Possibly more victims. Alleged sexual assault on an unconscionable scale. Miscarriages, infanticide, beatings, locked basements and chains, a house of horrors, and neighbors who apparently ignored their better judgment and looked the other way. This is undoubtedly just the beginning of a very long investigation.

Media types, politicians and pundits alike, including myself, pontificate on a regular basis about where we are and how we got here. Recently I even commented on Facebook about how I missed the country I grew up in, the long bike rides far from home, and traipsing about in a pair of shorts with no shoes almost without a care in the world. Regrettably those days are gone, and my 10-year-old is missing out on the special things that were so much a part of what America used to be.

So in lieu of any fancy statistical data, sociological analysis and/or doctoral prestige, I would offer only this as an observation regarding the events in Ohio. If we are to have any hope at all of addressing the national quandaries before us, then we must return to the beginning. We must revisit family and community, values and faith, and aspire to a culture and code of accountability that while imperfect, has proven its overall worth through generations of our forefathers. Our courts must also re-evaluate their role in terms of the judicial application, but “We the People”  must rise up as fathers and mothers, friends and neighbors, to coral evil where we can before it graduates to levels like we are seeing on our television screens today. Only when we nurture kindness and character in our own homes can we expect our children to carry those tenets forward into society. Only when we set and enforce boundaries within a stable and caring family structure will we enjoy the success of a community that acts in the best interest of all its people. And only when we begin to accept responsibility for our own personal safety and security can we expect those who would do us harm to think twice.

Please join me in prayer for these girls who were forced to become women within the confines of madness and evil, but also pray that we awaken as a society to re-embrace our former nation so we may overcome that evil, or at least confront it with a clear conscience.