Don’t blur out atrocities

The video started out unedited, presumably because it was filmed by her abusers—

The young woman is dragged by her hair from the trunk of an SUV.

Her arms are abraded and bloody

Her face is bloody

And her clothes show other signs of violent assault.

She has a look on her face which is haunting and she is pushed into the vehicle by men shouting and pushing in on her.

After the initial few hours of seeing her clearly, news organizations blurred her out. I know they had their own reasons for doing so, but they should not have.

If the aim is to find her among millions of people, we need to see her face.

If we are to face what happened to her. We need to reckon with all the horror together.

Sound of Freedom Roundup

We saw Sound of Freedom yesterday and it sparked a day-long conversation.

My adopted daughter was “trafficked” by her own biological mother, who gave her drugs and sold her for sex.

She died of a drug overdose in 2021 at the hands of her abusive boyfriend who bought her for sex.

We are now raising her daughters who were also exposed to abuse.

Child pornography is real and devastating. Trafficking is real and devastating. The movie is worth seeing for that reason, but I have profound questions about this narrative and this organization—which seems to have claims which are hard to verify or even possibly not helpful in terms of de-incentivizing human trafficking.

I began to question the OUR narrative when I read Katherine Ballard’s gloss on their adopted children. I have fostered and adopted a number of trafficked children and none of them have showed me “pure love” (nor do they need to). They have had deep wounds and have needed structure, love, and constancy from my family.

Do I “adore” any of them? I don’t think I should adore anyone but Jesus. But I have stayed in the trenches with them and I have learned that real love is just doing the best and wanting the best for someone, especially when their behavior reflects their trauma.

Christians may be willing to accept any Christian-adjacent narrative when we need to ask the hard questions even as we acknowledge that many of the stories of the predations of children happen inside the economy of poverty and addiction and maybe Ballard’s methods and efficacy need to be questioned by all of us.

OUR promises that they can, do and will go into the darkest corners of the world to rescue children. I hope they do. But we all need to be rescuers and often that is less flak vests and cameras and more quotidian commitments and truth-telling.

Jesus leaves the 99 for us. He expects all of us to be the hands and feet of his love.

All of the below round up is just for others to have more information about a flawed but ultimately valuable movie.

I am not advocating for anything but the Truth.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/global-histories/haiti/stories-of-faith/ht-04-we-had-to-seek-god?lang=eng

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2023/july/anti-trafficking-ministries-nonprofits-sound-of-freedom.html

https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/tennessee-congressmen-want-answers-on-the-citizenship-of-a-franklin-soccer-coach-accused-of-raping-children/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a3apm/anti-trafficking-group-with-long-history-of-false-claims-gets-its-hollywood-moment

https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/sound-of-freedom/

What would you paste to doors of cathedrals?

Over a year ago we found out that a family we knew had been devastated when they discovered that their child had been the victim of rape at the hands of a former MLB pitcher.

The rapes were recorded and shared. There is strong anecdotal evidence that other children were harmed this way as well.

The local police bullied and intimidated the victim, made no arrest, and closed the case.

As did CPS.

The FBI ignored requests for help as did the office of DPS and the Texas Rangers.

Oh, and President Biden too.

I have begun to think about Martin Luther and letters pasted on the walls and doors of cathedrals.

What would you say or do if you were haunted by the damage done to one child? Dozens?

When no one comes to save us

More than 10 years ago I decided to write a book almost no one reads after 2 years of fighting for consequences for Charles.

He had dodged mandatory sentencing when the local DA chose to not charge him with any of the more serious allegations against him—multiple, aggravated sexual assaults.

We had been lied to and our victims’ impact statements disappeared.

Only one of dozens of public officials I contacted tried to “look into” our case.

We moved and I told myself I should just expect no help the next time.

I wrote a book so that the story would be there for others. I warned people it was not a fun book to read.

A year ago a friend called me and told me her young daughter had been brutally and repeatedly raped by a former MLB player who began coaching children when he retired from baseball.

The victim told a clear story of assault, abuse, and video recordings of abuse. She has always struck me as a very truthful person. The story she tells is cogent and strongly suggests she was not the only victim and that other young girls were raped and their rapes were recorded and shared.

The local law enforcement never arrested the alleged assailant. He was never charged with a single crime.

The local FBI cautioned the victim’s mother that she should not bother the local police with the story.

Here was an outcry which strongly suggested multiple minors had been raped and those rapes had been filmed and disseminated.

Nothing happened. The alleged rapist still coaches children.

After Uvalde I called the head of DPS and his receptionist sent me to a voicemail of the Texas Rangers. I have had no success in trying to help this family. They moved to another state but the trauma and threat remain.

And what about all the other potential victims? What about the possible footage of the rapes?

What should we all do

When no one comes to save us?

Let us write a book, my loves

Let us write a book my loves where each of you gets at least a single word because, as the Good Book says words are signifiers of eternal things and you are nothing if not eternal.

This time only you and God will be able to decide what words your little lives will signify

And how much each is worth

Words for children

A progeny of words

Like the teeth of a dragon

Sewn beauty in the field

Where once was only sorrow

Ah-buh-nim

The little boy in the picture wore the most adorable overalls

And brand-spanking-new shoes

He approached the chicken in the unfamiliar garden

With the utmost deference,

The pears still hung on the trees, each carefully wrapped in old newspapers to shield them from pestilence

An unseasonably warm day to worship one’s ancestors and

The food at the restaurant was good

Something about historically accurate food

In the last few moments before

The two little red-headed children

Reported

All they saw–aggressor-accomplice-victim

The little boy in the picture wore the most adorable overalls

Frankie Gonzalez

I can feel the force of the grief, another small tragedy. His death, like his life, will be a small story, buried beneath bigger fires, the roiling of big boy fights, what is the death of one little boy when the world is burning?

Everything.

His life was everything

To him

And to the One who stood at the field of Heaven

Waiting all those days to welcome him home

Wipe away every tear

No more crying

No more pain

This Little Girl

I want to say so many things to

This man who does not really see

“This little girl”

But I know You

See her, see me, see them

All the little ones who

Need a God like You

Take my sins away, heal my wounds, stay until I am well, bring justice in your wings, never blame the victim, never stop searching for treasure

You

who were, who are, who always will be

Just You,

and “this little girl”

The Irony of Leana Wen

I have now heard a cool 3 times from Leana Wen, alternately billed as emergency room physician or former health commissioner for the city of Baltimore on how we can do various (good and helpful) things to slow down the coronavirus spread.

So where is the irony?

Leana’s last and most notable job was not being either an ER doc or a health commissioner, it was being the public face of Planned Parenthood, an organization dedicated to promoting and providing abortions.

Abortion kills a lot more humans than Covid-19. We could quibble at the death rate for the latter–1 percent to 9 percent depending on the demographics and strains.

But the abortion kill rate is pretty damn close to 100 percent. If an unborn baby gets exposed to abortion

He or she usually doesn’t live long enough to quibble

About omissions in Leana Wen’s cv.