Bless the beasts and the children. . .

Bless the Beasts and Children was a 1971 film adaptation of the novel of the same name written by Glendon Swarthout and became a signature song for The Carpenters.  

Bless the beasts and the children,
For in this world they have no voice,
They have no choice.
Bless the beasts and the children,
For the world can never be,
The world they see.

Light their way
When the darkness surrounds them;
Give them love, let it shine all around them.
Bless the beasts and the children;
Give them shelter from a storm;
Keep them safe;
Keep them warm.

Light their way
When the darkness surrounds them;
Give them love, let it shine all around them.
Bless the beasts and the children;
Give them shelter from a storm;
Keep them safe;
Keep them warm.

Bless the beasts and the children;
Give them shelter from a storm;
Keep them safe;
Keep them warm.

 

Fifty years or so later it is clear that we have not blessed the beasts and the children.  First of all we confused them and gave the beasts (our pets) a higher status than the children who are rapidly disappearing from our marriages and families and homes.  Our fur babies have taken the place of the real ones in our affection and there is more outrage over cruelty to a dog than to the killing of the unborn.  Worse, we have not kept them safe.  Just the opposite, we have forced upon them adult ideas and ideals to the point where we have robbed them of their childhood and replaced the comfort of God's love and the love of their parents with choices about gender and presumptions about their own sexual desires.  We have not sheltered them from the storm of change that sweeps away our culture but thrust them right into the midst of it where suddenly the child who had curiosity, imagination, and play as the prime agenda now has to digest what it means to be binary or live in fear that the planet will die before they reach majority.  The other curse we have laid upon them is the idea that life is an accident, no life is precious, and there is no wisdom or order to life but the purest expression of desire.  In their most vulnerable moments, we have told them what we tell each other -- look inside for comfort, meaning, and purpose.  We are worse than fools, we are child abusers.

Jesus did not esteem children highly because they were innocent of sin but because they must be protected, must be directed, and must be taught.  They were and are vulnerable to the ripest of abuses we would thrust upon them and so whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Him to sin is worth nothing less than a stone to weigh them down to a drowning death.  In one fell swoop Jesus recalls our duty to the child in our midst while affirming that this child has the trust that is faith's core.  For this reason, we not only defend and guard our children but we learn from them what it means to trust when our hearts are too filled with anger, bitterness, doubt, and fear to trust anyone and anything.  Children are seen by our corrupting world as tools to engineer their social construct of diversity, equity, justice, gender, and desire.  If we surrender our children to those who would contrive in them a worldview that is built upon fear and an understanding of self that is little more than base desire, we deserve the threat that Jesus made.  But it just may be that our children can lead us back to some sense of sanity.  They long not for utopian ideals built upon a skewed moral compass but for shelter in the storm, for a life that death cannot undo, and for hope to meet the future in the blessing of forgiveness.  They know we need God even when we have forgotten it.  They know that they are Jesus' little lambs even when we are ashamed of such simplicity of faith and expression.  We have screwed things up with our flawed adultness, perhaps we can hope that a little child shall lead them....