When my son was only three or four years old, we
rented “American Werewolf in London ” and
brought it home to watch. I remembered the film as light-hearted and funny,
never thinking for a moment what the impact might be of some of the gory stuff
on a young mind - he was the first kid, the experiment. We learned along the
way. We hadn’t watched very much when we realized it probably wasn’t
suitable for him, and stopped the tape until he’d gone to bed. After he
was asleep, the Hobbit and I resumed watching it. At one point, while the
protagonist is changing from human to lupine form, with his hand elongating into
a claw, complete with sprouting fur and nails, we heard a gasp behind us. The
Critter had woken up, and snuck back into the room just in time to see this
scene. I remember the look of wide-eyed shock on his face, a look of innocence
lost. He looked at us and said, “That can
happen?”
No, kiddo, we explained.
It’s just TV, just make-believe. There’s no such thing as
monsters.
But that really isn’t
true, is it?
When I came home from deployment, on September
14th 2001, aside from all the usual stresses that come from
re-uniting with a family long-used to making due in my absence, we had to find a
way to talk about what had happened a few days earlier. Some way that would make
sense to my two young daughters. And frankly I didn’t immediately trust
myself to talk about it with them, which was probably a mistake. But I was still
choked with emotion myself, and because I’m a guy I don’t deal with
that very well, and I didn’t have an answer to the “that can
happen?” question in their shining eyes that made sense, even to
me.
The older of the two was ten years
old, and used to love to put jigsaw puzzles together. She got one the next week,
and started right to work on it. And although she has always loved them, and has
great powers of concentration, she really put a lot of effort into this one. As
it took form, I started to understand why – it was the New York skyline,
before 9/11. When she got to the part of the puzzle that included the WTC, she
kept taking it apart and putting it back together again. Trying to make sense of
it. Trying to fix it, to make it better. She’d put it together, and smooth
her little hand across it. There. Then she’d frown in thought, and take it
apart and put it back together again. And pat it down again, like the magic
powers of an imaginative 10 year old could make it all go away. And I
couldn’t instantly think of a way to stop her, or even if I should and it
broke my heart.
My younger daughter
suddenly became interested in the “Twin Towers,” and New York, as
had all her classmates. She’d ask about how tall they were, but you could
tell that wasn’t the question she was really asking – she simply
lacked the vocabulary to ask how this could happen, and what did it mean. She
lacked a vocabulary for evil. There were crayon drawings of tall buildings, and
flowers and the ocean and the sun, but no airplanes. They didn’t want to
draw any airplanes.
So eventually we had
to talk it out, because nothing grows in a child’s heart like the fear
their parents won’t even name. I had to explain that were bad people in
the world, people that hated us for what we were, people willing to hurt us.
“Like monsters,” the youngest
added.
“Kind of like that,” I
answered. But then I added that they didn’t have to worry, that their dad
and all his friends would make sure that it wouldn’t happen again. That
dad had lots of friends who were really strong and really good about this kind
of thing, protecting good people, and punishing bad ones.
And I really hope that’s true. But
I am not sure that it is, and hope as they say, is not a strategy. So I can
understand it when other people take more active measures, such as the ones the
Israeli government recently used to kill a monster .
Quick: Name me a terrorist leader who
has lost one of his children to martyrdom. His
own
children. Fine, I’ll give you some time…
Anyone?
Give you a little help (from Bret
Stephens, in today's WSJ, subscription
required):
"To date, there
has not been a single instance in which a Hamas leader sent one of his own sons
or daughters on a suicide mission. I once interviewed a Hamas leader, since
deceased, as he bounced his one-year-old girl on his knee. Contrary to myth,
this was not a man who was afraid of nothing. Unsparing as he was with the lives
of others, he was circumspect when it came to the lives of his
own."
So yeah, I think it takes a monster
to hand someone else’s children over to bomb makers, while sheltering your
own. It takes a monster to send that child, his mind filled with venom, in the
midst of people just trying to get to work, or school, or home, with a backpack
filled with explosives and poised soaked nails. It takes a monster to hold up
that child’s acts as worth of emulation, and postulate that a loving,
merciful God will hold a special place in heaven open for him. And I cannot find
it in my heart to shed a tear for dead
monsters.
--------------------------
Imagine
that 9/11 happened every other week or so, right here at home. Or is that too
horrible to contemplate? OK – how about Oklahoma City? Imagine that every
week to ten days something like that happened, right there in the state that you
and your family live in. And every time it happened and you heard the sirens
your blood ran cold, and you tried to call your loved ones on the cell phone but
couldn’t get through, because everyone else was calling too and the system
was overwhelmed. And each time you told your kids it would be OK, and that you
would protect them, and punish those responsible, but you didn’t really
believe it yourself, and you knew that they didn’t really believe you
either. Until everyone you knew had lost someone, and some had lost everyone,
and you knew that your time was just about come. You knew that the odds were
against you, that one of these times it would be someone you loved. Only a
matter of time.
And now imagine that the
people responsible for these atrocities were operating in plain view, in the
next state over, but that that state’s government wouldn’t do
anything about it because they had their own problems, and anyway there was this
ongoing dispute about property lines and water rights. And when you talked to
those in power over there, their mouths would frown about how regrettable it all
was, but in their eyes you could see that they were measuring you for your
coffin.
What would you be prepared to
do?
So Sheik Yassin got his martyrdom,
which is what he said he always wanted . I guess a part
of me wishes that it hadn’t happened. Not because he didn’t deserve
it. But because the Israelis (and perhaps we ourselves) don’t deserve
what’s probably going to happen because of
it.
But then again, we never did.
Posted @
08:24 PM
|
Posted in
""
|
Sendit
|
Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
