Thrown Into the Pit by the Monkey's Uncle

Today's victim will be the parents of the four year old who fell into the Gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati zoo.

Normally sane people have decided it is their job to cry for the heads of the parents for failing to properly safeguard their child.

"Let's judge this couple. It's justified! Everyone, feel free to be righteous, after all, your kid didn't fall into a Gorilla pit!  Feel free to throw poo at them.  Threaten to take away their child.   Lacerate them as bad parents.  Bankrupt them!"

If you read the com boxes, follow Facebook or engage in any sort of social media, you will find all of these responses.

How they know the parents failed to safeguard their child? The kid fell into the Gorilla pit! It is a neat and tidy argument.  Who could argue with the neglect which must be involved for a kid to fall into a Gorilla pit?  After all, no one else's kid ever fell into a Gorilla pit!

I will.

I will because I have woken to find my kids standing on top of three legged stools holding a broom in the air, trying to bring down a balloon that escaped, not noticing they are in danger of falling. Not noticing they could break the light fixture in the room where the balloon is, not noticing anything but the balloon.

I've had kids put syrup on their fingers and try to leap to the wall to stick like Spiderman. I've run after my son barefoot in the snow when he learned how to open the front lock and bolted for the street.

I have stopped my children from bringing the hairdryer near the sink, stopped them from falling into a pool when they couldn't swim, fished quarters out of their mouths and told them NOT to ferret something out of the garbage when they wanted more snack!

The point is, we watch kids all the time.  We warn kids all the time.  They still do stupid things.

Last week, I told a teen not to ride in the trunk of a mini-van.  It wasn't my kid but I didn't care. The kid found a better safer ride after I told him, "Don't do that."  But if I hadn't walked out to say good-bye, if I'd stayed inside and started cleaning up, I might have missed that moment to stop him, and it might have been tragic instead of bemusing about the nature of children, even older children.

They do not see the danger.  Their eyes have not been trained, their minds have not been trained to think things all the way through and in the course of any given day, there are countless dangers as a parent we see, that our kids do not.

It is the one we will one day miss that haunts us...what if one day...

As adults, as parents, it is our job to see the danger, to anticipate, and to be ever vigilant.  However, we live in a world of distraction.

I've seen countless scornful..."I bet they were on their phones."  It's possible.  How many of us have been distracted by our phones?

I've seen "he has  rap sheet."  He may.

It doesn't matter.

I don't have a rap sheet, but I've had that cold shiver down the spine when I don't know where one of mine is, and I know, I was reading or writing or making dinner and somehow lost track of time and need to find that one child and it is a frantic crazed I will never forgive myself kind of search that takes place.  We've all had that moment as parents at some point.

Because we're human.  We're fallible.  We get distracted.  We are distracted.   We might even be being distracted by something normal, like needing to go to the bathroom, trying to find the snack shop on the map, checking our wallet for money, but it only takes a moment. It only takes a second.  Maybe you tie your shoe.  Maybe you're swatting away a bee or thinking about where to go next or talking to your spouse about the Gorilla for a moment, or reading the display and the information.

Making this sad story (and it is sad to have to kill a beautiful rare creature), into a referendum on parents via armchair quarterbacking the parents' vigilance when we weren't there and don't know, is uncharitable to all concerned, including us.   It makes us into the mob picking up the stones. Anyone want to be identified with the Pharisees?

The child is safe.  A gorilla is dead.  Would these same people be calling for the zoo to close if the officials had allowed the child to be killed by not shooting the gorilla?  Even if the parents were negligent, should the child pay the price?

Because that's what you're saying if you think they shouldn't have shot the gorilla to protect the kid.

Sometimes in life, there are mistakes and there are not easy answers.   Sometimes, we can do everything right and still have a sad or incomplete happy ending.

The desire to feel smugly superior to this family does nothing for the zoo, the gorilla, the fate of gorillas, the child, the parents, their parenting skills, the family in general, or the improvement of society as a whole.

No one wants to have their lives defined by their worst moments, or by the brain lapse moments that can happen in an instant.   Seeing your four year old dragged around by a creature you cannot predict, control or stop, has to be one of the worst moments anyone could ever have as a parent, except perhaps now, when it seems the whole world is calling for your head.

This is not how a charitable society acts.  This is not how a people who are celebrating "The Year of Mercy" should respond.   So I'd beg everyone to stop trying to throw the parents into the pit and thumping their chests in superiority or outrage.   If you feel really strongly about the loss of the gorilla, give to the zoo to help them with conservation, or adopt a gorilla via the World Wild Life Fund.  

Is negligence a possibility? Absolutely, but we do not know.  Let those who saw, those who were there, and those most affected by the story, make the decisions about the consequences of this unfortunate series of events, and let the rest of us, thank God the child is unhurt, and remember, it only takes a moment for a kid to think, "I will climb up onto the counter to get a cup because I'm thirsty."  or "I will throw a baseball through the rip in the screen door." or "I will leave my wallet in the car." because all of these things happened just this weekend, and I was running after them and watching, reminding them, stopping them, saying, "This is not a good idea!" in so many words.

It's a good thing, we don't live near a Gorilla pit.

And Now, Equal Time

Anyone who thinks sexual morals discarded as easily as a wardrobe do not have an effect outside the two people enaged in the throws of whatever, need only look at the most recent example, the South Carolina Governor and his girlfriend in Argentina.

If you read the injured wife's piece as posted on Real Clear Politics, it is a beautiful reflection of what this man has lost, and it isn't his position of power in the world, but the relationship, the communion with a good woman and their four sons. Four young boys who must be heart broken to see suddenly themselves taller than their father at tender ages, and who now must shoulder a burden unasked for, trying to defend their broken family from an unloving prying world while each nursing their own individual highly concentrated pain they do not understand.

As an outsider, we can easily scorn, easily condemn, and easily judge, but this wife still loves this man and as outsiders, we should honor and mirror her behavior. Hers was a holy response to a complete betrayal, without being a doormat or an enabler.

In an age of instant access but no actual intimacy, this is what we as a society have, 24-7 armchair coaching/commentary on anyone and everyone who falls into the public eye. So keeping one's dignity when one is emmeshed in an undignified situation becomes difficult. She has managed it.

He has not.

In an age of blackberries, twitter, facebook, cellphones, Youtube and cameras placed everywhere, no one should consider themselves capable of living an anonymous life. And no one should be certain their worst moments as human beings won't become the subject of fodder for millions; least of all, politicians and people in positions of authority.

Perfection in our public leaders should not be a prerequisite of electability, but honesty and ethics ought to be at least skewed in the right direction. On a tangent, I have to rant, "Where to the Republicans go to find these sorts of people?" There have been moments when I have heard people remark that "This is the best." and then they reveal something, a school, a book, a show, a movie, a politican. And my first thought almost always is after I've read/watched/ listened, tasted, "If this is the best there is, then MAN are we in trouble." But I also know that my heart likes to try and harden, to be clever and cynical and that I have to beat that impulse down with a stick on a daily basis, but the world keeps giving me targets.

And then I remember, this is one family put under a microscope because of one family memebers' supreme stupidity and lack of moral and political judgment. I don't care how respected he was six days ago, he was stupid in his life and careless with those he professed to love. Dumb is the only word that is charitable in this circumstance. It is difficult not to want to unleash a score of seemingly righteous word rage on this person.

Fidelity is the first obligation of a spouse. It ought to be a willingly given given. Mark Sanford may have been a competent governor, but he put a woman before his wife, before his sons and before his God. Fortunately for him, his God and his wife love him enough not to strike him down, but those who do not love him, have struck and will continue to do so. If he had any sense, he'd understand that he is the most fortunate man in the whole world if he only lost the Governorship and the mistress. But if he had that same sense, he probably would have recognized, he had everything and surrendered it willingly for the wrong things.

I'd excoriate the man except I'm tired of all these cads and all these cackling harpies who glory in the destruction of a family as much as they do the emoliation of a career for political reasons, or because it justifies their own behavior, or because they hate the morals professed to be held true by those who have fallen.

So I've made a promise to myself to be restrained the next time and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next, regardless of political affiliation, because stoning the adulterer is not good for any of us, and this world encourages emotional and intellectual stoning. The men who left the adulteress behind had been the recipients of Christ's mercy as much as the woman herself.

I know I shouldn't have enjoyed raging at the Democrats for lining up to defend Bill Clinton, and I shouldn't stand with the firing squad to shoot Mark Sandford, because we aren't called to set fire to people, only to light the world on fire with the purity and holiness of our spirits and our lives.

And I've made myself a promise to give up being a snark about this President. This does not mean I will not disagree or fight to articulate why I disagree with his policies when I disagree with them, only that I don't get to be mean to satisfy my own spleen with ooh...that's a good line, that will get 'em type commentary.

Being funny by being clever and catty and making being funny a goal just to get attention is self serving and soul scorching, and I have to remember that for me, humor is supposed to be merciful, healing. Humor without mercy is satire, and I conceed, I have a natural progression, from quips to bites, from Horace to Juvenal, from Pope to Swift. The humor gets more acerbic and less merciful the longer I focus on a subject. The truth of the matter gets lost in the shuffle of clever phrases for the sake of a few comments and a few extra hits on the blog counter.

So pray for this broken family and all those who do or do not make front page news or go viral, to be healed by the only thing that can, God's love.