Changing the world
2008-06-15Recently, I read the book Our America by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman. This book drew from the two recording projects that these two boys were involved with:
You have to register on the site to listen to these pieces, but it’s free! (They are also available here and here.)
Ghetto Life 101 was just a trip around the projects, which was harsh enough, but Remorse was about the murder of Eric Morse, a five-year old boy who was dropped from a 14-story building in the projects by two older boys because he tattled on them. Now, when I say “older”, I mean “ages 10 and 11″.
And the book had pictures, too, taken by a friend of these two boys. So they roamed their neighborhood with camera and recorders, asking people about their lives and about how the murder affected them.
Troubling material.
It was all the more troubling because of the constant presence of the false gospel of success. “You’ll get out of here,” people said. “You’re smart and good-looking. You’ll go to college and be better than this.” Your knowledge will save you. Your intelligence will save you. I would think that, in a place as bleak as these tenements, this false gospel would have expired. I guess not.
But, as I read between the lines of this book, seeing what was said and what was assumed, I discovered something profound.
LeAlan Jones never met his father.
Lloyd Newman’s father is a drunkard.
The father of one of the murderers was locked up at the time, imprisoned for domestic abuse.
The theme that knit together these heartbreaking stories of pain was a deep father-hunger.
In his book Ten Things You Can’t Say In America, Larry Elder makes the case that what is destroying the black community in America is illegitimacy. I remember my mother citing some study that showed that things began to go wrong when the illegitimacy rate hit 25% in the black community. She would then go on to point out that the illegitimacy rate among whites had hit 25%. And that was 15 years ago.
As Isaiah said:
Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, for what his hands have dealt out shall be done to him. My people–infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.
(Isaiah 3:11-12)
And yet…
The Spirit of God is at work in our nation. Over the last several years, I’ve seen a growing emphasis by Christians on masculinity and fatherhood. It’s a messy process, to be sure. There’s a lot of work to do and, let’s face it, men aren’t always civil and polite. And yet, that is exactly what we need: men who are willing to be men, acting with courage, forcefulness, and fortitude in order to take up their place as servant-leaders in the home.
It doesn’t look like much. Mostly changing diapers, insisting (once again!) that your son get to bed on time and not talk back to his mother, and trying to teach your children to listen to what God has to say about life while they mostly ignore you.
Yeah, it doesn’t look like much.
But it is changing the world. Because, if you look around, it is this very thing that so many lack.
Happy Father’s Day, eveyone.