Use it or lose it: your mind!

Just when we thought the pendulum couldn't swing any further toward insanity in dealing with gun facsimile- toting tots, we are proven wrong. A seven-year-old Maryland boy was suspended earlier this month for nibbling his pop-tart into the shape of a hand gun, aiming it at his classmate, and uttering the forbidden words "bang, bang." Predictably, the principal was quick to bring down the gavel on the "pop-tart terrorist."

Can any society endure this level of stupidity?

Well, now our elected officials here in Maryland, with obviously nothing more pressing to do, have introduced legislation to deal with such foolishness. "The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013" is designed to prevent principals from suspending or expelling students who make "a hand shape or gesture resembling a gun" or bring to school "any object that resembles a gun but serves another purpose."

Maryland State Senator, J. B. Jennings, who introduced the bill, explained, "These kids can't comprehend what they are doing or the ramifications of their actions."

The same could be said about the adults issuing the over-the-top consequences for this new "sin." The harsh and irrational treatment, as well as the recorded suspensions on the children's permanent record could have lasting effects on their education. Some children even have probation officers and a police record!

This is the culture that adults have created for the children. We have created mega-hit violent video games that many experts claim alter a child's sense of reality, and blatant sexual content in the media that is proven to have ramifications, and our "leaders" are worried about imaginary guns? Is this perhaps an attempt to indoctrinate children in a worldview that demonizes firearms, instead of rooting out genuine diseases of our culture? This is a distraction!

If politicians and school officials really want to correct the problem of violence, they are going to have to go much deeper than throwing the book at imaginative children brandishing pretend guns.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. For example, gun ownership is common in Norway, yet Norway, a country of almost 5 million, has one of the lowest per-capita homicide rates in Europe. So what is our problem? It is much deeper than imaginary guns!  When a chronic sickness isn't healed, the symptoms do not go away. The same could be said about so called, gun control. People intent on doing harm will use other weapons at their disposal: their fists, baseball bats, knives, cars . . . planes.

It might be an appropriate time to mention that I have never owned a gun. Nor have I ever been outraged or terrified when a student at the high school where I work holds his fingers to his head like a gun in what has always been an innocuous show of boredom. Should I alert the deputy (another band-aid) now employed in the school system?

It is a pretty safe bet that finger, paper, or pop-tart guns have never harmed anyone. But the evidence of harm on young minds is mounting against the devastating results of media violence and graphic sexual content. Why is there no public or political outcry to ban these "weapons"? Why are parents shirking their duties of supervision ("super"  vision—think about it!) American schools have declined and are currently rated "average" globally, even though per-student spending is the highest in the world, with no close seconds. Something is out of kilter.

Instead of treating imaginative child's play as a pathology, we need to spend our time and money solving real problems. My blog is called "Consider it all joy" for a reason. I am sure that God is in control. He is relentlessly calling us back to Him. Jesus said, "Love God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind. Let us not forget the mind part.

Teach the children well

Allow me my rantings . . .

This week I read here about an eight-year-old boy in Maryland who pointed his fingers like a gun at a class mate who pretended to shoot him with a bow and arrow as the class studied Native American culture. The "gun"-toting boy was suspended for "threatening to harm self or others." Although his "gun" was found to be unloaded, his crime was on par with bringing an actual weapon to school.

A five-year-old Pennsylvania girl was suspended for ten days for making a "terrorist threat" with her hot pink Hello Kitty bubble gun she and her friend were playing with as they pretended to be kitties.

A ten-year-old boy was taken into police custody in Virginia for showing his friends on the bus his toy gun  with an orange tip purchased from a dollar store. Hardly a look-a-like gun.  He had forgotten to take it out of his backpack from the weekend of play. He was charged with "brandishing a weapon" and fingerprinted.  He now has a juvenile record and a probation officer.

We throw the book at these youthful "offenders," punishing them to the fullest extent of the law, and then some.

On the opposite end of the power spectrum, wealthy businessmen, powerful politicians, superstar entertainers and athletes are given passes for their proven behaviors of lying, cheating, stealing, drug use, prostitution involvement, extra-marital affairs that often result in children out of wedlock, dalliances with young women in their employ, and the list goes on. These indiscretions are called "personal." Not only are their moral lapses forgiven but they are often elevated to a position of super stardom as political experts, high-paid speakers, narcissists who are immune to rules and punishment and consequences for bad behavior.  These are role models for our children. So now we circle back to the children.

Common sense is called for instead of this Keystone Kop lunacy. This from a country where directions on irons say, "Do not iron clothes on body," and on a portable stroller, "Caution: Remove infant before folding for storage," and my favorite (?): on a motorcycle helmet-mounted rear-view mirror, "Remember, objects in the mirror are actually behind you."

Really? What must other countries think of us?

consider it all joy

Over the past ten years when I have told people our youngest son was adopted from Russia at the age of seven, their eyebrows go up. People seem intrigued by this information, and they have questions: What made us consider adoption, and why did we adopt an older boy from Russia? Did we consider the numerous candidates in the foster system?

When I respond that I didn’t choose an older boy from Russia, God chose him for me, the eyebrows go up again, but the eyes look anywhere except at me. I am thankful that I do not have to squirm under the scrutinizing gaze of cynicism coming at me from Cyberspace. I know how crazy it sounds! I am learning to answer the disembodied words from strangers. And what I am learning is that we were not the only ones who have had this mystical experience of feeling like God was drawing us toward adoption, that God was the Ultimate matchmaker, lining our family up with a perfect fit for a child who was without a family,  that adopting was something we were "supposed to do."

There are the skeptics, of course, but strangers have messaged me to say that they too are members of the "secret society of 'called' adoptive moms," a label I use in the book to describe how it felt. First against my knowledge, and later against my will, I felt God was selecting me to be the mother of one of His lost and forgotten children. So why did God chose Russia and Roma? Of course I do not know the full answer, but I suspect part of it is because Roma fits so well into our family. He kids like us, his personality is so  similar to ours, we understand each other on a higher level, and I am a strong-willed mother to a hard-headed boy! My older son said, when Roma came, that, until he could think of Roma as a brother, he would consider him an “exchange student from God.” Rearing a child sent from God is a duty not to be taken lightly! Another reason, perhaps more important in God's economy, is that during this experience, we have learned to trust that God knows what we need better than we do. God wants total surrender and obedience.

The reward for our obedience, albeit reluctant and whiny on my part, included cup-running-over joy and blessings!