Category Archives: child advocacy

So Much for the Children

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If I had a dollar for every time someone argued that expanding the definition of legal sex was NOT going to end in disaster for our kids, I would actually have enough money to opt out of the Cap’n Crunch ads that defray my blog costs.

In a week when the DOJ makes a show of shutting down a crucial child advocacy website this story out of Virginia should put everyone on notice.

An aggressive endophile was allowed to walk free by Virginia courts precisely because sodomy laws no longer applied and the judges involved did not deem the aggressive solicitation of sex from a minor to be a crime that mattered to them.

If you have children you care about you should take note of this case.

What follows hereafter will be more of the same–courts and justices deciding not to pursue legally valid statutes against sex between adults and minors.

We are not far from the end of civilization and we are already a failed state.

You may want to start disguising your kids as pets. They will get more legal protection from PETA and the SPCA than from our courts.

No Threadbare God

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She tells me a story
That haunts me all day
And into the night

About ordinary love

I run a line down memory
Not just mine but hers
Especially hers
All that I did not see

Plays out in normal…
nightmares sometimes happen in broad daylight

Chatty conversations with the devil
Always
Turn into shouting matches

I beg God, please…
Rain down mercy from heaven on these little ones
They do not deserve this

Heal us.

When I catch a glimpse of Him
No threadbare God
Ever
Again.

Not your issue, I know..

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I am a stress eater.

So while the rest of the country is blathering on about a ridiculously totemistic showdown between identically useless political factions, I found myself eating leftover chili and apples that I did not technically need.

Because I am worried about invisible children.

Not the ones trucked out to shop a piece of legislation or a legal decision, real children.

The children in question are very dear to me but as I watch them travel through adolescence I am increasingly dismayed by their choices–joining gangs, dabbling in illegal substances. Sex way before they should.

They are refugees from one of the most repressive regimes on the planet and they have been given the opportunity to come to America–Texas.

But they have not been given the opportunity for much genuine community.

Overlooked by pastors and churches. Stereotyped by people who should have known better. Stopped and interrogated simply for walking down quiet streets.

They learned there were yawning holes in the law.

They continue to long for the chance to play competitive soccer in a town that only makes room for football.

They are falling fast through the cracks.

And I ask myself–who do you call when you see children who live next to a dangerous road lie down in that path and say they are ready to die?

I have always been afraid I would lose a child from their community to that road–too many speeding trucks.

But to see them lying there…and to know there is no one I can call to save them.

How? You ask–how do I know?

I have called before, for other children I loved.

Called pastors
Congressmen
Senators
Bureaucrats
Ordinary people
Christians

The answer always the same–uncomfortable silence–this is not our issue.

Is it yours?

Childhood Cancer Awareness

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It is and should be a popular cause to support cancer research for children and children who endure the shocking ordeal of cancer.

No child should have to endure cancer. Ever. It is a tragic function of our scary, broken world.

But what if there were “better” and “worse” ways to get cancer?

And what if some of the worse ways had to do with enduring other things that children should not have to be exposed to? Second-hand smoke? Meth labs in their homes? Physical abuse? Or sexual exploitation?

The terrible truth is that some people do get cancer from being sexually exploited and physically abused.

People like Robbie Middleton.

Kids you will probably never see on a poster for cancer research because our society systematically marginalizes child abuse victims.

Imagine. Imagine the hell of that kind of abuse–that it could result in a boy’s death.

Then imagine you and I were the ones who looked away because it was too hard to bear.

Too hard indeed.

Social media games

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The word games on Facebook drive me crazy. Really, people? Really?

You really don’t think I and 300 million other people cannot find a state, a drink, a dog’s name that doesn’t have “a” in it?!?

Yes. I know these games are just for fun, but their cloying recurrence on the Internet becomes a mild irritant to a reclusive evangelist with an ax to grind (me–a pronoun without an a).

The truth is there is a question we cannot afford to neglect and it has nothing to do with spelling.

It is this–name anyone or thing other than Jesus that can save you.

Yep. I said the j word.

Everyone is looking–money, sex, fame…combing our small and brief horizons for anything, anyone who can save us.

When like milk, Connecticut, and Rex, the answer is right there before us–

Jesus.

A savior with no a in his name. Only love in his eyes.

Good News at HEB

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A number of years ago I contacted local grocery chains asking them to police/filter their magazine offerings.

My kids are often offended by the gauntlet of celebrity cleavage shots one has to camp in front of as one waits to pay for milk.

Not okay.

One story ignored me, the other store’s media rep said,

at least it is not full nudity.

Oh…ok, then…

So it is with great elation and relief that I report that HEB had entire aisle devoted to high-quality, reasonably priced children’s books.

Not a boob in sight.

Thanks guys.

Good Shepherds–a dying breed

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There seems to be a new trend in excuses for rape–pastors who claim their illicit and immoral acts were somehow motivated by a desire to “cure” their victims.

This, of course, like so many of the insidious blurred lines of our debauched culture, is from the pit of hell.

These men, or anyone who uses the mantle of spiritual authority to harm children, should expect judgment.

But how about the antidote to wolves in sheep’s clothing? Where are the good shepherds?

I have read tragic stories lately about violence in Kenya and Chicago, about livestock suffering at the hands of people, about grief coming unexpectedly from a simple water accident.

Each story of violence and loss reminds us of the importance of good shepherds.

We live in a perilous world and we ourselves are the most dangerous element of that world–polluting, raping, murdering, and neglecting.

Yes. Neglecting.

Sometimes the worst thing we do is not direct harm.

Sometimes it is a terrible enough injustice for us to walk away from our flocks, our children when we know there are predators lurking in the fields.

The Story You Won’t Read…

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I have been haunted recently by this story.

Should not happen.

But here is the thing…

The neighbor should have been arrested and detained after the initial rape.

He should not have been free to try to murder a child he had already raped

Yet Robbie Middleton’s assailant was allowed to go free even after he tortured and attempted to kill Robbie.

Insufficient evidence…the police said.

I would say, try a little harder boys.

Only I understand this–the reason that Don Collins was not arrested, charged, detained, or tried for the rape and attempted murder of Robbie Middleton was because too many of us looked away.

We do not want to know these stories. We do not want to carry them with us.

When the system fails our children, we fail them too, by not demanding more.

How fast would you complain if someone cut off your wifi?

Pretty fast, I bet. I know I would. Because we paid for it.

We all pay a price for the years Robbie suffered before he succumbed to such unbearable injury.

Robbie paid in pain.

We pay with our flaccid and tarnished souls.

How to be a failure

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First of all, let me restate for the record:

I am an egregious sinner and a (to quote my adopted daughter)–“failed parent.”

So yeah. Don’t be me:)

Second, a story…

When I first became a parent it was to a 12 year old boy who had been through hell.

He flipped out fast, threw rocks at our neighbors’ cars, and his caseworker told us our only option was to call the police.

Our next two charges we kept, despite the fact that they screamed at the top of their lungs 2-3 hours a day.

We lived in a cute little neighborhood. Imagine our neighbors’ chagrin when the howling started and their tremendous relief when we finally moved.

Imagine being young, reasonably cute and surrounded by a maelstrom of LOUD everywhere you went.

I still can’t believe we did it.

But we did.

Because we believed

In Jesus

Still believe, actually.

Before I wrote this I asked my oldest biological child how how life would have been different for this child and the family if I had followed advice we have encountered over and over about hiding our adopted son’s predations.

The answer was a chilling thing–

If I had, if we had, hidden the crimes against our children and supported their predator, we would have unleashed darkness on our children.

In other words–we had to tell the truth, be the failures in the eyes of family, church, and community to succeed in the one thing that matters–showing our children they are precious.

In fact I would say this to all of them the same–you are precious.

And if you are a threat to yourselves or others I will be the first person to call the police.

Because, my dear, we all deserve the law–it’s gravity and protection.

Beneath a grim and unavoidable Cross.

The Heroic Dog, Bad Babysitter…and you

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Don’t get me wrong…I think the dog who saved the baby is a hero. And I think it was smart and canny of the owners/parents to register the canine’s distress and believe the dog.

And yet…

My own experience as a very noisy advocate for abused and neglected children has been the opposite of the dog’s.

When I barked out my story people distanced themselves or shut down…they sometimes told me just shut up.

I am 43 and can take the discomfort. But how about all the child victims? Shouldn’t they get the same support and protection as the baby in the story.

I guess what I am saying is this–don’t mindlessly forward a story about a heroic dog if you are not willing to be a heroic person.

All it takes is a little time to growl at the bad guys, let someone know. Listen to anyone who makes a cry for help.

All our children deserve a defender like that.

And…in my experience, a person who would slap a baby is capable of hurting the dog too. We all have a right to live free from abuse.