She left one in a locked car in 112 degree heat.
Nothing happened.
She ran over them both.
Nothing happened.
Finally she drowned them.
Really, Allegheny CYS?
Really?
These boys deserved protection.
CYS, western PA style
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Mark Twain on Social Evil
Mark Twain said that when he was growing up in a slave state (Missouri) he was never confronted with a single dissenting viewpoint.
Pastors preached the (biblically erroneous) notion that Africans were cursed by God and therefore ought to be slaves.
No one saw any abuse of the slaves.
The slaves kept quiet about their opinion one way or the other.
In the Missouri of Twain’s youth slavery was a de facto good not evil.
A situation he addresses well in Huckleberry Finn.
But it was not true. Slavery was and is an abomination, an aggression against other humans.
What aggressions against humans do you take for granted or even passionately support?
Abortion?
Child sexual abuse?
Human trafficking?
Abortion is legal in the US and many people are passionately supportive of it. But it is a greater evil than slavery.
And while child abuse and human trafficking are illegal, if our government does not enforce their extinction, they will and do flourish in the gap.
Adoption Stories
You should know that no matter how old you are, I see you as the little girl you once were.
I say this because you tell me you can’t ask Yahweh because you don’t believe in Him.
Because you don’t believe in Him is exactly why you should ask Him. What do you have to lose?
Don’t worry, I know you do have stuff to lose. So let me phrase the argument as a parable:
In 1998 I lost a daughter. In my mind I lost 3. She was a triplet. She was taken from me because I was a foster parent in a place where the laws of custody and adoption were not held in high regard.
Her mother wanted the babies back. If she could not have them herself, she was willing to allow us to adopt them. Brave mama, tough story.
They took the babies. Broke my heart. Drove me to desperate measures.
The last desperate measure was leaving a record.
If you go to the archives of the federal court of western Pennsylvania you will find my record–a quixotic lawsuit I filed so that if I could not get her back, at least she could find me.
If she ever looked.
If she wanted the true story.
Because I was pretty sure she would not find it without a little help from the public record.
And since she was just a baby when they took her, I knew that they could erase me pretty easily.
But I am real and I love her. I was her mother for awhile. And I have never stopped loving her and her family.
God is like that. He is always our first mother, our foster mother, who can then be erased by another story.
But never forget. The story of His love for you is in the public record. It is your job to find it.
I have known for years that my daughter had a choice to look for me or choose to look away.
But I can assure you that I am real.
And I have loved her since the day I met her.
“I Can’t Read This!”
The man bore an uncanny resemblance to Michael Jackson. His speech was staccato and robotic. Clearly scripted.
He wanted me to believe that I should buy magazines from him because
1. He had a rough life
2. He had an eleven year old daughter
3. He was from New York City
4. He was doing God’s work
5. By selling magazines he was helping teens see the world
6. I live in a nice house in a nice place, he would like to live there.
I listened when I wanted to send him on his way. This was not my first magazine appeal. Sometimes it has been children’s books for the needy.
If you don’t need what they are peddling they press you to donate.
One pair of salesmen promised to come back and wash my windows shortly after they (they–two strapping college dudes) said hopefully I wouldn’t kidnap them.
One (my hero) took a donation from me to hand out copies of poetry books.
And he did. He handed them out when he could have just dumped them.
But this fella yesterday did not take my book. I gave him snacks, someone else’s poetry book, some rocking ties and a copy of Just.
He asked what it was about and when I told him he returned it to me. Said it was too sad and he couldn’t bear to read it.
I told him I understood.
What does it cost?
I struggle with a voice in my head telling me that a woman in my ramshackle physical condition has no business hitting ramps on a wakeboard.
It is a powerful voice.
And yet I cannot help thinking that challenging that voice and hitting those structures is a victory of the heart.
Victories of the heart are often costly victories. We are challenged to face our deepest fears of loss and humiliation, pain and failure for love.
And so with the even objectivity of a math problem you could say–the measure of our love is the measure of our willingness to overcome our fear.
Or better said by a Braver Man–perfect love casts out all fear.
Tell me you love someone and I will ask you, what dragons have you fought to preserve your beloved?
Consider the lilies
Image
Always the same reaction
I was standing in a Walmart years ago when someone I had known for years told me she had been sexually assaulted.
She told me because I told her what had happened to us. She gave me the fragile gift of a common experience–a tragic common story.
I never knew. She is a beautiful, very together, very articulate woman. I never knew about this heartbreak.
I find my reaction to these stories is always the same. I want to hit something. I want to pound out the anger and hurt that is inherently a part of any crime
Especially against children.
Especially when they trust the person who hurts them.
I say this because if you have one of those stories you need to know you are not alone.
I grieve for you, pray for you, and long for justice for you.
300 Objects
I know that body
Of water
So big, so crashingly big
You would divide it up into
Parts, continents, islands
A string of pearls or teeth
Would be too small for a satellite
You can’t see the Great Wall from space
…or the Lido Hotel…so close to the
Airport I used to know
The “Snooker” room there
We were still young then and thought the term amusing
They had a post office.
I remember now
Somehow more civilized than the real one?
Where I once received the scrolls from him
And sent off the books–a New Testament? A dictionary
You wanted me to speak to you in English on that endless journey
As the satellite technician listened warily
Never letting on he understood
The families will grieve
For their children
First missing
Now gone
300 hundred objects
Floating across an endless
Endless sea.
How Pedophiles Groom (everyone)
Afterwards the conversation held such dreadful power.
My adopted son, 14 or 15, sat amidst his younger sisters’ dolls and toys, identifying each one. My husband and I marveled at the time. Charles was not very nice to us. Not very kind in general. His attention to his younger sisters’ toys seemed an unlikely window into kindness in his chilly heart.
It was not.
He knew the toys well because for years “playing” with his little sisters had been the sinister doorway to grooming them for abuse.
It was a blow to the gut to know this too late.
My pain over my childrens’ lost innocence will not go away. It shouldn’t. I determined to do what I could to save others from the agony.
I made a commitment to speak out.. More times than I can count I have lost people in the process.
Recently Charles began dating a young woman with very young family members. I let someone know that Charles should not be alone with children ever.
His response was swift and angry. He swore at me and told me to back off or he would file harassment charges against me.
Standard for Charles.
What was shocking was the response of girlfriend and family. Even though Charles went to prison on a plea deal for what he did, girlfriend told me she did not believe me.
She and her family have rallied around a child molester.
What happened next was equally interesting.
Once she accepted his version of his story, he publicly humiliated and belittled her. I knew what he was doing—on one hand he appealed to her naïveté to accept a lie, on the other he pushed the boundaries of their relationship to flex his power.
This is an unfortunately common story. Where is the.outrage in the media over Verizon peddling child exploitive pornography? Where is the department of justice to enforce existing laws against the exploitation of children?
We stay quiet, afraid to rock this broken boat, while our little ones get let out to sea.
Watching all of me
PBS has just aired a haunting movie about women in Austin who struggle with eating and weight issues.
I viscerally connect to their food issues, but found myself crying in the middle of the movie because of what they said about community.
The truth is I have been a community-free individual since 2010. I have my family, former friends, and a church or two to thank for that. And my own fear.
Initially my dogged insistence on transparency…
I cried for my children. The older ones create shelter for their younger siblings.
The older ones remember the years of loss.
The younger ones ask questions about family as though the units of extended family–grandparents, uncles, aunts, were classes of dinosaurs or dragons.
Mythical creatures, all of them. Afraid to face the truth on our side.
Carrying Light 