He was in my extended family.  He came to family dinners when I was groiwing up.  I knew he had molested someone in my family.  He was flirtacious and charming to me, but then I was fiftyish years younger than him.  At the time the balance of his presence at family gatherings and his predations of a child in the family were both facts.  I knew not to trust him, but he was there.  As far as I could tell no one had confronted him and he suffered no social dents as a result of molesting a young girl.  He was well-educated, well-spoken.  Charming.  Remember the word charming.  Pedophiles are often charming.

I interrupt my regularly scheduled series on profiling pedophiles to talk about…

when rudeness is the right thing to do.

I was talking to someone about protecting children from a dangerous person.  The adult admonished the children to be polite because it was the “right thing to do.”  I was a pain in the a…. and argued.  I told my friend you have to train your kids to deal differently with bad guys.  Sometimes rudeness and even simple assault is the right thing to do–if you are defending yourself from a bad man.

I am haunted knowing that we were all held capitve for years by the bad man.  My children’s politeness, all of our polite training aided his criminal behavior.  Tell your children that if someone is trying to hurt them they need to fight back, make a scene, be rude, be angry, call attention to the situation, cry out, call the police.  We must practice fighting the bad man or the bad person the way we would tell our children how to survive a fire.  Our children should be safe, not polite and subjected to abuse.  Be loud.  Teach your children when to BE LOUD!

I talked to a friend today about the idea that our collective desire to avoid dealing with real abuse leaves predators in control of their stories,their victims’ lives, and ultimately public policy.

What would you do, actually do, if you knew that upwards of 75% of children were the victims of child sexual abuse and that the reason the number was that high was because a mere 10% of the population was able to molest that many children.  These figures are low–75 and 10, but if you use them then each predator has an average of 7.5 victims.

Why?

Because they are the guys next door. 

So I am going to showcase some of these guys. I am not trying to name names, but each is a real person who has been identified by at least one victim.  Most were not punished for what they did.  If they were, I will asterisk their story.  Some are dead, they live in different places.  All are dangerous. All are the guys next door.

Two things you should know about me:  I was one of those awkward nerds picked last (or close to last) for teams in gym class.  In my mind I can still see the hours of playing games nervously, with no native grace or confidence.

And 2:  my first enduring image of mother’s day was the day Veronica vomited on me in church.  Em and C were doing their usual circus-y best at mayhem and I was pregnant.  Fun and dignified.

Now.  Understand this.  I am ambivalent about mother’s day.  I am unequivocal about motherhood, ambivalent about its celebration.  In my mind I see two groups—the cool moms, their kids are cute, well-behaved, lovable, they go to good schools, marry well, occasionally win prizes.  Then there is the other shadowy group—moms of sex offenders.  You can’t see their faces, they do not want to be recognized, or worse still, they make ridiculous excuses for their offenders’ behavior and compensate.  Not a fun or cool group.  Technically I believe I belong to both groups, but the cool moms will kick my sorry butt out if they find out about C.  I am sure of it.

There is a part of me that says, really?  Do I have to be a member of this group forever?  The answer is yes.  The answer is yes because of C.  The answer is that C will always need a kick in the butt and a mom.  Deal with it girl.

So instead of cleaning my room or writing the great American novel or going for a nice swim I tell God, fine, I am going to call him and cut through some of the usual meaningless pleasantries and give myself a real mother’s day present—the truth.

As soon as I start I cry and I keep crying throughout the conversation, but I get my mother’s day present—the truth.  I tell C. that I will always be his mom because he will always need one, and that the pain never, never stops, that I ask all the time why? And that what he did never goes away or stops hurting for any of us.  I tell him I wish I had answers but I only have one—God and He loves him.  He hates what he did, He will always hate what he did, but God loves him.  Do you know it, C?  I ask.  Do you know this?  Have you felt it?

I tell him I have an image of him scrounging for change under a vending machine.  No dignity for a quarter.  I tell him, that is what you need to do to find God.  Get down on your hands and knees, forget your dignity and look for Him, boy, He is the one thing that matters.

Draft.

tracing the luminous.

I  am holding my youngest child.  He, like all humans, is precious, but he is especially dear to me.  I think, how do people who do not believe in God handle the uncertainty of loss?  I can barely stand it and I know that God loves my little ones, holds them dear.

But then I have also experienced loss…almost unbearable.

I think it is a  little like this–imagine you owned the Mona Lisa.  Imagine that there was a growing group of people who asserted that it was worthless, just a waste of oil and pigment.  But you believed.  You believed it was the work of a genius, a one of a kind miracle of human art.  People scoffed, but you believed.  But you also worried.  What if someone took it?  Destroyed it?  What if something happened to it? 

Then you find out about the most wonderful insurance policy.  Not only will the insurer offer to cover your loss, he does it for free (because he is a huge Leonardo fan!!) and he does not insure it for money–he guarantees the restoration of the original.  No matter what happens you get Mona back, better looking, more vivid and more valuable than ever before.

That is not so much an analogy of the workings of faith.  It is analogy for the love of a perfect Parent.  It is a picture of Divine Love holding us close, his masterpieces, insured against loss.

Again.  Let me be explicit. You read this?  You are his masterpiece.  Do not let that kind of love slip through your grasp…

Whether you have children or not you should see the movie, “Pirates, Band of Misfits”

Queen Victoria would be appalled but otherwise wonderful!

I do not go to movie theaters often, so when I went tonight I was struck by the weirdness of the poster that said children under six could not go to R rated movies after six.

It raises more questions than it answers.