“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our troubles, so that we can comfort those in trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
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I have not publicly written of the issue that I must write about today. It is a sensitive area for me, one that I am not even certain at this point I wish to discuss. Nevertheless my heart is heaving inside of me and I feel especially compelled to write a few thoughts down and share them with you.
You may not want to continue if you feel a place of compassion for sexual predators or perverts. You may not want to continue reading if you don’t want my take on the issue. You may not want to continue reading if you think it is funny. For the record, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, funny about sexual deviants: not catholic priests, not Michael Jackson and his ilk, not serial killers, not pornographers, not any single one of them individually or collectively.
I write this first person because it is about me. It is part of my story. It is not all of it, but it is small part that I hope to expand later. For now, this is enough. I write this because I need to, I want to, and my heart is telling me that I have to. You don’t have to read this, like this or agree with this--so don't write me telling me how wrong or stupid I am for my opinions on my weblog. But here it is nonetheless.
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I went to the optometrist yesterday. I have to go at least once per year in order to keep my contact lens prescription valid and operational. I have to confess: It is a terribly traumatic ordeal every time I go. I hate it. I hate it because the optometrist has to sit about 2 inches from my face. Then he has to sit right in front of me and lean into my ‘personal space.’ I am not one for modern psycho-babble, but I get very uncomfortable when he climbs out of his box and into mine.
I hate going to the dentist. I hate going to the doctor. I hate going to places where there is simply no avoiding being touched, probed or in someway violated by another human being.
There is another place, or person, I absolutely refuse to visit. It is the barber. To this day I don’t go to the barber for a haircut. When I was younger, I hated going too: I let my hair grow long. Now I am older: I keep my head shaved. It was a barber that did me in, one (two, three, four, five, etc.) time (s). Who knew any better? What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to defend myself? And now I have to live with it every single day; it never goes away.
It had something to do with that large, white apron that the barber used to wrap around my neck, drape over my body, and cover over my soul. To me it was sort of a death shroud, and to be sure, I died a little more with each visit. The drape was not so much, as he claimed it to be, a protection against falling, snipped hair that would make me itch, as much as it was a camouflage, a concealment, of his own clandestine activities. For me it was no redoubt against the tiny filaments of dead flesh that were trimmed from my skull. He always looked me straight in the eye when he talked to me. I hated the way he carefully wrapped that drape around my neck—being ever so careful not to pinch my skin or choke my throat—“Is that too tight?” he would compassionately ask. His kind, soft eyes that betrayed no hint of corruption and jealousy always melted away any inhibition and fear in me. Isn’t that what they were meant to do? But his hands knew exactly where they wanted to be—it was as if he detached his mind from his hands—and what they wanted to do. He was careful not to cut me with razors or straight edges or hack off a hidden mole. He made certain that his clippers never snagged my hair. He always gave me Juicy Fruit gum when I left. Those scars I could live with, easily.
I despise going those places and to those people even today in spite of the fact that those I go to now had nothing to do with my war then. It is an internal fear of being vulnerable and under someone else’s power. I despise that weakened feeling, that insipid distrust of all things flesh and not my own. How can I trust anyone? Who has earned that trust? Has everyone been painted black because of the sin of one or two?
Here I am thirty four years old, afraid of barbers and spreading the angst, however innocently and inadvertently, to my own children by not taking them to the barber. The responsibilities of cutting hair are mine. And I never use that long drape that wraps tightly around the neck and spreads like a tarpaulin over a pile of bones. I hated that drape and cringed at the thought of being tightened around my neck. I still cringe even at the mere thought of that drape being ‘adjusted’ or ‘situated’ or ‘fixed’. I still fear those eyes. I still fear anyone who speaks in a sing song voice as if his life were merely a song he were singing, as if each breath were merely a note to be hummed, as if each step were merely a downbeat in some sick, twisted, deviant score of hatred and disease.
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I don’t think God put me in a place on purpose so that I would be molested. What sort of God would do that? But He has taken an otherwise traumatic and devastating experience and redeemed it for his purposes. I did not go searching for a pedophile nor was I hurled by divine fiat into his chair. However, I will not allow myself to be destroyed because of it. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, I am able to help those who are in need. I can protect children, my children, any children, from the likes of those who would seek to devastate their lives. God not only redeemed me; He redeemed everything about me too. I would be a sinner if I did not protect the children God has entrusted to me.
I become physically ill, spiritually disturbed when I hear of or read of some human being that has taken advantage of a child’s innocence, or vulnerability and corrupted or violated him in such a way as to produce scars that will remain beyond this life and run deeper than the flesh. There is nothing funny about that female school teacher who raped her young student. I don’t understand, first of all, and I cannot keep from becoming somewhat enraged, although my rage is closer akin to profound sadness than to real rage. Imagine being so angry that you wish you could reach into the television screen and choke the life from the violator and then realizing that you can do no such thing. That sort of approximates the feeling. It is the same feeling the child has too: helpless and powerless like Edmond Dantes who, after being thrown into prison, ‘passed through all the degrees of misfortune that prisoners, forgotten in their dungeon, suffer.’ He, it is written in The Count of Monte Cristo, “…dashed himself furiously against the walls of his prison, attacked everything, and chiefly himself, and the least thing—a grain of sand, a straw, or a breath of air that annoyed him.” Hopeless rage.
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Sometimes, in my voyages, when I was a man and commanded other men, I have seen the heavens become overcast, the sea rage and foam, the storm arise, and, like a monstrous bird, cover the sky with its wings. Then I felt that my vessel was a vain refuge that trembled and shook before the tempest. Soon the fury of the waves, and the sight of the sharp rocks, announced the approach of death, and death then terrified me, and I used all my skill and intelligence as a man and a sailor to escape it. But I did so because I was happy, because I had not courted death, because this repose on a be of rocks and sea-weed seemed terrible, because I was unwilling that I, a creature made for the service of God, should serve for food to the gulls and ravens. But now it is different. I have lost all that bound me to life; death smiles and invites me to repose; I die after my own manner, I die exhausted and broken-spirited, as I fall asleep when I have paced three thousand times round my cell. (Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo)
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I have not publicly written of the issue that I must write about today. It is a sensitive area for me, one that I am not even certain at this point I wish to discuss. Nevertheless my heart is heaving inside of me and I feel especially compelled to write a few thoughts down and share them with you.
You may not want to continue if you feel a place of compassion for sexual predators or perverts. You may not want to continue reading if you don’t want my take on the issue. You may not want to continue reading if you think it is funny. For the record, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, funny about sexual deviants: not catholic priests, not Michael Jackson and his ilk, not serial killers, not pornographers, not any single one of them individually or collectively.
I write this first person because it is about me. It is part of my story. It is not all of it, but it is small part that I hope to expand later. For now, this is enough. I write this because I need to, I want to, and my heart is telling me that I have to. You don’t have to read this, like this or agree with this--so don't write me telling me how wrong or stupid I am for my opinions on my weblog. But here it is nonetheless.
_________________________________
I went to the optometrist yesterday. I have to go at least once per year in order to keep my contact lens prescription valid and operational. I have to confess: It is a terribly traumatic ordeal every time I go. I hate it. I hate it because the optometrist has to sit about 2 inches from my face. Then he has to sit right in front of me and lean into my ‘personal space.’ I am not one for modern psycho-babble, but I get very uncomfortable when he climbs out of his box and into mine.
I hate going to the dentist. I hate going to the doctor. I hate going to places where there is simply no avoiding being touched, probed or in someway violated by another human being.
There is another place, or person, I absolutely refuse to visit. It is the barber. To this day I don’t go to the barber for a haircut. When I was younger, I hated going too: I let my hair grow long. Now I am older: I keep my head shaved. It was a barber that did me in, one (two, three, four, five, etc.) time (s). Who knew any better? What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to defend myself? And now I have to live with it every single day; it never goes away.
It had something to do with that large, white apron that the barber used to wrap around my neck, drape over my body, and cover over my soul. To me it was sort of a death shroud, and to be sure, I died a little more with each visit. The drape was not so much, as he claimed it to be, a protection against falling, snipped hair that would make me itch, as much as it was a camouflage, a concealment, of his own clandestine activities. For me it was no redoubt against the tiny filaments of dead flesh that were trimmed from my skull. He always looked me straight in the eye when he talked to me. I hated the way he carefully wrapped that drape around my neck—being ever so careful not to pinch my skin or choke my throat—“Is that too tight?” he would compassionately ask. His kind, soft eyes that betrayed no hint of corruption and jealousy always melted away any inhibition and fear in me. Isn’t that what they were meant to do? But his hands knew exactly where they wanted to be—it was as if he detached his mind from his hands—and what they wanted to do. He was careful not to cut me with razors or straight edges or hack off a hidden mole. He made certain that his clippers never snagged my hair. He always gave me Juicy Fruit gum when I left. Those scars I could live with, easily.
I despise going those places and to those people even today in spite of the fact that those I go to now had nothing to do with my war then. It is an internal fear of being vulnerable and under someone else’s power. I despise that weakened feeling, that insipid distrust of all things flesh and not my own. How can I trust anyone? Who has earned that trust? Has everyone been painted black because of the sin of one or two?
Here I am thirty four years old, afraid of barbers and spreading the angst, however innocently and inadvertently, to my own children by not taking them to the barber. The responsibilities of cutting hair are mine. And I never use that long drape that wraps tightly around the neck and spreads like a tarpaulin over a pile of bones. I hated that drape and cringed at the thought of being tightened around my neck. I still cringe even at the mere thought of that drape being ‘adjusted’ or ‘situated’ or ‘fixed’. I still fear those eyes. I still fear anyone who speaks in a sing song voice as if his life were merely a song he were singing, as if each breath were merely a note to be hummed, as if each step were merely a downbeat in some sick, twisted, deviant score of hatred and disease.
_______________________________
I don’t think God put me in a place on purpose so that I would be molested. What sort of God would do that? But He has taken an otherwise traumatic and devastating experience and redeemed it for his purposes. I did not go searching for a pedophile nor was I hurled by divine fiat into his chair. However, I will not allow myself to be destroyed because of it. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, I am able to help those who are in need. I can protect children, my children, any children, from the likes of those who would seek to devastate their lives. God not only redeemed me; He redeemed everything about me too. I would be a sinner if I did not protect the children God has entrusted to me.
I become physically ill, spiritually disturbed when I hear of or read of some human being that has taken advantage of a child’s innocence, or vulnerability and corrupted or violated him in such a way as to produce scars that will remain beyond this life and run deeper than the flesh. There is nothing funny about that female school teacher who raped her young student. I don’t understand, first of all, and I cannot keep from becoming somewhat enraged, although my rage is closer akin to profound sadness than to real rage. Imagine being so angry that you wish you could reach into the television screen and choke the life from the violator and then realizing that you can do no such thing. That sort of approximates the feeling. It is the same feeling the child has too: helpless and powerless like Edmond Dantes who, after being thrown into prison, ‘passed through all the degrees of misfortune that prisoners, forgotten in their dungeon, suffer.’ He, it is written in The Count of Monte Cristo, “…dashed himself furiously against the walls of his prison, attacked everything, and chiefly himself, and the least thing—a grain of sand, a straw, or a breath of air that annoyed him.” Hopeless rage.
__________________________________________
Sometimes, in my voyages, when I was a man and commanded other men, I have seen the heavens become overcast, the sea rage and foam, the storm arise, and, like a monstrous bird, cover the sky with its wings. Then I felt that my vessel was a vain refuge that trembled and shook before the tempest. Soon the fury of the waves, and the sight of the sharp rocks, announced the approach of death, and death then terrified me, and I used all my skill and intelligence as a man and a sailor to escape it. But I did so because I was happy, because I had not courted death, because this repose on a be of rocks and sea-weed seemed terrible, because I was unwilling that I, a creature made for the service of God, should serve for food to the gulls and ravens. But now it is different. I have lost all that bound me to life; death smiles and invites me to repose; I die after my own manner, I die exhausted and broken-spirited, as I fall asleep when I have paced three thousand times round my cell. (Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo)
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There is also the idea that in order to minister to people properly, one must be close to people. One must be willing to touch, feel, and be close to others. This is something that I find practically impossible to do. I waffle on this very point of ministry. Ministry is necessarily about being up close and personal with people. John describes how ministry with Jesus meant touching, hearing, seeing—employing the senses. The essence of pastoral ministry is being among the sheep—knowing the sheep enough, even more, to call them by name. It means the allowing of abstract emotional upheaval to play a role in the concrete plains of ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ I have a difficult time with emotions which is one reason why I suppose I am not well suited to ministry in the pastoral sense. I can hardly deal with my own emotional turmoil let alone that of others.
Again, I point to the ministry of Jesus who came down and tabernacled among ‘us’. He put on this filthy madness we call flesh and bled, and sweat, and belched, and probably had some kind of funky middle-eastern body odor. John relishes this as a blessing: That which we have seen with our eyes, and touched. The Son of Thunder delighted in this personal, pastoral presence—His touch. When he wrote the Revelation, one of the most poignant scenes is when John is afraid and Jesus puts his hand on him and encourages him to not be afraid. I would have a hard time being Jesus or John in that situation; I have a hard time being Jesus or John in my situation.
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I’d like to think that I have mastered my life, but I have not even come close. I have not even failed well.
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I don’t understand how a human being can see a child—the beautiful innocence and boundless joy and creatively imaginative and perfect soul—and want to destroy it. Why turn these tiny plants into flowers that will ‘blossom in a puddle of mud’? Why hurt them? Why ruin them? Why corrupt them? Why view them as mere objects of personal satisfaction instead of as God’s gracious way of saying, “Life shall continue.” Humans fail to hear the voice of God, but then again, there is not too many who are listening. Humans fail to see the grace of God, but then again, there are not too many who are looking. But when a person sees a child, how can that person not see the face of God? And if they see the face of God, how can they dare approach it with such contempt, arrogance? Jesus correctly pronounced: “Woe to those who cause these little ones to stumble. It would be better for them to have a millstone tied about their neck and be cast into the deep.”
It is unlikely that I will ever approach a comprehension of this aspect of humanity. I can understand, while certainly not approving or condoning, stealing. I can understand, while certainly not approving or condoning, speeding. I can understand, to a certain extent and in certain circumstances, taking the life of another human being. (But please understand that my view of murderers is not rosy, and, to be sure, they are not far removed from pedophiles.) But I cannot, under any circumstance begin to even come close to understanding the mind and heart of a human that would even think of violating a child in any way. That is probably a run-on; but how else to make someone understand how perfect is my disgust and contempt for such people?
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Now that I have vomited, I can explain one last aspect of ministry necessary in such situations. It is called grace. Someone must show the grace of God to such people. Someone must minister to them in the name of Christ. Someone must teach them the Redemption Story. Someone must cut off their hands so they can at least enter the Kingdom maimed for that is better than to continue on in their way and enter Darkness with both hands.
Some reading this may think I am well beyond my area of expertise here. They may suggest after such a reading that I am clearly a lunatic, that I clearly have no idea what I am talking about, and that when it gets down to brass tacks I ought to forget about my contempt and my compassion. Trust me when I say that it is highly unlikely that I am the one who is being called or sent to such contemptible people. That is one group of swine that I cannot cast my pearls before. However, this is not to say ‘they’ are beyond the reach, the touch, of Christ. There is, obviously, someone who does have the heart and the courage and the love to say to the sinner, “Thou art loosed.” After all, who among us is not a sinner? Who among us has not fallen short of God’s glory? Who among us has attained any sort of perfection? Who among us would not be going to hell if not for a person who said, “There is a swine I will cast my pearls before?” In this sense, grace is available and there are, without doubt, some beautiful feet that will carry God’s message of grace to those lost souls who were probably mere children at one time in their own lives.
____________________________________________
That’s all I can say for now. It is hard for me to write these thoughts; harder for me to post them for someone else to read. All I know, and believe it or now there are a million and one things crowding inside of my mind, is that I wish my life had seen different experiences. I cannot look back on this with favor and say, ‘Oh what a grand lesson I learned.’ However, I can make it my goal in life, with my every waking breath, to protect other children from the ravages of predators whose smiling faces and glistening eyes welcome us into the safety of their world—where in the darkness they slit our throats and eat our souls.
God have mercy on them because it might be simply beyond my ability to do so.
I don’t understand how a human being can see a child—the beautiful innocence and boundless joy and creatively imaginative and perfect soul—and want to destroy it. Why turn these tiny plants into flowers that will ‘blossom in a puddle of mud’? Why hurt them? Why ruin them? Why corrupt them? Why view them as mere objects of personal satisfaction instead of as God’s gracious way of saying, “Life shall continue.” Humans fail to hear the voice of God, but then again, there is not too many who are listening. Humans fail to see the grace of God, but then again, there are not too many who are looking. But when a person sees a child, how can that person not see the face of God? And if they see the face of God, how can they dare approach it with such contempt, arrogance? Jesus correctly pronounced: “Woe to those who cause these little ones to stumble. It would be better for them to have a millstone tied about their neck and be cast into the deep.”
It is unlikely that I will ever approach a comprehension of this aspect of humanity. I can understand, while certainly not approving or condoning, stealing. I can understand, while certainly not approving or condoning, speeding. I can understand, to a certain extent and in certain circumstances, taking the life of another human being. (But please understand that my view of murderers is not rosy, and, to be sure, they are not far removed from pedophiles.) But I cannot, under any circumstance begin to even come close to understanding the mind and heart of a human that would even think of violating a child in any way. That is probably a run-on; but how else to make someone understand how perfect is my disgust and contempt for such people?
________________________________________
Now that I have vomited, I can explain one last aspect of ministry necessary in such situations. It is called grace. Someone must show the grace of God to such people. Someone must minister to them in the name of Christ. Someone must teach them the Redemption Story. Someone must cut off their hands so they can at least enter the Kingdom maimed for that is better than to continue on in their way and enter Darkness with both hands.
Some reading this may think I am well beyond my area of expertise here. They may suggest after such a reading that I am clearly a lunatic, that I clearly have no idea what I am talking about, and that when it gets down to brass tacks I ought to forget about my contempt and my compassion. Trust me when I say that it is highly unlikely that I am the one who is being called or sent to such contemptible people. That is one group of swine that I cannot cast my pearls before. However, this is not to say ‘they’ are beyond the reach, the touch, of Christ. There is, obviously, someone who does have the heart and the courage and the love to say to the sinner, “Thou art loosed.” After all, who among us is not a sinner? Who among us has not fallen short of God’s glory? Who among us has attained any sort of perfection? Who among us would not be going to hell if not for a person who said, “There is a swine I will cast my pearls before?” In this sense, grace is available and there are, without doubt, some beautiful feet that will carry God’s message of grace to those lost souls who were probably mere children at one time in their own lives.
____________________________________________
That’s all I can say for now. It is hard for me to write these thoughts; harder for me to post them for someone else to read. All I know, and believe it or now there are a million and one things crowding inside of my mind, is that I wish my life had seen different experiences. I cannot look back on this with favor and say, ‘Oh what a grand lesson I learned.’ However, I can make it my goal in life, with my every waking breath, to protect other children from the ravages of predators whose smiling faces and glistening eyes welcome us into the safety of their world—where in the darkness they slit our throats and eat our souls.
God have mercy on them because it might be simply beyond my ability to do so.
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