Safety in numbers

A few weeks ago I was at a book study. A young woman said that they no longer felt safe in our world. What with so much news about crime and extremist violence happening in our world, this woman has begun to fear the world. Oh she is fine with people she knows. But she has observed that she can't always trust strangers so she has begun to fear the world.

In some ways I can understand her fears. Crimes do happen. Acts of extremist violence happen as well. With the television and internet, we can watch stories about crime and violence 24 hours a day if we want to and it does frighten me that such events can happen.

But in other ways, I can't imagine her fears. You see the vast majority of people that I have met, and they have been people from all races, creeds, religions, and countries are quite decent. Oh sure no one is perfect, but most people I would deem as being good people. They are concerned mostly about the well being of their families and their neighbourhoods. They don't consider hurting others to be a good thing to do. Yes there are a few who for some reason commit crimes or do horrible acts of violence. But considering there are 7 billion people in the world, they are a tiny fraction of a percentage of all people. Thank goodness.

However, that doesn't mean that we can become complacent and think that acts of violence and crime can't happen here. Because they do. No I am not advocating spying on and reporting on neighbours like a recent television ad campaign suggested we do in order to prevent terrorism. Doing that strikes me as behaviour that belonged in the Third Reich not the 21st century. But we are foolish to think it can't happen to me.

Take cyber crime for instance. I check my spam folder every few days because occasional emails from Synod or Presbytery end up in that folder. I am not sure why it happens but it does. In amongst the few good emails that I find there, I always have a few messages from people, usually childless African widows who are dying of cancer and want to give me their riches in order that I might share some with charity and benefit my family as well. If I can send them a blank cheque, they will deposit the money right into my account. I always laugh when I receive these emails. Who would be stupid enough to fall for this? No one is going to give me money for nothing. And if a person wants their money to go to charity, then I think they can make such donations themselves. They don't need me to do it.

But cyber criminals are getting smarter each day. Last week several churches and Uniting church ministers, myself included, were victims of some cyber criminals. Our names and contacts as well as the names and contacts of local church treasurers and secretaries had been mistakenly published on to a publicweb site. The crooks used this information to try to extort money by setting up fake email addresses and sending out emails saying a purchase has been made and that immediate payment must be sent. The fact that I have spam filters, my own good personal malarky detector, and internet security did not matter. The cyber criminals were able to find a way.

Such an incident did bother me. How much information is out there about us that could fall into the wrong hands? How could they do this to a church and especially my church? And what if the criminal used this information to take out a credit card or run up bills in my name. I vowed to do whatever I can to be vigilant. But I still trust others. I still believe that people are by far and away very good. I still think there are just a few bad apples out there but I refuse to live by fear.  Blessings.