The innocents

I’m writing a book; a new one written from the point of view of a seven year-old girl named Amelia. It’s difficult narrating because I am an adult, but I hope to get all the little snags worked out by the time I write The End.

The story revolves around Amelia's life after “the calamity”. Left in a world without adults (by all appearances), she must somehow get past the horror of losing her beloved parents, and of being left alone to fend for herself and make sense of the new world she has been thrust into.

When I began writing the opening lines a few weeks ago, the farthest thing from my mind was the plight of children everywhere. Children are innocent, and yet creative beyond what we who are grown can comprehend. Given the resources, I thought as I began to flesh out an outline, they could survive. That is where I began.

Today I see a wider and deeper real

world, one in which children are more in danger living among adults than if we all disappeared. Predators lurk everywhere, dressed as angels and knights and…Sadly, the majority are men. Without the protection of decent and active

adults, our children are, and will continue to be, in grave jeopardy.

When I was a child many years ago—thinking back on those days—I distinctly remember the doors of our house being left unlocked. As children, the neighborhood kids were shooshed out the front door to play each summer morning. Unless a fight erupted among the kids, the adults generally always left us to our own devices, un-fearful of the man who would come to prey on us. He must not have existed. Maybe he did, and maybe a child was lost to his depravity, but I don’t recall ever hearing about such an incident. At school there were no shadowy figures lurking near the playground or beyond the fence. There was no such thing as a registered sex offender. We were safe.

That isn’t so today. There is real and justified fear among parents (and grandparents) that to let a child outdoors unwatched is dangerous, if not a form of abuse itself. I’m not talking about toddlers who know nothing about speeding drivers, rather about six, seven, eight year-olds who have been schooled regarding the streets and the dangers traffic present. We would not consider allowing one of these, our children or grandchildren, go to the local park alone.

Yet even in the home the monsters exist, and so many children are subject to their evil. Recently at Facebook a group, or groups, was identified by someone. A child pornography ring putting up pictures, not of teens or sub-teens, but of young children. There is a movement initiated to force Facebook to police and eliminate these groups of predators. Even, especially

, via the internet our innocents are threatened.

And then there are those parents who through whatever twisted rationale will abuse their own flesh and blood. For the life of me I can’t see how this could happen; what kind of mind could entertain it. Physical as well as severe emotional abuse.

I am not a bible pounder. I find it difficult to even believe in God, especially a God who would permit this to happen, but I do recall the biblical verse that states something like, Woe be to him who does any harm to a child. It would be better for him that a millstone was tied around his neck and that he was cast into the deepest part of the sea.

Perhaps I remember that particular verse incorrectly?

Speaking of the bible. I noticed this morning that a man from Arkansas (it could have been Missouri or New York, or California) was running on the Republican ticket (it could have been the Democratic ticket—it makes little difference). Part of his platform has to do with the disciplining of children, and he espoused the idea that according to Deuteronomy it is our calling as wise parents to initiate the death penalty for incorrigible children. You read that correctly. If there is a God, he or she must be weeping. How was this man even able to get on a major party’s ticket?

So how do we open the doors of our homes again so that our children can run outside and be children? Or be allowed to stay inside and surf the wonders of the net safely if it's raining? Do we form vigilante groups to ferret out the registered sex offenders and string them up? No. We are civilized and live by law. How then do we eradicate the evil? I don’t know. That is part of the seemingly hopeless battle of good versus evil. I do know this, though: It is incumbent upon each and every decent human to cry out against the monstrous and growing threat to the safety of the innocents. There MUST exist a just and rational sword waiting to be drawn from the stone.


Patrick Sean Lee
October 8, 2012

Impressum

Texte: Patrick Sean Lee, (c) 2012
Lektorat: Patrick Sean Lee
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 09.10.2012

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Widmung:
To the children everywhere.