Friday 21 March 2008

No arrests for emotional abuse


Parents who abuse their children emotionally cannot get caught or be imprisoned. Physical abuse is punishable by law, but what is worse? Physical pain that eventually recovers or emotional scars that stay forever?
My daughter Yvette wrote a play about emotional abuse and won a prize for the best script for drama. She also directed this physical theatre piece and won acclaim for it. When we went to watch it, I saw grown men weep in front of me - the one had tatoes on his muscular shoulders and wore a white vest. His head was shaven and he had a goatie beard. He was a really tough looking character, but his heart was deeply touched by what he saw on stage...
One amazing theatrical touch to portray the harshness of the mother towards her daughter was nothing short of brilliant, even though I say so! Instead of having water in a sink bath tub to wash the daughter they filled it with rice. Yes, rice! When the mother used the rice to scrub her daughter's body and rinse her curly hair, the effect was tangible in the audience...people squirmed in their seats, feeling the callousness of the woman who felt nothing for her own flesh and blood.
The play is simply called, 'And then she cried...' and the actress Liezl won the best actress award at AFDA in Observatory. A couple we invited also wept during the performance. It was too close to reality. The husband was treated like that by his mother.
How many homes are there where children are mistreated by parents? How many homes are not broken? How many parents are not divorced? How many homes have peace and joy? In how many homes is there constant fighting and swearing? How many children suffer under the hatred their parents have for each other? Where, oh where, is love?
The youth dilinquency problem is an indictment against parents. In Scotland more kids run away from home than anywhere else. I saw it on TV and read about it in the newspapers. When the police caught a girl that ran away from home they asked her why she did it?
'I don't want to be at home anymore. Any place is better than home. My parents always fight and hit me. I am always alone at home during the day. They are never there. When they come home they fight. I hate it. I want to go somewhere else.'
Where is home sweet home? Where is the Christian ideal of a family? Has the church failed to produce Christian homes in the world? Then the church's doctrine has obviously veered off the beaten track and adhered to the teachings of men, rather than the doctrine of God. Perhaps the church is to blame for the mess the homes are in. Perhaps the church needs to reform before we think of reforming the world.
Yvette wrote the play based on stories she heard about what my wife went through in her parent's home. She read up about emotional abuse and drew from her research as well and put it together in a play. I want to make a movie about it - no matter how painful it is, because the world needs to know...
Day by day, we meet young children with pain in their hearts because they have been emotionally abused by their parents...
And children are innocent, they are quick to forgive, they trust so easily - yet once they are broken they end up with diseases, physically and mentally and the shocks they had to live through spoil the rest of their lives...
Does God care about children? To them belong the kingdom of heaven. If anyone harms the least of them, they are touching the heart of God.
We need to train parents, educate parents....Crosby, Stills & Nash sing, 'Teach your children' and halfway through the song they change the line to, 'Teach your parents well, your father's hell will slowly go by...'
Today is a good day to bring about a change in our lives at home. Today is a good day to appreciate each other. Today is a good day to hug our children and tell them we love and appreciate them, no matter how well they perform at school or in sport or playing their instruments of music.
Schools have become so demanding that children hardly have time to be kids anymore...that is why they break out over weekends and do silly things...
Many African children are tired of all the funerals and endless church meetings they have to attend every weekend...they have no time for themselves anymore.
We have to stop this madness and call out for help for all the children suffering emotional abuse in their homes, in boarding schools and those who have no homes...just like rolling stones...
Bob Dylan sings, 'How does it feel to be without a home, in the great unknown...just like a rolling stone!'

Sunday 16 March 2008

Breaking the sound barrier


The brilliant movie The Right Stuff depicts the courage of pilots who pushed through the sound barrier with ill-equipped air craft that almost fell apart in their effort to fly at new speeds. There are unforgettable scenes of nerve wrecking, riveting excitement as men defy all odds to enter new dimensions of flight. This determination eventually led to space craft and put the first man on the moon!
Pushing the envelope has become common terminology once Hollywood got hold of it - because they only do it in movies! In the unreal world of the cinema anything is possible and the Sc-Fi movies prove that. Nobody believes what they are seeing anymore and the stunts of ordinary actors and actresses with invisible ropes and safety gadgets are no longer impressive to the cinema boffin who now knows that the flames and fires in movies are not real and nobody can really dodge bullets as in the Matrix - its all trick photography and the cameramen compete for the Oscar!
But there are still real men out there...there women...real people who are not 'pushing the envelope' but breaking through in whatever field they are involved it in order to bring new hope and blessing to a tired, worn-out world (Sting's phrase in 'The River Flows...down to the sea').
In order to push through in something you have to have True Grit (A John Wayne movie for which he won an Oscar!) and a fierce determination to succeed.
From an early age we learn to ride a bicycle...at first our conscious minds desperately try to master the two-wheeler and many falls and hurts later we find a way to balance and stay on top!
And voila! There you go - full speed ahead.
The same applies for driving a car - at first the nervousness of trying to concentrate on all the pedals and movements of changing gears and co-ordinating it all - a nightmare at first, but soon everyone is speaking with cell phones and driving at the same time with a CD playing in the back ground and then they still wave at friends passing by in the traffic! Amazing...
Pilots do it...first in simulators then in the real deal...the other day my plane wobbled when it tried to land in a terrifying head wind at Edinburgh airport and the wings almost hit the tarmac before the pilot had the presence of mind to take off again and circle...I prayed for the winds to cease...and they did. So together we (the Lord, the pilot and I) did a splendid job providing the safety of the passengers!
Then when I returned home, on the 6 O' Clock News, Nola and I saw a Lufthanza plane going through the same motion my plane experienced - only this time the wing hit the ground and the plane spun around and someone had a video camera handy to film it and sell it to the broadcasting station! The pilot made a U-turn and took the plane back on the runway to avoid overturning and crashing it! It takes a certain kind of steel nerve to be a pilot - with 300 lives in your hands!
When we were small (and Christmas trees were tall...B-Gees, remember?) we used to sing, Jesus Saviour, pilot me! Now I understand a bit better...
But it takes a plunge of faith for a mother and father to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord in these days! It takes a holy fervour to live a sanctified life amongst all the perversion and corruption we face in the media every day.
It takes a church with schutzpah to reform from traditions to God's standards given in Paul's apostolic epistles.
It takes a lot of practice to be a good batsman or bowler. It takes a lot of practice to be a good musician that can flow prophetically when the Spirit moves...
But we have to push those boundaries back!
What are you facing that you can push further? Take courage and do it! God is with you!

Tuesday 4 March 2008

Characters on the Tube


The characters on the tube that caught my attention did so, largely because I was sitting opposite them in the train and had nowhere else to fasten my attention except on the explanation of the Piccadilly line in London's underground system. The group I observed were a admixture of a cosmopolitan United Nations!
On the left we have the Iranese (Lebanese?) Mid-eastern mischle bound rough neck with a shaven head and bulging arm muscles, strong hands, large nose and thick lips...but fast asleep and harmless with his head leaning against the glass partition separating the compartment from the sliding doors. On the right hand side (and imagine these two prize fighters in a ring!) we have the well-dressed English businessman, thoroughly modern with suit and white shirt, but tie-less as the Europeans do! He stares straight ahead of him, into nothingness, as if no one else exists.
Next to him is a Turkish girl, poor but hopeful to make it in her new homeland, which is foreign to her. She takes out a little hand mirror and does her eye make-up as if now one is watching and admires herself by turning her head from side to side and pouting her lips.
Adjacent to her is a heavy metal freak with tatoos all over his body, sporting a bandana with black and white skulls. When he stepped into the train he chose to sit on that seat where the Daily Tube Newspaper was lying. Instead of picking it up he sat on it, probably to show his defiance against society as a whole. His face is flaky and his nose red and sore from all the nose rings matching his ear and lip rings. He looks like a display window in a pawn shop with all the rings on his dirty fingers with nails that are equally spoiled and black! His walkman blasts the music into his ears at such ear piercing volume that the rest of us have to endure the overflow of the noise!
Then, quite out of character, he opens his black sling bag (it has to be black!) and takes out...wait for it...a Time Magazine and reads it with great interest!
When he got up the Turkish girl grabbed the crumpled up newspaper, straightened it out and showed off her skill of reading a newly acquired language, but it is obviously not great because she paged quite rapidly through the newspaper.
The businessman next to her strayed and peeped at the headlines for a while, before correcting himself and looking straight ahead again. But it wasn't long until he strayed again and this time kept reading over her shoulder for longer spells, the two of them making a silent duet!
In the middle perched a wannabe model with matching high collared black coat, black slacks and black silk stockings, grandiose make up, matching rings and hair decorations, designer sling bag over the shoulder resting on her lap...but her shoes gave her away...brown hush puppies! This suggested that she had a long way to walk to work - which wasn't doing modelling at all!
Bleak House sat next to her. Well, meaning by that, of course, a dull looking up-town girl with no effort at all to do make-up except an eye-liner. You get the message: make-up takes so long to put on and you only have to take it all off again at night when you get home, so why bother in the first place?
The only other person that could fit on that line of seats was an Easter-European with a slit-eyed expression of a Russian Mafia mobster that never looked at anything or anyone. Perhaps he was on a life-threatening mission?
Then a thought occurred to me: 'And God loves them all!'
Who could love a muscle bound rough neck from the Middle East? God does.
Who could love a boring English gentleman? God does.
Who could love a wannabe model who will never make the grade? God does.
Who would love the working class girl with no make-up? God does.
And who would love a mobster from Eastern Europe? God does.
And the heavy metal freak? God loves him too!
So, if God could love all these characters on the Tube Train in London, he could surely love you and me as well? Just a thought for the day...