Just before sundown this past Wednesday, a few friends and I went to the first of Nashville’s popular Movies in the Park summer series. The film was 500 Days of Summer, featuring the inconsolably intoxicating Zooey Deschanele and the ever suave Joseph Gordon-Levitt. No matter how many times I see it, I still wish I could pull off a vest with half of the panache that seems to comes so naturally to him.

What’s been on my mind, though, is what happened shortly after we left. A 15 year old boy was shot in the knee just a few hundred feet away from the amphitheatre. There was a veritable throng of kids and teens gathered in the park just to hang out, making it a security nightmare… and the perfect spot for a quick shooting. Apparently, the victim was actually out past his probation-imposed curfew of 8 p.m. and flashing gang signs when he was shot. At age 15.

I bring this up because it makes me wonder how people so young find their way into these dark places in the first place. I don’t believe that the kid who was shot, the shooter, the gang members watching nearby, or the 92,845 children in juvenile detention across the U.S. were destined for this kind of life. You don’t come into the world flashing the sign for “bloods” or “crips” any more than you come in knowing calculus or who God is.

You learn it, don’t you? Sure, we could get into the whole “nature vs. nurture” debate, but there’s no denying that if he had different mentors – or any mentors – the shooting victim could just as easily have been practicing guitar on Wednesday night instead of practicing gang signs. The shooter, too. Or even the rapist sitting in jail. What went wrong?

Donald Miller compares growing up to swimming in a river with two equal currents and no idea which one to join. In his book Father Fiction, he says,

People assume when you’re swimming in a river you are supposed to know which way you are going, and I guess some of the time that is true, but there are certain currents that are very strong, and it’s when we are in those currents we need somebody to come along, pull us out, and guide us in a safer direction.

In other words, it’s on us. People who can be mentors and mothers and fathers and uncles and teachers and friends. Churches. We have to step up when called, because there are enough stumbling blocks out there as it is. It’s just a matter of throwing out the rope and showing them a better way around.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus is recorded saying, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.” That guy never was one for subtlety, was he? After this past Wednesday, though, I am beginning to understand what got him so good and honked off.

So, what are we supposed to do about this in practice? Well, now there’s a question for discussion.