To the editor:

Our news is filled with violence and hate. I don’t believe any one event in our recent history over the last two generations has caused a change in America, but a change has occurred. The people across our country have lost any sense of belonging or to be part of something greater than themselves.

There seems to be a loss of cohesion in families. Many organizations, from churches to the community support organization, are disappearing because the volunteers they need to function aren’t there. The personal individual is the center of all personal decision-making and activities. They ask, “What’s in it for me?” We look at the needs of our communities and society in general as important and valuable but the responsibility of others.

The family and our churches historically have been the foundation of society. It was here we learned social values, morality and the importance of relationships and our support of each other. The actions of an individual were reflected to the family and organizations they were a part of.

Now, marriages seldom last more than a handful of years. The result of this is the number of single-parent families with children of assorted relationships. There is no one home to teach children what is appropriate behavior, right or wrong. So it is learned out on the street and is weak in any community morality. All that is important is what benefits me.

If we desire a life where there is respect for others, the law and morality, it must begin with ourselves. It will take a revival in the heart of America. We must return to the religion of our parents and grandparents. We will have to drop words like I, me and mine and return to thinking of others with words like we, us and ours.

America has reached a crisis point. Change must occur if we wish to survive. More than a day of prayer, we need a change in the heart of our communities and the nation. The past generations returned to their churches when a crisis affected the land. We must do as they did.

Together, we must return to or God in a humble prayer of repentance in our churches seek a revival of the faith in God that our country was founded on. In so doing, God will hear and heal our land as has been done in the past.

William Gerhard, Scipio