The last few days have been a bit surreal. I walked in some areas that I don’t often walk in. I spend a great amount of time reading and studying and this week I was reminded again that it is a very broken world. I was also reminded that the people who are the most broken more often than not wouldn’t see themselves as broken. All their lives have been spent in brokenness and so all they know is brokenness.
In this last few days I was exposed to a young 20 something woman, who, while being married to one man was trying to get pregnant by a different man. What’s more she didn’t seem to think there was anything particularly bizarre about that kind of behavior. Further, she insisted to custody officials that she knew the child that was eventually conceived belonged to man ‘A’ even though she was having sex with both man ‘A’ and man ‘B’ during the time frame in question. She did not seem capable of understanding that there was no way that the custody officials could accept with certainty her “certainty” that the guy was the father who she said was the father. She seemed genuinely perplexed that her child would be required to have a paternity test.
Scenario 2 found me observing the divorce proceedings of two different couples who were 20 something and who hadn’t been married two years.
Scenario 3 found me hooking up with an old friend who is a chief lieutenant for Hugh Hefner and his “Playboy” empire. Seems he works in marketing. I found myself wondering what his ad campaign was like and then I realized I probably didn’t want to know.
Scenario 4 found me interacting with city-wide clergy. The older I get the more inclined I am to just listen, if only because I am becoming increasingly convinced that it is literally not possible for these clergy to hear what I am saying. Let’s just say that its time to clean out the Augean stables.
Scenario 5 found me in the middle of discussions of divorced people with young children. Again, I’m just listening but my heart is breaking inside of me as I listen to all the hurt roll off these people. There is so much hurt and there is so little I can do to fix the hurt. Their wounds will mark them the rest of their lives and it wounds me to think that will be so.
All of this reminds me of the Larry Norman “Only Visiting This Planet” album. The older I get the more I feel like a “resident alien.”
I know that I know that bad theology hurts people but trying to get people to see the connection between their hurt and their bad theology is a herculean task that is beyond my ability.
And that works within me my own brokenness.
Very heartbreaking indeed, brother.
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I’m always open to suggestions Paternity.