosting the party in the east-central Mississippi community of Meridian last weekend when the victim bumped into the girl. Someone then called the girl's 15-year-old boyfriend. Sollie said the boyfriend arrived and held the victim, who was not identified, at gunpoint while he was beaten and branded with hot metal. The sheriff said the teen was branded in more than one place on his body with a piece of hot metal shaped like a letter of the alphabet. He would not say what letter it was or release any other details about the branding because of the ongoing investigation."

Now, the fact that Meridian is my home town only makes me more ashamed than I would have been anyway because I am a member of the human race, the same human race that produced those who did this.

But let's count the ways this went south. First, a 12-year-old girl has a 15-year-old boyfriend. Second, a 46-year-old is hosting a party for 12-year-olds and 15-year-olds. Third, the 15-year-old boyfriend was caught up in the emotions enough to brandish a GUN. Finally, someone drove the 15-year-old boyfriend to the party to apparently rescue the 12-year-old from the audacity of the victim's running into her despite the fact the boyfriend was carring a GUN.

Oh,    my,     good,     ness.

The world as we know it has come apart.

In Isaiah's prophecy, there is this wild chapter -- the 24th -- that seems to come out of nowhere. Nothing in chapter 23 leads into it, and Isaiah drops the image immediately following the prose of the 24th. This chapter is called Isaiah's apocalypse.

Part of it reads like this: "See, the LORD is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face
and scatter its inhabitants — it will be the same for priest as for people, for the master as for his servant,
for the mistress as for her servant, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor. The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered. The LORD has spoken this word.
he earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the heavens languish with the earth. The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt."

There's a couple very important images here. One, the Lord is going to devastate the earth. Two, the Lord will do this because human kind has defiled the earth, His laws, HIs statutes, HIs covenant. Finally, a curse will flat out destroy the planet.

Tuff stuff.

But you tell me ... when 12-year-olds are capable of calling their 15-year-old boyfriends who are capable of holding down a teenager and branding him with a hot clothes hanger, where are we? Really. Where are we?

BEGINNING WEDNESDAY: 40 DAYS OF BLOGGING ON SCOT McKNIGHT'S 40 DAYS LIVING THE JESUS CREED.






The sheriff said the teen's injuries were not life-threatening.