'The Butcher Boy'

They say that modern culture -- full of violence, sex and a departure from reality -- is eroding the fabric of American youth and turning all teenagers into sex-hungry sociopaths.

I actually think they're just bored. It's a conciousness of boredom that spans generations. The longer that humans exists, the easier our youth get bored.

What's one thing that kids always say? "I'm bored!"

They're always bored. So they seek ways to appease their boredom. Maybe it's video games. Maybe sports.

Eventually it becomes girls and maybe drugs. Around this time (13-16) this person's life is already in the balance. The kid could get hooked on drugs and that leads to a downward spiral that winds them up in prison or, worse, a perpetual emptiness of life until they are dead and buried. At least in prison you get to work out a lot.

Around this time, maybe a kid gets into music, sports or school. The kid matures and calms down some. They really get into school and wind up at Harvard. They really get into music and wind up on stage. They really get into sports and wind up playing four years of Division II basketball at a small university.

In The Butcher Boy, our pals Joe and Francie were bored. Joe (by chance or whatever) went one way and Francie went the other. One winds up shooting a lady in the head and the other winds up in school, turning his back on such behavior.

It's tough for sociologists or politicians to believe that affecting someone's life might start when they're 12 and include a vast series of pizza parties. That somehow the lifestyle of crime is just a matter of being bored and needing to get a fix. But it is.

Take the youth group in your local church. Look at their activity calendar. There's stuff going on four or five nights out of the week. It's not about beating the gospel of Jesus Christ into their head as much as its keeping them occupied.