Little People

Little People

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Let me begin by saying that I am considered, for better or worse, quite the manly guy. I'm not just bragging and braying, or in a fit of self-aggrandized machismo compensating for a lack of self-esteem, trying to convince everyone of my masculine prowess. It's just me, the way I am. In fact, long ago a friend brought to my attention my, what some have called, "brash and boorish" aggressiveness. Since then, I have worked to contain it as much as reasonably possible. But still, it somehow comes through. If you knew me, to say the least, you would not think me a reserved and passive person. I have a self-confidence that I don't deserve, an ego that better fits my superiors, and a toughness that is intrinsically born from a youthful upbringing of psychological cuts and bruises sustained in the survival of a white trash rearing.
However, along with my extroverted and battle hardened carapace I have, as do many others, some paradoxical traits that seem dichotomous to one such as I. One of these is my quite frail and downright pusillanimous vulnerability to, comestibly speaking, all things hot. I can't take hot foods. Hot delicacies, such as are found in many Mexican and Thai dishes, are too ... well, hot.
A friend of mine once said to me, You know, Joe, I would think that a big, macho kind of guy like you would like hot things. I can see where she would think that, but no, hot sauce, Salsa, Tabasco, even those little packets of mild sauce you get form Taco Bell are all too unbearable for my sweet little sensitive tongue. In short, anything hotter than sugar burns my mouth.
We all have our contrasting characteristics, things that are incongruent to our person, trivial things that don't seem to square with the presentation of who we are. Another of those strange incongruencies in my make up, and the subject of this weeks' column, is my absolute endearing tenderness, love, and almost intoxicated and adulatory mystical adoration for little people. I'm talking about babies and children. It really is kind of odd, even to me. I don't know where it comes from, or how I acquired such an "un-guy" trait, but I got it – in spades!
A friend of mine once commented on my particular penchant for children, Most people have a rating somewhere in the range of 70 to 85 for kids in the 0 to 100 – or whatever you would call it – scale of feelings. But yours is like ... off the charts!
"It's weird," he said, "not in a bad way, but just strange that you would like kids that much."
Analyzing it, I have to agree. Again, I don't know why, but I know it's true. And I've always been this way, even as an adolescent. It may have something to do with my childhood, an incidental occurrence as I was growing up, not enough vitamin A in my mothers system while I was in the womb, who knows. I only know it's there and that it is a constant reminder that my heart has a vulnerable fault line that is sometimes threatened with a quaking split. I can't stand to see a child suffering – physically, emotionally, anything, in any way, being in proximity to such child agony has the potential to drive me to the edge of sanity.
Now, I am fully aware of the realities of life. I'm no naïve, blissful idiot, ignorant of the wretched despair and torments of life. I know that somewhere in the world, everyday, children are suffering. And it does bother me. It bothers me greatly. That's where faith comes to my rescue. If I didn't believe in God and the salvific love of Jesus Christ, I would have made the headlines long ago.
But, fortunately for me, I do believe in God. And I have the knowledge that He is in control and that He loves all those little people much more than I can ever dream of. And it is this that keeps me from going on a rampage of murderous vigilante destruction in the ever-growing vile community of pedophiles and child rapists, murderers, and abusers. Those victimizers of children should get on their knees everyday and thank God that He hasn't put me in charge of punishing these violators of the innocent (trust me, I would instantly cure ALL crimes against children with a vicious and merciless iron fist that would make The Inquisition look like a good talking to!).
But He didn't. In His wisdom, He has reserved punishment of these animals for Himself – and I'm sure, to grossly understate, He is much better at it than I would be.
So I will leave such reckoning and retribution to the Creator of the Universe and simply be thankful for His Devine gift to the world of those amazing and most precious little people that grace our lives with their chubby little fingers, tiny noses and wide bright little eyes, as they haltingly tell us with such excited wonderment and awe of some small occurrence, like a butterfly landing on a flower, or a bird singing in a tree. The smile on those little thumb-print sized lips forces me to fight the urge to gather their pudgy little bodies up, holding them protective and safe, shielded from the pains and horrors that the world has waiting for them, cradling them tender and tight, and telling them how much I love them more than anything else in the whole world, and that I will never, ever let anything bad happen to them. This, I would love to do, feeling their warm little bodies close and sacred in my arms. I would hold them, gently and carefully, comforting them, calming them, nestling them to my breast and talking to them in a soft, whispery voice, driving away all their little fears so that never again would they have to be afraid. I would love to do this, soothingly and caressingly, I would love to tell them this, tell them all of this ... and cry.
May the one, true, holy God of heaven and Earth bless and protect our little people.

Keck