I don’t need any special ringtone, when I want to hear the song, I’ll play it myself

I’m superslow at texting and amazed at how quickly other react.

I hate cable, can’t stand television and despite hundreds of channels, never found anything I really liked besides a good movie.

I don’t have a Facebook page, my blog is unnoticed, and I don’t care to MeMeMeTube that much.

Does anybody have a life outside of an electronic device?

Can the store clerk even bear to put down her phone to look at me?  Is there a teenager alive today that knows what interpersonal skills are?

Would you rather watch a show about a happy family or make happiness in your own family?

Do you know what a community is besides the superficial ones online?

So nice to know that all that our justice system offers is a comical shadow of justice,

less protection of an individual’s rights and mere chastisement.

If I wanted chastisement, I could easily find just petulence from my ex-wife.

Did you go to law school for that?

Really?  Not only did you lose your brain but where is your compassion?

You slip into my shoes and see what good a wagging finger in your face does you.

A dark cloud is to pass over us all,

though the one wearing the mask remains ignorant of the doom to come.

He sees narrowly,

while She lays helpless to all Her children.

One cold, cruel, and vicious reaps nothing for he has neglected what he hath sown.

One cold, cruel and vicious with a robe sows only discord, and no one shall profit though they will toil all their days.

And where is that hand that stays the mob?  Could it not even stay the hand of one that inflicts harm upon the Innocent?

The betrayal of the trusted is colder than the foul of the wicked.

Where is your equality?

Where is your justice?

You have no purpose unless you serve it.

We pay great lip service and herald the Founding Fathers.

The men who forged our nation from the tyranny of a king; that transcended mere politics and elitism to offer a refuge to the common man.  It was designed to be the refuge where the rights of all were to rule supreme, that every voice was to be heard and every dream to be given the nourishment of opportunity.

This is the land we have come to love.  Yet, is this the land we speak of and call home?

Surely the same Founding Fathers, whose names we envoke for our desires and comforts and ideals, are not the same men whose very words we waste with our inaction.

For what do we think of fathers now?  We trumpet these virtues inked with Their blood but cannot muster a whisper of disdain when we forsake justice for all.  What do we make of our fathers today?

Today we want to make them

deadbeat.  Disneyland.  tired.   simple-minded.

We pay little lipservice and trample today’s fathers.

How many innocent people die before the war is over?

How many starve to death before someone offers food?

How many are turned away before they are welcomed?

How many are lynched before they are allowed to be free?

How many are condemned unjustly before there is restitution?

When will we learn?  What is the cost we will pay?  Are we just that slow at learning?

Come to know the meaning of hopelessness.

Know that your sincerest efforts are wasted and dismissed.

Know that whatever you were told about justice is a lie.

Know that there is no god that is coming to intervene in this situation.

Know that even someone who loves you can’t help.

Know that what gets done under the unwatchful eye of the court carries no penalty.

Know that less than what you’d expect determines your fate.

Come to know this, and you know their lie that you bought without offering.

The sign outside the church read: “What is more powerful than God’s word?”

And to me, the answer is simple:

His actions.

He had curly blonde hair, just like my son.

He had to put the quarters in the jukebox, just like my son would have.

He took in every sight, touching those within reach at the table, just like my son.

He was out to eat with one parent and two grandparents, just like my son.

He looked full of curiosity and wonder and contentment, just like my son.

He was like my son, except, my son isn’t here.

While shopping before the holiday in December, looking at parenting books at the bookshop, I saw this boy–small boy–and he crying, or whining really, and my heart began to ache. I mean, I ache so instinctively like a when a mother hears another crying child and she begins to lactate. My soul responds just so, like a physiological recoil.

And it’s only this analogy that works because of its maternal implications–why do we understand mothers more than fathers–for there is not a parallel for paternal response.