What would you do with $100?
What would you do with $10?
You get a gift, win a contest, you come into some legit but unexpected cash.
What do you do with it?
Answers can be posted here or on my Facebook link to this post.
Thanks.
The story circulates and re-circulates but the video never should: two men taped themselves abusing a child a decade ago and this week it goes viral on Facebook?!
Why would anyone “Like” that?!
Why would thousands repost it?
While I am glad people have reported the video, I would prefer it had not been viewed or more than that, made.
No one should do that to a child. And we are no longer a civilized nation if we promote child abuse on social media or do nothing to stop it.
Anyone who helps who spreads child pornography should face charges.
But of course, they won’t.
Where is the equal sign for children?
Last April I made a commitment to write about child abuse every day in remembrance of National Child Abuse Prevention Month. It was spiritually and emotionally painful.
This year I have committed to write about recovery. I don’t think most kids have happy, stress-free childhoods, but some experience more grief and trauma than others.
And then there are the five each day.
In the United States of America 5 children die each day from the fatal effects of child abuse. Beautiful little children like Toryn Buckman.
Imagine if it were 5 celebrities, 5 soccer moms, 5 athletes, 5 politicians. Any other group of people in this country gets killed off in groups of five or more a day and we would have a national crisis. It would be national news. It would be a scandal. Advocates would call for change.
But not children. Children in our country are second-class citizens. They have no voice. We have to be their voices.
When I contacted elected officials and bureaucrats to ask them to assist abused children to a man they said the same thing–this is not my issue.
Is it yours?
He says, I want to live here forever
Can we live here forever?
And I understand what he means–
We are close to heaven
Close to sanctuary
He doesn’t know
What happened to his sister
He doesn’t know
That everything
He does is a reminder
Of how very young she was
The ghost
Hurt my babies.
This has happened more than once.
I sit next to an adult and give them a version of my reasons for writing and they share their story.
This one involved mental illness, alcoholism, a tragic death and an injunction against talking about the truth. Children were made to bear witness to a terrible story and then could never talk about what they had experienced.
Mind-bending. And the norm. Most adults not only do not allow children to verbally process traumatic events, they often suppress these stories.
Incredibly destructive. No matter how tough, embarrassing or difficult the event, every child deserves a voice–a safe place to tell their tale of woe.
Otherwise the wound itself is exacerbated by the additional loss of trust in the grownups whose job it was to protect us.
Imagine human values were marsupial–clinging to each of our heads.
One man would walk from his house to his car with animal lust clinging to his shiny pate. Another would shuffle to the mailbox as pride monkeyed with his ears.
Sure, some people’s resident animals would be symbiotic–well-mannered love, or the singing bird of truth, but far more would stagger about assiduously nursing their prejudices, manipulations, and vice.
Now imagine you are a child–astounded and a little afraid. All these nattering animals clinging to the necks of grownups! You eye them warily. Maybe dare eventually to raise a question or two–who are they? Why do they stay?
When you do. When you do the parents, aunts, uncles, neighbors look at you blankly-what are you talking about? There are no animals here.
Let’s say, just hypothetically, that you arranged a legal transaction with a person who turned out to be immoral, abusive, felonious. Now suppose after years of attempting to do your best to hang on to the relationship you are forced into the difficult decision of protecting yourself–from abuse.
Now consider two potential wrinkles to this scenario:
You are a child and your “legal partner” is an adult.
Or….
You are a parent and your “legal partner” is a dangerous minor.
In the first scenario children are at the mercy of a legal system that does not want to intervene on their behalf. Why? Money, Oh, and maybe discomfort. But there is a third option–older people get significantly reduced sentences or no punishment at all for serious or deadly crimes against children because children do not have equal protection under the law.
They do not have equivalent civil rights.
And parents of mentally ill or abusive teens? Just try finding legal protection from abuse. It would make sense to simply call the police when a crime occurs, but parents are on their own if their abuser is their own child.
The law should be the arena of protection for a civilized society, but the murders of Thomas More and Dietrich Bonhoeffer were legal. We are not only as good as the laws we enact; we are only as just as the ones we choose to enforce.
Immoral laws, immoral judges, and myopic citizens make for a country where a baby can be shot in the face on the street and a distracted nation thinks it is a brave new world for futzing over the sexual practices of adults.
Oh, yeah…Brave New World.. Thank you, Mr. Huxley, for giving us all a prophetic heads up on how all this will end.
Imagine.
You have resuscitated the carrier pigeon.
you bred raptors?
Why yes.
Actually I did.
they live far from me now
One is a runner.
Not like track.
Tracks. Lines…
In the spring snow…
The other?
An enigma.
I wish I had a machine…
Like Enigma.
I could put it all down–
My coded message to you
About the hurt and confusion
Injustice was a U-boat
Sinking good men
He says,
life is sweet right now
And I wonder,
What is the unbreakable
Code
I could write you this and know
It will be clear.
It will all be
Made clear
In the end.
It was a swish dinner at a faith-based gathering. The professional, well-heeled white folk were chowing down on their deep-fried exotic game.
A pediatrician asked me why our family structure had changed. I was still hoping someone would do something, so I told her.
Stunned silence.
Afterward the doctor and her friend were surreptitiously imbibing when I apologized for casting a pall over dinner. They accepted my apology and chided me for my temerity. They gave me suggestions.
Memorable suggestions from a children’s doctor and a social worker–
Don’t talk about the victims
Don’t tell what happened to them
Decide what you want from people then soften your message to reach them.
Such well meaning criticism. But it still shocked me. Not because they did not care about my children’s safety.
Because they did not care about theirs.
I once lived in a country rich in cultural rules and ancient traditions. One I remembered: give your children ugly nicknames so that the spirits will not snatch them away. Seemed logical.
As a Christian I adapted this idea somewhat–live in a broke-down house, even live a broke-down life, but treasure the eternal.
So I did. My house was a mess. My hair was a mess. My children were bright orbs of light. I thought I had it mapped out.
But I had not calculated the cost of broke-down minds in our broke-down life. Everything like shattered glass in their heads.
I am shocked by the damage. I survey the damage. No easy answers, only the beacon of truth–our lives themselves are the houses, mansions, temples, of the eternal God of love.
Who will give us our real
Names
Someday.
Carrying Light 