Should Every Statue Fall?

This ain’t a sermon – so hang with me to the end, please. And I’m going to raise some complicated questions that I don’t have answers to.  Just some deep, heavy, stuff …

We are in the midst of a contentious debate about statues. Angry mobs are tearing down statues, upsetting people who revere these figures. People are making value judgments of the people represented by these monuments, based on current cultural standards and not the times when these individuals lived. To the mob, if the person was guilty of one unforgivable sin or discretion, then the statue must be destroyed, no matter how many good deeds the person did. There is a whole lot of judging going on. In a quest to unite us, it is dividing us.

It has sparked discussions about history, causing us to each personally classify some statues as worthy of remaining and others ones as disposable. But for a moment, let’s put all the inflamed emotions and rhetoric aside. Let’s remove all the politics, and consider this peculiar question: Should all the statues come down? Is there none worthy of remaining?

I know – a weird question. 

Way, way, back in time, in the second tome of The BOOK, The CREATOR warns us not to make gods to ourselves of silver and gold.[i] These are considered idols, and idolatry is forbidden by the first big commandment[ii], which I would think is first for a reason. Soon after that, the “golden calf” incident occurs, displaying the natural desire in us to create such idols.

And this desire is universal since statues were created in ancient Egypt, ancient India, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome. The most common ones being of kings. The practice of constructing statues is also enduring, and I would assume that every country in the world contains at least one.  The BOOK several times refers to idols as “detestable”[iii]. Therefore, a substantial, eternal conflict exists. The CREATOR wants no idols, and mankind continues to build them in large numbers. 

This is a deep, heavy issue if these statues are truly idols, so let’s discuss …

But these aren’t really idols, are they? They are just monuments to historical figures.

The BOOK defines an idol as an image or shape formed like a man or woman.[iv]

But these statues are not made of gold or silver. An idol needs to be formed from this, correct?

The BOOK describes idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold.[v] And there is another reference to “metal gods”.[vi]

But idol worship was just in ancient, olden days. It’s silly to think we still worship idols today.

Every culture worships its own idols. It is so ingrained and prevalent that you don’t realize it is happening every day. Our athletes and entertainers are the idols of our age. We show our adoration by paying tributes of vast amounts of gold and silver, wearing their jerseys and fashion, and cheering them on in large gatherings. There is even a popular television show dedicated to producing future American idols. We not only worship idols, we do it in excess.

Our more recent statues are not of generals, presidents, explorers, or politicians; these were the gods of our fathers. No, our modern structures are of sports icons and entertainers.

As previously mentioned, idol worship appears early in The BOOK and is a running theme throughout. The CREATOR repeatedly warns people not to worship idols, the people keep worshiping them, and The CREATOR keeps tearing them down. In the very last chapter of The BOOK, which has to do with the future, there is one last warning against the “idolaters”.[vii]

But these statues were not intended to be worshipped. They weren’t made by individuals; they were commissioned works that were produced in facilities. They have historical significance; they exist to teach us history.

Every one of these statues were made to honor someone for something they did. It’s a fine line between honor and worship. Most of these statues were paid for by collective (often public funds) and placed in very public areas. The casting process, while improved by technology, is similar to eons ago. The statues do have historical significance, but that value pales when compared to the “detestable” standard. Maybe, history is best gleaned from the Internet, with photos to show us what the people looked like.

It would appear that instead of fleeing idolatry, our culture has run passionately into idolatry and is now paying the price. Who realized there were that many statues around until the enraged mobs started tearing them down? What is the punishment for worshiping idols? The BOOK says the carved images will be destroyed. The cast idols will be burned in the fire.[viii] And dead bodies will be piled on the lifeless forms of your idols.[ix]

But where are the piles of dead bodies?

The U.S deaths from the coronavirus now total 127,000. If these were heaped together, it would make a grotesque, yet striking impression.

But the pandemic and the riots aren’t connected in any way. It’s just a coincidence they are happening at the same time.

These two catastrophes are very much related. The riots were the ultimate result of someone trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Perhaps if the economy weren’t in a deep recession due to the virus, the man would have been able to work and pay for his purchase with legal currency. Also, people were nervous, angry, distressed, etc. over the pandemic and the economic downturn. The police brutality pushed them over the edge. And then, with the unemployment rate so high, people had much more time and energy to riot, burn, and topple statues. 

And then there is the chilling passage near the end of The BOOK, which says the people not killed by the plague continued to worship the idols.[x] Maybe it is true: There is no such thing as coincidence.

Many Questions – Few Answers

I don’t have the answers, just some questions. The purpose here is to think about our predicament in different ways. There is a lot of gray area here. You might argue it is all gray area, and I won’t challenge you. But why is there this strong emotional (or is it spiritual) feeling (either positive or negative depending on your perspective) when one of these statues is pulled to the ground? The BOOK says that those who speak up in defense of idols are blind and ignorant.[xi] We at least need to look at this situation with our eyes wide open.

We are now critically judging every man who ever lived in the quest to find the perfect human. To find someone who is deemed pure in thought and deed. And many good and noble men are falling short of this standard. This process has us searching for someone who was sinless, by both the morality of his day and the morality of today. Which leads us back, to maybe just one, who is worthy to be worshipped ….. Ah, so perhaps there is a purpose to all the chaos after all.

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[i] Exo. 20:23

[ii] Exo. 20:4-5

[iii] Deu. 32:16

[iv] Deu. 4:16

[v] Deu 29:17

[vi] Lev. 19:4

[vii] Rev. 22:15

[viii] Deu. 7:5

[ix] Lev. 26:30

[x] Rev. 9:20

[xi] Isa. 44:9

You Have No Idea – What these parents face

In my previous post, we looked at parenting and how difficult that task is with all the variables, tough choices, etc. But now let’s raise the bar … turn it up a notch. While we’re at it, let’s just turn the dial all the way to the right.

Parenting healthy kids is challenging, but what about parenting children with irregular-needs? (I’m not using the term “special needs” because I want this to include any and every type of ongoing physical, mental, and personality disorder—all of them.  Throw in alcohol, drug, and whatever addictions, too.

How difficult is it to parent a child with irregular-needs?

You have no idea. Trust me. You have no idea. I only have some idea, because my daughter’s cerebral palsy is considered comparatively mild. Of course, people whose children are only moderated impacted tend to minimize their situation when talking about it. Like my friend Marc, who was quick to point out his autistic son is “higher functioning” when we messaged back and forth during the Allison Chronicles series. But if your kid has any abnormality, any issue, any challenge, or any special need. Your task as a parent becomes exponentially more difficult.

Take those problematic parental decisions, for example. When dealing with an irregular-needs child, sometimes you are facing ten possible outcomes, instead of just two, and nine of those outcomes may be bad. Often, you must make these critical decisions with little information or even inaccurate information.  And then those bad decisions (again, not necessarily poor decisions, just choices that lead to adverse outcomes, often beyond your control) cause you to have to make even more decisions. Then there are choices so complicated, the best you can do is just guess. 

When things go wrong, which sometimes is a daily occurrence, you blame yourself, and you and your spouse must deal with the bad consequences. You second guess yourself. You second guess your spouse. You third guess yourself. Some days you guess yourself to an exponential power and conclude you are an idiot and a sad excuse for a parent.  

This second-guessing and repeated setbacks, which are inevitable, put incredible stress on relationships. My friend Marc states, “Nobody can imagine the strain on a marriage during these incredibly difficult times”. Many marriages do not survive the pressure of raising an irregular-needs child. In most of these cases, the husband bails due to the overwhelming stress. Even though I do not condone this action, neither can I judge any man who does this. At times, the enormous amount of stress is crushing.

Besides the typical responsibilities, parents of irregular-needs kids play many roles. You must be a doctor, a therapist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and a priest, all at the same time. It requires superhuman knowledge, superhuman strength, superhuman patience, and superhuman compassion. Parents of irregular-needs children are as close to a real superhero as you are ever going to get.

For example, I have a friend who adopted a baby who has cerebral palsy. Only, she didn’t know the girl’s condition at the adoption. They hid it from her. They basically stuck her with this child. I would have been extremely bitter and tried to get out of the deal. My friend’s reaction? She has made it her life’s mission to raise this kid in an exemplary manner. She has poured her life into that girl. That’s superhuman love. Another friend is raising three autistic sons. That’s right – after having two sons with autism, he had another boy who has the same condition. And now he has a great family, which he loves tremendously.  His wife runs a support group for parents of irregular-needs kids. That’s superhuman strength and more.

And these parents are everywhere. Over the past year, I have been able to share my daughter’s condition with more people, and have discovered several of my friends and associates are captaining the same boat. I have learned about the children of my good friend Dave, my long-time friend Mike, my accountant Tim, the man mentioned in the previous paragraph, and the daughter of a coworker. Yes, irregular-needs children are much more common than you realize, and I’m sure you have a friend or family member in that position.   

Having an irregular-needs child impacts every family decision you make. I was downsized from my job just after my daughter’s seventh birthday. I didn’t care that I lost that job. I didn’t care about the impact to my career. I wasn’t much concerned about not having money to pay the everyday bills. But what mattered most is that I had lost my medical insurance, which had put the welfare of my daughter at risk. I went to an important job interview in a minus 20-degree wind-chill, with a fever of over 102 degrees to get the job that would restore that insurance. You just do whatever it takes – repeatedly.

Oh, and those decisions. My wife and I decided to send my daughter away to college in Indiana. I knew there were risks involved, but I thought it  would help my daughter’s social development. Leaving the campus after dropping her off was one of the most gut-wrenching days of my entire life.

It was the correct decision, but it was almost the worst decision I have ever made. There was an incident, a dangerous incident that nearly cost my daughter her life. Of course, I wasn’t there to witness it, but it was all right there in the extensive police report. And then I had to make another decision about whether to drive to Indiana and pull her out of school. I decided to let her stay; again, the correct choice. However, if she would have died there, I would never have recovered from it. Yeah, that’s what it’s like. A bunch of difficult choices in a game you might, if lucky, be able to play well, but you can never win.

But you can’t see the stress on these parents from the outside looking in. You might think, “Becky’s daughter has Down syndrome, but she handles it so well.” The quote (I can’t find the source) applicable here is: “Just because I carry it all so well, doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.”

It’s heavy. It’s massive. It’s burdensome. And it’s persistent. You have no idea. That person you know with the irregular-needs child - please cut them some slack. Show them some compassion. Tell them they are appreciated. Because you have no idea what your friend or coworker has had to deal with parenting their irregular-needs child that morning, nor the perilous situation they know is waiting for them at home that evening. You have no idea …. 

If a person is parenting a special needs child, then they have special needs themselves. Please extend grace accordingly.

Were You Really A Bad Parent?

I hear this all the time …

“Don, I was a bad parent because I made so many mistakes.”

Well, you are a better parent than you think.

The fact that you still fret over this and are concerned about your children, no matter their age, means you cared about your kids then, and you still care about them now.

That alone makes you a good parent.

But what about those bad decisions?

Well, in most situations in life, we accept the fact that we will make mistakes – that we are not perfect. However, we expect to be perfect parents - to be flawless in our choices. To have the superhuman power to know and control the outcome of every decision we make. Buy you are not a perfect person -  so stop believing you should be a perfect parent. You aren’t – no one is.

But you are a better parent than you think. You have made many more good decisions than bad ones regarding your children. The problem is that we remember all the bad choices we make because of the consequences they created. And we never expected, nor wanted, those harmful, hurtful, outcomes. We don’t remember the right choices we made for our kids because they produced the good outcomes we were hoping for. Those excellent decisions tend to get erased from memory, but they greatly benefited our children.

Some of those bad decisions you made weren’t even poor decisions. They were right decisions that resulted in adverse outcomes. You make the best decisions you can at the time with the best information you have. You are not all-knowing. You are not perfect. But if you make the choices you think will benefit your kid, you are a good parent.

Of course, there are those tough decisions you make where there is no good alternative – the lesser of two evils. Again, you tend to remember the bad outcome, which is almost assured in this situation, but you forget that you made what you considered the best choice available.

If you care about your children, if you love your children enough to try to make the best decisions for them, then you are a good parent. You are not going to make all the right choices. You are not and were not going to be the perfect parent.

Therefore: STOP SECOND GUESSING EVERY CHOICE YOU MADE AS A PARENT! IF YOU DID THE BEST YOU COULD UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, YOU WERE A GOOD PARENT.

And it’s harmful to beat yourself up over decisions made in the past on things you cannot change. It’s much better to focus your attention on the choices you are making now, which impact things you can change.

Even If Your Decisions Were Good …

“But Don, my children didn’t turn out as planned.”

Well, of course not. Because they seldom do. Although some do miss the mark more than others.

But this is not your fault. 

Parenting is one of the toughest challenges there is because the outcome is so highly uncertain. Parenting is even more complicated than those mathematical equations it takes geniuses months to solve.

The parenting calculation takes at least eighteen years to finish and the equation frequently changes over time. Just about the time you master how to parent a preteen – boom! You must parent a teenager, and your math problem just turned from algebra to calculus.

But you can’t really “solve” this problem, can you? You can put all the right numbers in, do all the right things, and still not get the desired result.

Because your job is not to assure your child’s success in life, it is to prepare your child to have the opportunity for success in life. Because at some point, your children make their own decisions, which are typically different than yours. And they must live with the outcomes.

The choices your children make do not reflect poorly on you, especially if they contradict everything you tried to teach them. If things in your adult children’s life take a terrible turn, you have not failed as a parent; many times, your children just make poor decisions. And again, sometimes they were the right decisions but with a bad outcome.

I have several friends who are great people and were great parents. However, they had children who made extremely poor choices after they became adults. These children even became estranged from these excellent parents for a period, for no logical reason at all. I have other friends whose daughter died of an opioid overdose in her 20’s. Another couple’s son committed suicide. Were they bad parents? No, these are good people, and they were all excellent parents, and none of these outcomes are in any way their fault.

You can do everything - well, almost everything, right - and still not have things turn out well. You can provide as much training as possible for your children to make good choices, but you can’t make those choices for them. Your adult child’s success, or lack of it, is not a reflection of you. 

And good parents will want to continue to parent their adult children because, of course, they are good parents and care about the welfare of their kids no matter their age. But you must resist this temptation. We must at some point, stop parenting and just start advising them. Because it is their choice where to work, where to live, how to raise their kids, etc. Their decisions, not yours. (mothers-in-law – I’m talking to you)

So: STOP BLAMING YOURSELF FOR THE CHOICES YOUR ADULT CHILDREN MAKE! IT IS THEIR CHOICES, NOT YOURS. SO, STOP IT! STOP IT NOW!

You are a better parent than you think. And if you cared about your children and tried to provide for and train them as best you could, you were/are a good parent.