It’s taken a long time to write this column. Rather, it’s taken nearly forever before I sat down and actually wrote it. Reflecting on brutality and atrocity is not something easily addressed in a new and fresh light.
It’s non-controversial. Who’s in favor of savagery? It’s not like scores of you will be motivated to fire off vituperative letters to the editor extolling the virtues of barbarism.
Another reason for delaying this epistle was my thinking: how is God viewing all this mayhem? God must be crying over the hurt and pain that His children are suffering. Attempting to speak for God is not only presumptuous, it’s dangerous and abject stupidity. Such matters don’t deter yours truly. But, in this case, I feel confident that God hardly supports the grotesque acts we hear and read daily.
How often do we learn about child and spousal abuse, drive-by shootings, gang killings, abductions, rapes, mutilations, and more? It hurts so much to hear these accounts -- at first. But do we become anesthetized by such repetitious reports of rapacity?
Maybe we even become somewhat accustomed to this craziness, if that’s possible. Do we get hurt or angry anymore? Do we want or try to get even? Or do we merely say, ‘tsk-tsk, just another day,’ and go numbly about our business?
Unfortunately, I’ve fallen into the last category. Sure, I grieve, to some extent, for those victims, but I still follow my normal routine. Heaven forbid that I break up when I go sleep, arise, and perform household chores.
I haven’t changed my life to help the lives of others. Whenever I wonder whether I should, the answer is obvious, so I stop thinking.
Recently, however, my church Bible study class learned of one Southeast, DC, woman’s crusade to help kids. She’s Hannah Hawkins and she founded and runs Children of Mine, a non-profit youth center near the Anacostia metro station. Hers is a 24-hour-a-day ministry designed to give young ones safety, security, and love. She teaches manners and limits, but mostly she’s selling hope and acting as everyone’s super mom.
My Bible class just finished our first work day at the center. One day. A few measly hours. Can that really make a difference? Or do accidental assistants like us cause more pain than progress? Of course, this raises hard and haunting questions about how much or little anyone should do to improve our lots in life or, at least, to prevent them from getting any worse.
Sometimes it’s hard to go about my day knowing that the depravity around me requires much more than my paltry and intermittent response. It’s equally difficult, too, to discard worldly concerns and obligations to serve others selflessly no matter how noble than may be. Not only does that clearly expose my shortcomings, it also clearly illustrates the quiet greatness of people like Ms. Hawkins. And thank goodness there are as many of them around as there are. We need more, but imagine how poor things could be if we weren’t blessed by our current supply.
Thinking of the way the world is and could be is cause enough for tears. But reflecting upon our response to that need is downright depressing. Not everyone possesses to the sturdy character, self-assurance, and constitution of Hannah Hawkins. For most of us it takes time to develop, to learn our purpose on this planet. It takes much longer that it did for me to write this article.
Too often all I do is cry. Cry over the hurt, inhumanity, and hopelessness. Cry over lost lives and souls and pray that someone or something can save us.
Maybe someday even I can move from prayer to action. I just wonder how long that will be.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
Approximately 620 words.
(c) 1996