Everybody speaks an opinion. Everyone chatters on about solutions. Many want to go toe-to-toe and verbally debate who’s to blame when things go south.

There are many people who have passed away since the officer in Minneapolis killed an innocent man, who rest silently. No opinions, no solutions, no anger. Their voices will never again be heard on this earth. 

We live in a world where most of the solutions are not offered until after the damage is done. And at best, we shoot at stars and blame someone else because anger steals the rationality of reason.

Perhaps the greatest insight that came about after a senseless shooting in Florida a few years back. It came from a math teacher who used to work at NASA. She proposed solutions before there were problems.

She created an emergency plan before there was an emergency. She didn’t ask to be armed with guns. She didn’t go to Capitol Hill to lobby for safer communities. She was one teacher who had a plan and has been implementing it every week.

According to Reader’s Digest author Glennon Doyle Melton, “Every Friday afternoon, she asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student who they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her. And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, she takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her, and studies them.

“Who is not getting requested by anyone else? Who can’t think of anyone to
request? Who never gets noticed enough
to be nominated? Who had a million friends last week and none this week?

“The teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down – right away – who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying.”

The military has a word for something they do before the battle begins. It’s called “reconnaissance.” The definition is “Observation, scouting and exploration outside an area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about natural features and enemy presence.”

With social media the loudest megaphone on the planet right now, we know more about people and their lives, their quirks and their plans than any time in the history of man. We can go on reconnaissance missions into the sometimes-alien territory of the personal internet.

We can identify the problems in the years of innocence rather than waiting until the cancer has grown, festered and manifested. If a math teacher from NASA can come up with simple plans, what can we be inspired to do? It’s not rocket science. It’s taking a deeper look into the hearts and lives of those we are called to in this life.

Everyone ultimately makes a statement after a disaster: “Let’s do something so that this never happens again.” And we have focus groups and handouts and seminars and protests and hours of education and we go to bed at night thinking we’ve done it. We’ve brought forth an answer so that it will “never happen again.”

And then… it happens again and everyone is so shocked and we all panic. So perhaps the solution is not finding ways to make tragedy a thing of the past, but perhaps we should be working on our disaster plan. What is the plan when the tornado levels the school? What is the plan when someone gets shot in a Walmart store? What happens when a seemingly sane person snaps and kills his cohorts and himself at work? 

The Minneapolis debacle. It was tragic. Nobody is arguing that. But to think that your protests or the lack thereof will make this a better world is a false sense of security. Tragedy will happen again. Unless we come up with a disaster plan that people can live with, those without parameters and boundaries and an exit strategy will continue to burn this country down.

Sorry folks, but that’s not the answer. We must have the courage to put the same scenario up on a wall in front of everyone. We must face it and gut out a solution, so that the next time it happens the answer is not to kill people, loot stores, blame politicians or destroy the fabric of this country.