My Daughter, Morality and Osama Bin Laden

The popular sentiment with most people not named Ella. Courtesy of Pulitzer Prize-winning AJC cartoonist Mike Luckovich.

I’ll admit that last night, amid the breaking news report that Osama Bin Laden was dead, my first reactions weren’t the greatest. They ranged from “Really? Why is this news?” to “Wow. Desperate ploy to manipulate the American people.” In short, I was a selfish brat last night, and myopic to boot. Some gracious people set me straight (both of whom I’ve invited to guest write a post for the blog) and I’ve learned my lesson, which – handily enough – Mark Twain* espoused so succinctly:

“Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

*The quote is attributed to Twain in at least four different versions, and has also been attributed to Abraham Lincoln and Confucius. The overall thought seems to come from Proverbs 17:28.

Suffice it to say, I won’t be offering many further musings on the geopolitical ramifications of the death of Bin Laden (and I’ll follow the lead of the esteemed New York Times and not refer to him as “Mr.” either). Instead, I’ll just leave you with my parenting conundrum from my car ride with Ella this morning.

I was listening to the radio, trying to hear what I could about the overnight developments in the Bin Laden story. I shushed Ella two or three times, and finally she couldn’t take anymore.

“Why do you keep shushing me, daddy?”

“Because, Ella, I’m trying to listen to the news.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s a very important news story happening right now, and I would like to hear the details.”

“What’s the story, daddy?”

Now, if you’ve read this blog long enough, or if you happen to know me in general, you know that I typically don’t duck tough questions from my kid and I normally don’t “kid-friendly”* the answers to tough questions. This morning, I wanted to. But, since I had snapped at her an been a bit of a jerk I decided she deserved an honest (albeit complex) answer to the question.

*By kid-friendly, I mean those people who lie to their kids instead of answering the question honestly. I soften my answers for her age-level, as I believe is appropriate, and try to make sure I thoroughly explain my answer to her satisfaction. And I try to do this with all kids, not just my own, so beware if your kid decides to ask me a question…

“The story is about a man who killed a lot of people. They’re trying to tell us that he’s dead.”

“How did he die?”

“Well, some very special soldiers tracked him down and killed him.”

Probably could’ve used some more time to polish that answer, in retrospect. And I certainly should’ve known that the inevitable “Why?” was coming. But as I mentioned above, I wasn’t exactly on my game with regard to this issue, and Ella caught me flatfooted with her next question:

“Why was it okay to kill him?”

Now, I could’ve taken the easy way out, and to some degree I did. In this instance, “He was a bad man” would be an almost perfect answer to the question. Ella knows that there is good and bad, right and wrong, and that people who do good get rewarded while people who do bad tend to fall off of high places and die murky, unseen deaths (call it the Disney Effect; see Beauty, Sleeping; also White, Snow; and Beast, Beauty and the). All I had to do was lay the trump card down, and the discussion, for the most part would have been over.

But as I said: I wasn’t on my game. Instead, I blurted out, “I don’t know, Ella. I guess because he was a bad man.”

I probably would’ve been okay, if not for the first part: I don’t know. It was an admission of unease, of moral ambiguity, or at the very least a sign of mental distress. My daughter doesn’t like ambiguity (she gets that from her mother) and so she pounced on my unfinished certainty.

“Why don’t you know, daddy? Was it wrong to kill that bad man?”

Seriously – where do you go with a five year-old on this? I’ve had conversations on Facebook this morning with adults who don’t have that question’s answer nailed to the ground with complete certitude. How in the heck do you break down the moral arguments contained within this single, simple statement? Perhaps I’m over-thinking the whole thing, but I don’t want Ella to grow up as someone incapable of parsing the shades of grey, and there’s certainly some to be found in this action.*

*Again, I’m staying away from this as a larger post, mainly because the death of Bin Laden has multiple meanings on many fronts. But in this narrow context of trying to teach a five year-old the way of the world, I wrestle with teaching her to see the world purely in black and white, particularly when there are so many people who can manipulate the facts to their own advantage. I’d rather wrestle with the tough questions now than see her get sucked in by someone’s horrific rhetoric later on because I settled on only teaching her “Us good, them bad” when she was little.

We were running out of time and road for the discussion, so I knew I would have to find some way of wrapping things up that would A, allow me to answer the question and B, allow me to answer it in a way that wouldn’t force the teacher to call me later on and ask why my daughter was talking about the death of a terrorist during “Story Time with Archie the Fluff Bug.” My brain was going ninety to nothing. I was drowning. The utter helplessness was terrifying. Finally I just tossed this out to her:

“Ella, I think killing that man was the right thing for our country, and the men and women who did it were brave and selfless. Sometimes, honey, we have to make hard choices.”

I could see her face in the rearview mirror; she was thinking about those words. And somehow (the grace of God?) she accepted that answer as sufficient. She nodded, fiddled with her shoelaces, and then reminded me that she didn’t want to walk in the back door with me – she wanted to be dropped off in the carpool line “like a princess.” (Continued fallout from the Royal Wedding, I suppose.)

She hopped out of the car with a smile and went inside to school, where I’m hoping she’ll never have a second’s thought on the topic we discussed. But it’s stuck with me, as a father and pastor and American citizen. In the end, I think it was the right thing for our country. It still leaves me with some questions, but I wrestle with questions all the time.

Where Was God Last Night?

Click and follow this link - the video is amazing.

If you live in the South, chances are you spent a good deal of last night sitting up and monitoring the news – either online or on TV or, if you’re old school, on the radio. The terrifying storm system that swept across the lower half of the U.S. was of such magnitude that it commanded people to pay attention. I posted on Facebook this morning, it’s like Sherman marched through the South again, only this time he had control of the weather.

There’s nothing much to laugh at. The region is grim this morning, with over 200 confirmed dead between Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Reports are only beginning to really trickle in because we’ve only just been able to accurately assess the damage under the light of day. But I know, because I’m human, and because I asked this question myself, that people everywhere in the South are asking, “Where was God last night?”

And I’m not just talking about those people who don’t believe in God, or have a grudge against Him. I’m talking about people who have spent the majority of their lives worshiping or praising Him. I’m talking about grown men and women who have seen trouble come and go, and younger men and women who’ve never known a moment’s distress. Our sincerity in our faith tends to go out the window when an EF5 roars through town picking up cherished landmarks and turning them into memories before we can blink.

I can only offer the light answer that God was in control last night. He was present in the storm and saw every house that blew away, every car that flipped, every river that broke its banks and raced into a home or business. He was present in the destruction of malls and gas stations and Milo’s Hamburgers and was there when roofs caved in and walls collapsed. He was, without question, there.

And that presence makes us angry. If He was there, why didn’t He prevent this? If He was there, why didn’t He answer my prayer for my house to be saved? If He was there, then why is my grandmother still missing? Why is my daughter not answering her phone? Why is my church a heap of unrecognizable rubble?

Why? It’s the cry of the human heart.

And I can’t offer you an answer, at least not one that will satisfy in the mere seconds after grief. Answers of that magnitude, unfortunately for our hurting hearts, are only ascertained through the passage of time. I can’t tell you why God was present but your house was destroyed. I can’t explain why the compassionate God didn’t intervene in the moment you cried out to Him, any more than I can explain how He stood on a stormy lake and called out, “Peace! Be still!” and the storm obeyed Him.

But I can offer you this, even though it won’t restore what you’ve lost: there are reports of people who survived when logic and physics dictate that they shouldn’t have. I read a note on Facebook last night of a woman and her husband who pulled beneath a gas station shelter, only to watch as a swirling cloud of debris and lightning overtook their car but passed by leaving them unharmed. I saw pictures this morning of people who took refuge in a building that completely collapsed on them from every angle, but who crawled to safety without a scratch on them. I’ve read stories and seen video of people who watched or videotaped as a tornado raged through their town but who never felt so much as a breeze. There are people who came through this night of destruction only because, as one “act of God” devastated some places, another act of God kept them safe where they were.

Why? It’s a question we ask, but usually only when we feel like we’ve been the victim of cosmic unfairness. We feel slighted, betrayed, and I can’t deny those feelings are real because I’ve felt them myself.

But I suppose the thing I’ve learned is this: if you can still ask why, even if it seems like all is lost, that the road ahead is impossible to travel, if you can still ask why, then you’ve been blessed. Because there are over 200 people today who aren’t here to ask that question, because asking “Why?” requires that we draw breath and live.

Where was God? Present, active, and merciful in the storm. May the strength of His grace overpower your grief and offer you hope wherever you are today.

Prayer For Alabama – And For Us

This is Tuscaloosa, Alabama a few hours ago. My wife has friends and family there, and the news isn’t good. The city is devastated, with several buildings simply gone. It only gets worse from there; the damage across the state, and all over the Southeast, is unspeakable. And it touches home in so many ways – our associate pastor’s wife has family in Cordova, Alabama and while her family is safe, she’s heard that her hometown has been obliterated. And the night isn’t over yet.

The storm line is moving rapidly into Atlanta, where I live, and the news reporters are all over the TV trying to emphasize just what’s coming our way. In some ways, it feels like a scene from an apocalyptic movie – people breathlessly watching the skies as an unknown and unstoppable force moves through the night devastating the people in its path.

I’m not the hysterical type – I tend to think that I’ll just go to bed here in a bit and wake up tomorrow like nothing ever happened. But for thousands of people tonight, the words I spoke to my students just an couple of hours ago seem freakishly prescient:

“Every day is life or death. We tend to think that everything is fine because we live comfortable lives with homes and cars and food. But for countless people all over the world, they don’t know when their next meal will come. Or if they get a next meal, whether or not that meal will kill them. There are places on earth where the next child born has a 99% chance of having HIV or AIDS and most likely won’t live past 16 years old. Life and death. We live with that reality every day. And God knows this. He knows and it’s why He isn’t content for us to come to Him; it’s why He left his glory behind and came to earth to take our sin on himself – and not just the sin of the people who would believe, but even the ones who would spit and cuss and deny God with their last breath. God died for them anyway because He loves them, and wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Life or death. We really do live on that edge. May God grant grace for those who find that edge too thin this evening, and may His people show compassion to those left behind.

The Meaning Of The Resurrection

Sorry you're starving kids - that's the way the cold, indifferent universe bounces...

I know that most people don’t want to read what an unknown pastor has to say about the penultimate day in human history, so I’ll keep this brief.

This morning, as our Senior Pastor was preaching, he mentioned a trip that he took to a Habitat for Humanity site where they had re-created examples of homes from different areas of the world where Habitat builds. Tommy went on to detail the decrepit conditions that many people live with: the substandard materials used for construction, the lack of needed space, the indignity of having to use the toilet in the same space where meals are prepared – the list went on and on. The pastor then went on to describe how the Habitat houses, while far from palatial, were so much better – the space, the materials, the expertise in construction – that people were overjoyed to receive one for their family.

Tommy’s point was that we have it much better here in the U.S. than most people in the world (indeed, the fact that we could even have Easter worship services puts us light years ahead of the Chinese) and we should be grateful for that, but not get lulled into think this life is all there is. Tommy highlighted that for many believers the hope of the Resurrection for all believers is what makes this life bearable and gives joy to their present sufferings.

My mind went in a different direction, but one that’s certainly relevant on this Easter Sunday:

There are in this world a certain class of people, privileged and monied by the standards of most of the world, who are making a pretty penny off telling people that there is no God. That the world is just the result of pitiless, indifferent chance and that people get what they get and shouldn’t look to some imaginary “god” to make life meaningful. I thought about these men and women (though to be honest, mostly the men, since I can’t think of any women who sling this screed in the papers like Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al.) and their virulent dislike for the Christian God and the Christian believers in general. I thought about how they would address the person living in a mud hut with no hope for a better life, no chance to live as these rich atheists live, and wondered how much their anti-god screed really has to offer someone who longs for a life of even hope.

I thought about it, and my heart broke, because with atheism there is no hope. There is only life. There is only what is, and if what is sucks beyond all comprehension, well, sorry friend – the mechanistic roll of the dice screwed you. Hope you like thatch roofs and all, because there’s no one coming to save you.

Sure, there are altruistic atheists, but let’s face it: the name of the game – if there is no god, if there is no moral authority to push people towards a higher good – is survival, and why should I give to someone else when me and my genetic successors will eventually be in need.

I don’t want to sound all anti-atheist because I know several and I like them a lot. But this morning it struck me that the real meaning of the Resurrection is that “life goes on” – or, perhaps a bit more poetically, “life goes beyond.” This world isn’t all there is; there’s more to life than just what happens to us in the few decades we drift across this planet, and for those to whom a few decades may well seem like infinity, that is indeed good news. For the person with a broken heart, or the person with no reasonable expectation of a better life, or the person under the thumb of tyranny, the hope that comes through the Resurrection of Christ is hope that can sustain the human spirit for at least one more day, however many of those we may face.

I guess it just struck me that the people in the best position to tell other people they don’t need some god to help them are the people least likely to need any help at all. It’s easy to preach atheism from a first-class hotel or airline seat or crowded lecture hall in front of adoring fans.

But try preaching it to someone who’s very life is worthless without that god, to someone who suffers unimaginably day in and day out, with only the hope that some day it will all make sense to keep them sane.

There’s a reason why there are no atheist missionaries: what would they have to offer?

Day Four – I GOT This…(Uh, Not Really)

So today I felt like the world’s greatest dad. Got the kids ready on time, managed the day fairly well with regards to meeting some deadlines and appointments, even prepared a home-made beef tips and rice dinner complete with microwaved broccoli with cheese sauce. I even arranged for a fantastic sitter to stay with the kids so I could slip away for a little me-time with the softball team.

So, after four days of single parenting, I think I’ve got this. I’m good. Single parenting, though challenging, isn’t so hard.

Horse manure.

And anyone who says otherwise is either lying or not telling the truth. Sure, I’m doing pretty well, certainly much better than I let on (because hey, it’s not as funny to say “Everything’s fine!”), but the truth is I’m struggling, folks. And I’ve been blessed with the help of my father, who’s babysat Jon everyday this week with the exception of Monday, my mother, who helped me with the kids during our revival at church, a gracious employer that allowed for me to have some very flexible office hours, and a wonderful friend/babysitter named Haley Davis who’s stepped in to help me regain some semblance of sanity.

In other words, I’ve had it easier than a career politician.

I cannot imagine, literally CANNOT imagine, what it would be like to do this act truly solo. No help from family or friends, no gracious bosses granting flexible hours, no church providing two meals out of five for the week. I mean, can you? Unless you are a single parent, trying to live off of whatever income you have with whatever resources you can muster, there’s no way to know.

Trust me, I know not every marriage is a picnic, and there are some folks out there who have spouses who might as well not exist. I get it, and it’s a tough row to hoe, and in some ways even tougher. But at least your kids have another person to go to on occasion. At least there’s another person there that you can talk to or discuss things with – even if the discussions end up in screaming matches, at least you were able to speak words into the air for another human being to hear and have to consider because they share your predicament.

But for someone who’s single, there is no one else. There’s only you and the kids and the walls. And the walls don’t give a crap if you can’t pay for them, because they go on being walls whether you live within them or not.

I had a good day, but only because I have a lot of help, and because my kids, by the grace of God, are pretty well behaved and easy-going. Sure, Ella can put me through the Death of 1,000 Questions, but when I tell her to clean her room, she does. When I tell Jon to sit down in his chair, he does (at least 75% of the time). What if my kids weren’t so easy? What if they had a learning or physical challenge to overcome? What if one of them required constant watching because without it, they would hurt themselves?

What would I do then? Where would I turn?

I know I don’t have it all together. I don’t even have it all in the same room. I mean, seriously, look what I did to my daughter’s hair tonight before ballet:

Does a man who has it all together do this to his child? Sure, I would probably get better with practice, but my gracious, look at her! I mean, Lord love her, she took my hand and smiled and said, “It’s perfect daddy! Just what I wanted.” But seriously, wouldn’t a mother know how to make the pigtails at least even on the child’s head? And I know for darn sure that her mother wouldn’t have made her wince in pain as many times as I did; you’d have thought I was giving her a jailhouse tatt with pencil lead and a rusty nail, she cringed so often.

And to make matters worse, when we got to ballet, she explained to her teacher that I did her hair. The teacher smiled, told her she looked beautiful and once Ella was out of earshot, looked at me and said, “Not bad for a dad.”

Not bad for a dad. You may think, “Hey, nothing wrong with that.” But the look in her eyes (that sad, knowing look that women get whenever men venture into historically feminine territory) combined with the tone of her voice told me all I needed to know: “Not bad for someone who doesn’t know what the heck he’s doing.”

And there’s the truth. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m winging it, hoping to heaven that I’m not hurting the kids in some unforeseen psychological way. I’m praying and trusting that my motives are clear: that I love them and would die for them and will do whatever I can to make sure their lives are good and clean and include broccoli because you can’t just eat crap all the time. I’m doing the best I can, only I know that my best isn’t – and could never be – the best there is. There’s a reason why men and women tend to drift towards one another and flirt and woo and fall in love and settle down and make a home and have 2.78 kids.

Because that’s the best – for the kids, for the individuals, for the world. It doesn’t work that way in a broken world unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for it. It just means that we should treasure it when we see it, thank God for it when we live it, and shut up and grant grace to those who maybe weren’t so fortunate in their lives, but are now doing the best they can with what they have.

Because I guarantee you this: if it ever happens to you, you’ll understand.