Night Thoughts

September, 2006

Beast Reality

I received a curious email from an acquaintance a few days ago:

“Satan is trying to make himself more appealing to elementary school kids. ‘The Beast’ is showing up on Saturday morning television. This morning I was watching cartoons and I saw something very disturbing. A beast (whose name is BEAST) is a yellow creature with red spots, a human head with 3 horns. This Beast is interacting with kids on Nick Jr. CBS Saturday morning television. The series entitled ‘Maggie and the Ferocious Beast’ is another attempt by Satan to desensitize our kids from his name and image by appearing kind and fun. Make your opposition known by contacting parents, your church families and Sunday school teachers. Make them aware of this series.”

Intrigued, I Googled the cartoon’s Web site and read through it. I saw nothing even close to a subtle attempt to desensitize kids toward evil. The storylines I read were themed around friendship, love and caring.

Hmm…friendship, love and caring? Sounds a lot like Jesus, the antithesis of evil.

So I replied to the acquaintance and told him to learn a lesson from Jerry Falwell’s ridiculous accusation of the purple Teletubby a few years ago. Just because something appears to be wrong, doesn’t mean it is. A beasty-looking cartoon character doesn’t make it the Beast (Satan) from Scripture any more than a purple one makes it a homosexual. If I were judged by how I look some days, people might think I’m a homeless hippie rather than the refined middle-class lady I am (yeah, reality probably lies somewhere in between those two).

Besides, evil doesn’t need to be dressed up as a cartoon character in today’s society. Many kids are subjected to horrible things from the time they are born—just talk to your friendly, local schoolteacher to get the complete list. My teacher friends have recounted stories about kids in their classes, featuring horror after horror from drug abuse to incest to abandonment.

Even more subtle are the kid-haters sitting next to you on airplanes or across from you at restaurants. You know, the ones who roll their eyes as a young mom hoists her squirming toddler down a jet aisle, or shoot a dirty look at a dad whose kid is crying in the grocery store checkout line. Granted, I am among the first to notice an unruly child who isn’t appropriately managed by his or her parents. But I try to remember two things:

1. Some children are socially or physically challenged in ways that affect their behavior, meaning their parents cannot always calm them at that very moment.

2. In many of the situations when kids are crying, I would be crying, too, if it were socially acceptable, such as in stifling airplanes, slow restaurants, or interminably long grocery store lines.

Even more, I always wonder what kinds of messages those mean faces are sending to the crying kids who see them—maybe thoughts such as “I’m not loved” or “Adults are mean” or “My feelings don’t matter.” Talk about evil!

Barbara Kingsolver, the magnificent novelist, wrote an essay several years ago contrasting her experiences as a mother in the U.S. and in Spain, where she lived for a year when her daughter was four. “What I discovered in Spain,” she said, “was a culture that held children to be its meringues and éclairs. My own culture, it seemed to me in retrospect, tended to regard children as a sort of toxic-waste product; a necessary evil, maybe, but if it’s not our own we don’t want to see it or hear it or, God help us, smell it.”

If Kingsolver’s assessment is correct, and I believe it is, then we need to worry more about how we are treating children than what they are watching on TV. We know children—not just our own, but ALL children—are the future of this world. The lack of love and attention they receive today will manifest itself in needy, deprived adults who will demand satisfaction through crime, drugs, or other temporary highs. Kingsolver summed it up well: “Be careful what you give children, for sooner or later you are sure to get it back.”

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September 14, 2006 | 0 Comments | View or add comments
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Halfdays with Sandy

Sometimes dreams do come true. Not only am I freelancing—one of my dreams—I am now working downtown on a newspaper. The latter is a two-for-one, because I’ve always wanted to work on a newspaper (visions of “Lou Grant”), and I’ve always wanted to work downtown (I like high-rises, coffee shops, and the hustle and bustle).

So I took a part-time gig where I’ll be writing and editing a monthly community newspaper and a monthly business tabloid. It’s the perfect solution for me because it provides a steady income while allowing time to work on freelance projects.

And it gets me out of the house and out of my PJs!

Anyway, I’ve been there four half-days now and I’m coming to realize the other 12 or so employees are an interesting group of folks. I’ll probably have much more to say about them as things progress, but first I want to talk about Sandy.

Sandy is the woman I am replacing. She is in her late 60s, and she’s been in journalism her whole career. Today, Sandy finally retired. I doubt she’ll ever really “retire”—writers never do—but she won’t be responsible to an employer anymore, and she seemed pretty relieved about that as she was sipping champagne at her retirement luncheon on the eleventh floor of the Union Bank building.

Over the last four days, Sandy has not only taught me her job, she’s passed along the wisdom of a woman who’s been there and done that. Just listening to her, I knew nothing could shock or surprise her anymore. She’s seen it all. That’s not to say she’s jaded. Sandy exudes warmth and compassion. But she isn’t afraid to let you know what she thinks. I love that in a person, especially an older woman!

Today, our last day together, she shared with me about her husband Tom’s death in 1998. In January of that year, he found out he had kidney cancer. In March, he had surgery to stop the cancer’s spread, but he never woke up. By early April he had deteriorated further, and the family chose to remove his respirator. He died a few minutes later.

“Did you feel you had enough time to say what you needed to say to each other before he fell into the coma?” I asked her. I knew she hadn’t expected that surgery to be a slammed door on their life together.

“It’s never enough time,” she said. “But we did go back and tell each other we were sorry for things we’d said in the past that we hadn’t meant.”

She paused. “No, that’s not true. Tom never said anything he didn’t mean. It was a sort of life’s mission for him.” Then she smiled mischievously. “But I had plenty to apologize for. The thing is, he hadn’t remembered any of it. When I’d bring up something, he’d say, ‘You were carrying that around?’”

The more I heard about Tom, the more I wished I’d known him. But here was the clincher.

“What did you most appreciate about him?” I asked her.

She didn’t hesitate. “His faith,” she said. “He never wavered. And he was smart. I love smart people who still have faith.”

I knew exactly what she meant. Tom was a college professor, yet he still knew about God’s love and grace. Obviously we are all welcome to the Lord’s Table, but there is something special about the educated and elite in our society who can still humble themselves to give God the glory. In the same way, there is a certain comfort in knowing that even “smart” people find it right to be Jesus followers.

My phone rang, ending the conversation with Sandy, who headed off to hugs and gifts from her longtime coworkers. But I will always remember these past few days with her, and I feel honored to sit in her chair.

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September 1, 2006 | 0 Comments | View or add comments
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