When Bad Things Happen to Children

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On my SiriusXM show recently, I spoke about the meaning of life, and then I got this email from Lisa:

I heard part of your program today and you read about the different thoughts about the meaning of life… I’ve been thinking about that, too.

As the mother of a child who is dying of cancer, like many of us, we are losing our faith in a big powerful “daddy in the sky” that hears our prayers. I’ve heard from Christians that “God doesn’t give you what you can’t handle” but I can’t handle this. “God gives you strength to get through it” – no, He doesn’t. I’m about to lose my mind… the pain is much too great to bear. I hear that this is God’s plan, or that God needs another angel. If he needed another angel, he would just take one, HE WOULDN’T TORTURE THEM FIRST! How could he PLAN to put a child through this kind of HELL? What good could ever come out of this?

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month. We wear gold ribbons, but only 3% of cancer research goes to childhood cancers. Does anybody care? Is the meaning of life only to do research on the “popular” cancers because they are the ones that will make money for the one who finds the cure? My son’s cancer is so rare that he gets the same chemotherapy he would have had in the 1980s… it doesn’t get researched.

Please tell me what the meaning of life is!

If you look at God as a “big powerful daddy in the sky that hears [your] prayers” and will give you what you want, and if you are a good person, you can’t help but be disappointed on a daily basis. That doesn’t seem to be the way it works. 

I know no other pain on the face of the earth that is greater than a parent having to see their child suffer and die.   I think parents would rather they suffer and die and trade themselves in for their kids.  So, this is the worst torture, but this is not a test of God.  That someone’s child or husband or wife or parent or friend gets ill and dies is not a test of whether or not there is a God.  There isn’t a test of whether or not there is a God — that’s why it’s called “faith.” To say that “I’m dubious about God” because my prayers aren’t being answered in the way that I want, is, in my opinion, never to have understood faith in the first place, but just to have played a social role in which you call yourself “religious.” 

There is no explanation for these things.  And, I agree with Lisa when she writes:  “If he needed another angel, he would just take one, HE WOULDN’T TORTURE THEM FIRST!….What good could ever come out of this?”  I like that answer of hers.  I think telling somebody this is God’s plan is a little obnoxious and I always thought it was.  It’s your assumption God is planning this.  You have no proof of that.  People go back to the story of Job and what he had to suffer and Abraham who almost wiped out his own kid until God said, “I see you really love me.  You don’t have to do this.” 

There are some important concepts and issues here.  When any of us says “I can’t handle this,” yet we make it through every day, we are handling it.  “Handling it” doesn’t mean it feels good or it’s easy; “handling it” usually means we are surviving it and doing the best we can.

I don’t understand all of the mass murders of the world — Stalin, Pol Pot, Germany, Japan. I don’t understand how that’s God’s will or God’s plan. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either.  And I don’t know how to put it together.  I don’t know how it’s God’s plan to have little children put in ovens and killed.  Or mommies and their children shot to death and put into a hole in the ground, naked.  I don’t understand how any of that is God’s plan.  So, I have no answer to that. 

This was not a theological thing where I was going to explain what life really means, other than there’s always been horror.  It’s like the horror films you see in the movies where there’s evil and someone in the church or somebody else finally squelches the evil and at the end you see the evil creeping up through the ground again. 

There is evil, there is disappointment, there is pain, there is everything.  So, ultimately, whether you really believe in God or not, we really need to hold on to each other.  There is something about touching the hand of another who corroborates your pain.  That’s why with parents in this situation, I always tell them to find other parents in this situation.  They will be the first ones to hug you and they won’t get tired of hearing from you like other relatives will.  It’s not they get tired, per se, it’s just they can’t do anything to help and it’s upsetting, so they don’t want to hear it anymore.  They are not being bad, they just don’t know how to fix it. They feel guilt and they feel uncomfortable and then they start feeling anger.  So, to go to people who have been there and done that is the way we hold on to each other.  Some people call that behavior the way God helps you go through things which are inexplicable. 

So, let’s not call bad things that happen “God’s plan,” because that hurts people.  God planned to hurt my kid?  You’re gonna tell me, there’s some higher power and I’m supposed to rise above that pain and say absolutely “I adore you?”  I think it’s a horrible thing to tell people.  I don’t think it’s good to tell kids God’s an all-powerful “daddy in the sky” who can do anything.  Well, then why isn’t he doing it for me?  I don’t like when people walk out of a bus that just been in a crash and they are alive and everyone else is dead and they say, “but for the grace of God.”  What the heck does that mean?  God intentionally wiped them out and kept you?

I think we want to feel special like we feel to a parent.  God is some kind of extension of parenthood.  We sometimes don’t realize how cruel we sound.  So, here’s my frame of reference for all of this.  There are evil things people do because they are evil.  There are horrible things that happen just because there are horrible things that happen.  The human body has weaknesses and that’s just the way it is.  There aren’t cures for everything because we are not good enough yet to produce them.  It’s hard to get money for things only a few people suffer from – Lisa is right about that.

The bottom line is we’ve got to hold on to each other.  That’s the immediate salvation: to hold on to each other’s love, support, and kind feeling.  It’s irrelevant if bad things are happening or not.  The way to make it through life, I believe, is to really be compassionate and to be open to compassion.  That’s what helps you get through the things that are inexplicable and horrible.

Baptists Need to DO Something About the Phelps Family

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I’m certain you’ve heard of the vile, blasphemous, ferociously mean, insensitive, disgusting and downright evil actions of the members of the Phelps family of Topeka’s Westboro Baptist church – a group of trash who give Christianity a seriously bad name.  This group travels all over the country, protesting at military funerals, and saying that “the deaths of soldiers are God’s way of punishing the country for homosexuality.”  Motorcycle groups like the Patriot Riders travel to these funerals as well, to rev between these slime (who call themselves religious) and the suffering family and friends gathering for the funeral of an American hero, a son, a brother, a husband, or a friend.

I want to know whether there is any organization of Baptist churches which “pulls the member’s card” (if there is such a thing as Baptist excommunication).  If there isn’t one, there ought to be.  Where are the Baptist churches which send out their own members to stand between this evil group and the innocent?

Phil Roberts, President of the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri  has said:

“The Southern Baptist Convention has repeatedly stated its position on homosexuality.  The 2000 Baptist faith and message said Christians should oppose all forms of sexual immorality including adultery, homosexuality and pornography.  However, since 1980, various SBC annual meetings have passed ten resolutions related to homosexuality including one in 1985 testifying of God’s love for homosexuals.  It reads: ‘We affirm the Biblical injunction which declares homosexuals, like all sinners, can receive forgiveness and victory through personal faith in Jesus Christ.’

The difference between Fred Phelps and the Southern Baptists is vast.  Phelps has a heretical position because, indeed, we are commanded to go and make disciples of all people.  That means all religions, ethnicities, and moral categories, realizing that all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  Homosexuals need Jesus Christ just as everyone else does.  The sin of homosexuality is a forgiveable sin…..

….Phelps apparently is quite willing to do God’s work for God in terms of condemning them all to hell without mentioning that redemption awaits  everyone who comes to faith in Christ….

…[This] man is not representative of the Christian community.

I have a huge problem with this.  Roberts is arguing about whether or not homosexuality is a sin; whether it’s forgiveable.  This is so not the point!

Whatever your philosophical or spiritual religious notions are about homosexuality, these people supposedly representing the Baptist Church are going from funeral to funeral, disrupting the mourning, the pain, the lives, and the ceremonies to cherish a lost warrior in the name of their religion.  It is blasphemous to speak for God or do something evil in God’s name (and that’s from a little Jewish girl).

The Phelps family has been emotionally and psychologically terrorizing military families in mourning for years using the banner of free speech.  I love free speech (as you know if you listen to my program), but since you can’t yell “fire” in a movie theatre when there isn’t one, I propose we have laws that prohibit protests at funerals within a five mile radius.  The pieces of crap called the Phelps family would then be out of shouting distance, but still have their freedom of speech!

What triggered my writing about this is that one man, Ryan Newell had enough and apparently decided to do something about it since no one else would.  Mr. Newell is a decorated military veteran who lost both legs in an explosion in Afghanistan.  He received many medals for his service, including the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.  He is being charged with five misdemeanors, including stalking and three counts of criminal use of a firearm, as well as impersonating a law enforcement officer after he was found following a van that carried the Westboro church members.  The Westboro creeps say they feared for their lives.
What??  They can dish it out but can’t take it?  A number of lawyers have volunteered to defend Mr. Newell pro bono.  Good for them.

But I’m asking for more than lip service from the Baptist churches around the country.  This sort of reminds me of CAIR, the Council of American-Islamic Relations.  They go ballistic and start bullying and threatening any time someone speaks their mind about Islam.  I don’t, however, see them muscling the bad guys in their midst.  I don’t hear about it.  I don’t hear them digging out cells or undermining attempts to blow us up.  I don’t hear about that.  What I hear from CAIR is lip service – defensive, hostile, bullying lip service – and I want to hear MORE from the Baptist churches than the proclamation that “folks need to realize that this man is not representative of the Christian community.”   Why not put your body where your mouth is?  If he’s blaspheming God in your name for years and years and  years, I really have the expectation that you’d clean up your own house. 

I’m pretty exasperated with these people being allowed to do what they do.  It’s America – I know, they’re allowed to protest.  I get that, but where are the Baptist churches sending people in buses, trains, cars and planes every time the Phelps family announces that they are going to be somewhere?  I would expect Baptists to stand up against blasphemy and to stand up for the families of our fallen American heroes.  Lip service is bull.  Talk is cheap.  Do something about it.  Do something legal, do something moral, but do something.

The Misguided Standards of YouTube

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In the election last week, Missy Reilly Smith ran for Washington DC delegate to the United States House of Representatives (she lost to Eleanor Holmes Norton).  Smith ran largely as an anti-abortion candidate.

She ran 30 second ads which aired 24 times on local broadcast network affiliates across the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area, preceded by a 15 second warning (added by the station management) due to the shocking content.

What was the ad?
 
It was 30 seconds of still photos of aborted babies.  Dead babies ripped apart and sucked out of a mother’s womb aren’t very pretty, but they are real and should be shocking to a civilized society.  We can have daily abortions by the thousands, but we can’t look at exactly what is happening?
 
If you can’t look at it, perhaps you shouldn’t do it.

Ms. Smith’s 30 second ad was pulled from YouTube, which posted a notice that the video amounted to “a violation of YouTube’s policy on shocking and disgusting content.”

Ahhh.  Well, you should know what, for years, YouTube has not found shocking and/or disgusting content.

YouTube has been the long-term home for videos featuring calls to jihad by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born, Yemen-based cleric, who has played an increasingly public role in inspiring violence directly at….YOU.
 
 He has literally hundreds of videos preaching and urging Muslims everywhere to join in a worldwide holy war against…YOU.  And his videos have had millions of views.

So, let’s get this right.  Actually seeing the results of an abortion are unacceptable on YouTube, but years of videos calling for the deliberate murder of Westerners is….what, free speech?  Terrorist recruitment videos featuring Islamic fighters with guns and rockets is free speech?

A YouTube spokesperson said they are trying to distinguish videos that are merely offensive from those that cross the line of their rules prohibiting “dangerous or illegal activities such as bomb-making, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts” or that come from accounts “registered by a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization” or used to promote such a group’s interest.  That rule seems clear enough.  So why did it take years and years of international begging for YouTube to remove last week some – some – of the hundreds of videos featuring calls to jihad by a creep playing an increasingly public role in inspiring violence directed toward….YOU?

I wish I knew the answer.  I wish I understood why a video of aborted babies got axed immediately, while several governments and individuals have struggled for years to get these jihad videos off YouTube.  I wish I knew why there is so much tolerance for this jihadist hate and violence, and so little for the fate of aborted babies.
 
I wish I knew.

Fatwa Issued Against Seattle Cartoonist

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I feel so very sorry for Molly Norris.  She is the Seattle cartoonist who, tongue in cheek, made a declaration that April 10, 2010 should be known as “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.”

As you may know, Islam does not permit renditions of Mohammed.  Worse than putting pressure on her newspaper to fire her for her insensitive comment, she is now on a “hit list” – that’s right…a fatwa has been issued by the Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the imam who’s been indicated as inspiring the Fort Hood, Texas massacre as well as the plot by two New Jersey men to kill U.S. Soldiers.  Anwar al-Awlaki singled out Molly Norris as a “prime target,” saying “her proper abode is hellfire.”

The FBI Special Agent, David Gomez, told reporters that “We understand the absolute seriousness of a threat from an Al Qaeda…and are attempting to do everything in our power to assist the individuals on that list to effectively protect themselves and change their behavior to make themselves less of a target.”

She has been told to “go ghost,” meaning moving, changing her name, and wiping away her identity.  Her life, as she knows it, is gone, or her life will literally be gone.

Our government is not going to protect her; she’s out on her own, a target of religious bigotry and tyranny.

Granted, this was a blatantly offensive comment — I know something about being offensive without specifically intending to do so – but when an American is put on a hit list by a religious leader of a community that argues it is pro-peace, it makes one wonder if words are meaningful when actions are contrary to those words.

I call on all Muslims around the world to crack down on Muslims killing Muslims, and Muslims killing infidels.  This is not civilized and cannot be negotiated with.  Only other Muslims can force their brethren to value free speech and opposing opinions, even objectionable ones…especially objectionable ones.

Judging Others Is Not Competing With God

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Have you heard the comment “It’s not right to make judgments about others?”  That was the topic that came up in a playgroup discussion, and one of the moms in that group wanted my opinion:

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura.

Read transcript here.

It’s About Time, Pope Benedict

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The Catholic Church has been under attack (some call it persecution) for the world-wide travesty of Catholic priests molesting boys (mostly), or turning a blind eye to the priests who do.  The stories of offending priests molesting hundreds of children over decades are mind-boggling, and often, the priests were just moved along to some other location to molest again.

The more recent scandal if widespread molestation of children by priests throughout Europe has been a kind of “last straw” for many who have watched the Church blame the media, pro-choice groups, and pro-gay marriage advocates for the scandal.

Well, bless Pope Benedict XVI.  Just recently, he blamed the sins for the clerical abuse scandal on his own Church, and not on a campaign mounted by outsiders.

“The greatest persecution of the Church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside, but is born from the sins within the Church,” the pontiff said, according to the Associated Press.  “The Church needs to profoundly re-learn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness, but also justice.”

The AP goes on to say that despite the Vatican’s initial, defensive response to hundreds of clerical sex abuse reports in Europe, Benedict has promised that the church would take action to protect children and make abusive priests face justice.  He has already started cleaning house, accepting the resignations of a few bishops who either admitted they molested youngsters or covered up for the priests who did.

It’s about time!  It is about time that this crimson line be crossed, and the Church ferociously weeds out its molesters and those who stood by (who, in my opinion, are more horrendous than the perpetrators).  The Church should have its own internal Inquisition – without the torture, but definitely with the firings – and fingers should be pointed and steps should be taken to eliminate this rot from their midst.

I’m hoping that Pope Benedict will walk the talk.  Meanwhile, I give him major props for saying the right thing.

Bravery in the Face of Home Grown Terrorism

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Two recent acts of bravery bring up a clear point:

1.  A nine year old boy in a Southern town was in the passenger seat of his parents’ car with three siblings all under the age of three in the back.  His mother darted into a convenience store, and a huge man (who was lurking nearby) jumped into the driver’s seat, i.e., it was a car-jacking in the works.  The nine year old had the courage and the presence of mind not to be “politically correct” which would have meant sitting quietly and obeying an adult.  Nope, not at all.  This kid grabbed the car keys and held them tight to his right side.  The would-be carjacker hit the boy’s head against the passenger door in an attempt to get the keys, and failed as the boy was resolute.  As the boy said later, “I didn’t want my family to be taken.”  The car-jacker ran from the car, fell, and was apprehended by police who had been called from the convenience store.

2.  A young female (of course I’m proud) civilian police officer stopped an Army officer from continuing his murders of Fort Hood soldiers by standing up to him and shooting him numerous times while being shot three times herself.  Unfortunately, except for military police (MPs) and civilian police, soldiers on a base do not carry weapons, and are, therefore, sitting ducks for the murderous rampage of “one of their own.”  As it turns out, by all media reports, the history of this so-called American Army officer was clearly one of a terrorist. 

There was a history of his radical Muslim ideology.  Reports against him had been made, but political correctness ruled the day.  Because he had worshipped at a mosque with a radical imam who allegedly had made contact with two of the 9/11 hijackers and had written on the Internet Muslim extremist comments (which, I understand, included a defense of suicide bombers), had tried to indoctrinate patients and his school mates even complained about the political leanings of his class assignments and so much more, was no reason, many authorities have said, to assume he was a home-grown terrorist.  That political correctness caused the death of 13 and serious injury to dozens.  Never mind the fear it has generated on bases around the country and the world where the bullet or bomb can come from the “inside.”

Instead of facing this threat (and please do remember the plots that were foiled against other military bases on American soil in the past several years), we are being told not to “jump to conclusions.”  Well, without jumping to the correct conclusions in a timely manner, hanging on instead to political correctness (meaning that no one should criticize or profile), our military men and women and their families have a good reason to be afraid and angry.  They pay the price.

That nine year old boy didn’t sit complacently and be a “good boy.”  He took charge to protect his own.  We should do the same for our military and their families.  Those who have expressed at any time any philosophy resembling radical Islamic hate should be marginalized, scrutinized, put under surveillance, and supervised.

The first obligation of the American government is not “Cash for Clunkers.”  It’s for the safety of the populace.  The morale of our military took a large hit when they discovered that they were not safe from worldwide terrorists at their own desks. 

Dump all that “PTSD by proxy” nonsense.  Look at the truth, without which we are neither free nor safe.

Fleeing From Life-Saving Cancer Treatment

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Police authorities are on a nation-wide search for a mother and her 13-year-old cancer-stricken son who fled after refusing chemotherapy that doctors say could save the boy’s life.  The two left their Minnesota home after a doctor’s appointment and X-ray showed his tumor had grown.  A court has issued an arrest warrant (ruling the mother in contempt of court), and has ordered that the boy be placed in foster care and immediately evaluated for treatment by a cancer specialist . 

His parents insist on alternative medicines, citing religious beliefs.  That led authorities to seek custody, as the court ruled that the boy’s parents were medically neglecting their son, as his form of cancer is considered highly curable with chemotherapy and radiation.

The parents believe in the philosophy of the Nemenhah Band, a Missouri-based religious group that believes in natural healing methods with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionized water and such.  However, lately the dad has jumped ideological ships and is now agreeing that his son needs the best treatment with a doctor of medicine.

All over the blogosphere, you can read arguments as to whether or not the court should be able to countermand the parents.  My opinion?  Absolutely yes…when it is clear that the child is in imminent harm and there are the means to rescue him.

This child is in imminent harm because of his parents and the cancer itself.  Since the cancer is likely curable, it is unconscionable for his life to be taken by parents who choose some extreme religious views which put their child on the road to death.  Secondly, the child, 13, cannot read due to some learning disability.  I question whether or not the parents helped him with that problem either.  Since the boy cannot read, he is relying on the “wisdom” of his parents, who are not giving him the truth, which is “chemo will save you and herbs will let you die in pain.”

Personally, I am very respectful of most (not all) religious views.  I am completely disrespectful of religious views which result in taking the life of an innocent – in this case, robbing the life of an innocent child.