I am up late praying for a little girl who is my son’s age. My heart and my prayers are with her and I pray that she is safe and unharmed.
If you know where she is, call the police. Just call 911 and tell them.
If you have her, leave her at a hospital or fire station. Just keep her safe and get her home quickly.
Please.
I remember being in shock. First I thought, I failed.
I failed to see the danger
Failed to protect my child
Later, still in shock, I looked at my child and acknowledged–she is a crime victim.
So hard to know what my beautiful girl had to face alone.
I stand in honor of this young woman and her grieving family. Like many mothers all over the world I grieve with them and all Indians who are dismayed and outraged that any woman or girl anywhere in the world is in danger–on a bus, on the street, at a party, in a police station, in a hospital.
We who are not Indian should take careful note–the way we react to protect the vulnerable in our culture can, will, and should define us.
Forever.
In honor of her death we all must do better.
Her family is in my prayers
I pray for justice.
Remember I left this story at trespassing.. Let’s see what happens next…
Mark 2:3-4 (NIV)
Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. [4] Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.
Huh…. Breaking and entering?!! Destruction of property?!? This story gets more violent and illegal by the minute.
And what does Jesus do? More calls to the po-po? Vigilante justice?
Nope…
Mark 2:5 (NIV)
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
I once preached a sermon on this passage. My daughter’s favorite part was when I said that we neglect the violent, intrusive nature of what the men did breaking through the roof of the house
…but it turns out ok because luckily, there was a carpenter in it.
I can obsess over the damage we fallen, messy humans can unleash on each other. The truth is Jesus: fixer, healer, resurrectionist.
He rises from hell to save us.
The messy rest is a cakewalk for him.
Roof repair and all.
Let’s say you want to learn to swim. You would need water, a bathing suit, and a teacher. And while the bathing suit might be optional, the teacher knowing how to
1. Swim
2. Teach
Would not
The other day I heard a very smart man complaining that his students lacked motivation. I thought, that is your job, make it fun.
Yesterday I saw a man teach a kid to do something nuanced and physically challenging. He is good at what he does, both doing and teaching.
I say all this because at the heart of the Jesus question is–
Can he really do what he teaches?
Can he teach me to do it?
Most of us think the gospel is words. We are wrong. The gospel is the pop quiz, the open book test.
The real thing?
Can you rise from the dead?
Can you love like Him?
Everything he says is just the instructional course. Everything he does is life everlasting.
listen.
Your child is smart and logical and already has pieces of information. Ask what he thinks and if he has questions.
be honest
Honesty demonstrates advocacy. It gives your child a strong sense of safety. If you lie or obscure the truth your child will not feel as stable. Truth telling does not have to be explicit or graphic, but it provides security.
admit when you don’t have answers
It is ok to say you dont know something. Find out if you can…
Enlist your community
Don’t be afraid to talk to a counselor, doctor, or trusted friends.
Practice safety
Give your child a chance to practice safety and self-defense. Hopefully she will never need these skills, but she will feel safer and more secure if she knows how to handle emergencies.
keep talking
Big traumas stay with us. Make time to check in on your child over days, weeks and years. This will allow him to process all the complicated emotions that travel with grief and uncertainty.
We should never make our children face the scary stuff alone.
Alone is the scariest of all
The words are familiar, the voices quavering–
a table before mine enemies
Psalm 23 at the memorial for children who should have been safe at school.. What do we do with our grief? With Christmas? With all those presents for the fallen?
I have been praying for the Krims. I knew this holiday season would be terribly hard for them. Now I have this image in my mind–20 homes without their babies.
I keep thinking-they were six, they were six, they were just little.
Yes. I know some were seven. Seven years is long enough to fall in love with a bright light in the world and long enough to know that the dark has grown darker with each light extinguished.
These people will never be the same.
We should never be the same.
Yes. I know that each death hurts and the hurt is the more unrelenting because it was so cruel.
Cruel. Cruel like our enemies. Cruel like Herod ordering the murder of babies. A king who murders children?
This table set for us in the presence of…
Our enemies.
Chief among them, death itself.
We forget sometimes that the baby in the manger is the Man on the cross.
In the presence of our enemies.
He dies
To set this table where light cannot be snuffed out–
No matter what
Heaven
Yesterday an entire community woke up feeling safe and went to bed knowing the truth–no one is safe.
When we examine mass killings in America the list is chilling without the quotidian descriptions of domestic murders. When I read these articles on our history of violence what struck me was how incomplete the lists were.
I found several articles but none mentioned the tragedy at the Amish schoolhouse several years ago. The story of a methodical murder of children at school? Worth remembering.
And now we have Sandy Hook. I hate these stories. Most of us do. But what I find almost as disturbing is how quickly we go back to our Christmas parties and meme gathering.
Sometimes it does seem as though we are more pro-active about spreading urban legends than the truth.
I understand our desire to play the numbers–immediately after the tragedy I heard and read several reporters say–these events are rare.
I seem to have missed the bend in history when the NRA needed more public advocacy than school children.
We have a big problem. A deadly,escalating association between power and slaughter, the desire to exact a terrible revenge on children and the need for fame?
Can it be that our culture of entertainment violence has collided with real violence and a quest for celebrity? Do any of us dare face the possibility that this is the monster we have created? Nurtured? Then allowed to roam our schools, malls, concerts and cinemas while we idly click our remotes looking for something to distract us from a gathering darkness?
Hi, I am the narrator. Elea was annoyed with me for napping on the clock so she is giving me extra assignments. Typical.
She wants me to discuss nature versus nurture.. Claims the subject is too close to home for her. Says I am the professional and she is the amateur so, yeah, show her how it’s done…
Team Nature argues for the biological expediency of our genetic code. Nature says, basically we are all just a sequence of predetermined impulses and urges and we are what we are–Darwinian productions, all water and code.
Team Nurture says, no! Humans are more than a sum of our chemical parts. Love matters. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, all that…
Why the flippy intro?
Well, H and C have rather wantonly stirred their genetic material in the petri dish of human determinism and Elea says I have to give you–sparse and gentle readers, a crash course on the odds.
Or whatever…
He worked with children in a job that was focused on children.
He worked with child advocates or at least people who have been educated to educate children.
He hid his sexual preferences/behavior.
He has never admitted he molested children.
He is not Kevin Clash.
He is a (former) coach and trainer i know who molested at least half a dozen children in conjunction with his job/coaching.
His victims have told the truth about abuse. He still denies everything.
Sesame Street needs to face this one straight. Let’s talk about child sexual abuse (allegations) and what it does to all of us.
Now.
Carrying Light 