Reading the News

Reading the news always upsets me, mostly because it reminds me that there are people who want to hurt other people. I try my best to remind myself that it’s the natural result of how horrible we can be, and that the potential for violence and hatred resides in each person. I remind myself that people who murder and rape and abuse other people are deeply disturbed themselves. I cannot imagine the kind of pain that turns people into monsters. And at the same time it makes me sick, and it makes me glad that there is a God who has in His heart a greater concern for the littlest, the weakest, the loneliest than I could ever have. It makes me glad that although a child molester does not receive the consequences I think he deserves now, he will be judged for it. I cling to the justice of God at times like this. It doesn’t make it any easier, though. A while back, I read a story of a fifteen year old girl who was raped and murdered by a man who had, a couple of years before, raped a 14 year old girl. He was released from prison early. And then he killed someone. How does this happen? I cannot rail against the justice system, because I know very little about it. I have no solutions. I only have the anger and grief that overwhelms me when I read about these things. Today I read about a school shooting in Brazil. I don’t understand what can make someone want to kill a child. How can someone look into the face of a child, see that child’s fear, and pull the trigger? I do not understand. I sat in my dorm room, crying as I read, because I cannot understand.

Listen to the little people...they know what they're talking about

Today I was at work, trying to get some homework done. On Tuesdays I spend three hours in the morning generally supervising a group of homeschool kids. For the first hour, they do schoolwork, and then for the next hour and a half or so, till their moms come, they entertain themselves with the various board games, coloring books, and other such things we have in the room. Today we only had four kids, and only one of them was a girl. I've always known she could talk the hind leg off a donkey, but it's become rare for her to come talk to me because usually we have so many other kids around that she can talk to. Today she finished her schoolwork early, and came over to tell me she was bored. After trying in vain to get her to read a book, color a picture, play a game, finally I let her sit at my table as I finished up my reading for my Dante class. I had every intention of continuing on to other work after that, vaguely pretending like I was listening to her. Then it sort of hit me that my job is not to come and make sure the kids don't kill each other while I do homework. The fact that I do sometimes get time to do homework during work is a major advantage of the job, but it's not a priority, not even over entertaining one of my kids. It's my job to makes sure that these kids enjoy themselves while they're with me. So I finished up the last page, tucked my book away, and turned my full attention on her. For the first fifteen minutes, I struggled to stay focused. She doesn't speak loudly enough for me to hear her well over the boys playing their loud, adventurous lego games, which doesn't help. I don't even know how she got onto the subject of gratitude. Her monologue runs on in such a stream-of-consciousness way that she slides from one subject to the next effortlessly. But she started talking to me about gratitude. She told me that when you decide to be grateful for something, it makes you a whole lot happier. If you're ungrateful, you'll only be happy on Christmas and birthdays, and really special days. There are only a few things that can make you happy. But if you're grateful, every day is good. I sat there and listened to the overflow of this child's heart, and was more refreshed and encouraged than I have been by any number of similar conversations with people my age. Because what is ungratefulness, other than the conviction that you ought to have more happiness than you do have? That others ought to be doing more for your happiness? That the state of the universe ought to be more conducive to your happiness? And yet it is ingratitude that causes perpetual misery in day to day life. Today, I needed to hear about the gratitude of a child.