Building People of Substance for Works of Power
February 15, 2025
You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Always remember these commands that I give you today. Be sure to teach them to your children. Talk about these commands when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road. Talk about them when you lie down and when you get up.
Deuteronomy 6:5-7 ERV
On weekday mornings, while walking my dog, I pass a school bus stop. There are usually only two children there, a boy and a girl. They stand in the same spot every day. The girl faces the street, the boy faces the opposite direction, toward a tree-lined area. They are always at least 20 feet away from each other. They both stare intently at their phones, oblivious to me, the dog, and each other. I have never seen them communicate or acknowledge the world around them. Last week, seeing them prompted me to sing this old song:
School days, school days
Dear old golden rule days
Readin' and 'ritin' and 'rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hickory stick
You were my queen in calico
I was your bashful barefoot beau
And you wrote on my slate, "I love you, Joe"
When we were a couple of kids.
It occurred to me that if I sang these lyrics to these bus stop kids, they wouldn’t understand even a fraction of them. I don’t know these young people or anything about them other than their behavior waiting for the bus. I do know that we live in a world where a little attention to the Golden Rule might be a good thing.
In our country, only about a third of our high school graduates can read or do math well enough to hold a job that requires either one. Maybe the 3 R’s should make a comeback. And don’t get me started on the hickory stick. If you’ve been in a store, restaurant, or church lately, you know that discipline is a dirty word. Children are born fallen. Left to their own devices, they will live fallen lives, much to their detriment and the detriment of everyone they come in contact with.
Last week, as I walked past these particular children, I experienced what felt like sadness. Perhaps it was a bit of nostalgia for a simpler time when such things were so familiar that this song could be written and immediately understood by all. But this felt more like grief for a loss. I think the last 4 lines brought it out: grief for the loss of one-on-one human relationship skills, and sadness for the loss of childhood innocence.
A childhood without clashes and collusions with other kids, free of hovering adults, does produce some scars. In elementary school, we actually stood on the border of the next school district and threw chunks of dried dirt at each other. It was called a “dirt clod fight.” Despite the bruises, scars, and deep-seated antipathy, we all somehow managed to attend the same junior high school without significant conflict. We met, we grew, and we expanded our circle of acquaintances. We learned to get along.
The point is that we had real-life encounters with others. Some became friends and we ran with them. Others we learned to avoid. You can’t do any of this effectively with a cell phone and your thumbs. Learning the nuances of vocal inflections, facial expressions, and body language by seeing real-time reactions to life is all part of “knowing” someone. Learning when to speak, when to shut up, how to weep with those who weep, and how to rejoice with those who rejoice, are skills we all need to acquire or live barren, minimally effective lives.
As I watched the Super Bowl this past weekend, I was reminded that children today are being exposed at an early age to sexuality and violence that was unheard of before the advent of that portable porn machine, the cell phone. Thank God for the patriotism shown this year and the many testimonies of players about the importance of Jesus Christ. But the much-hyped halftime show featured language and threats that would get you arrested in any decent community. (Mind you, I didn’t understand the lyrics, but I made the mistake of looking them up).
The week before, I saw clips on X.com of the Grammy Awards, a hellish production that I have long since abandoned in utter disgust. (Any group that gives a country music award to Beyoncé is clearly not to be trusted). This year, it seems, a woman showed up completely naked, her husband standing next to her, and they were not arrested, or at least ticketed, for public indecency. These clips, of course, were shared billions of times with cell phone users around the world, including children. (Yes, they can defeat your filters, and their buddies don’t have filters.)
Later in the week, I heard some of the “leaders” of the United States Congress standing in the street screaming profanity-laced diatribes about the duly elected President. If your child has a cell phone or a friend who has one, I promise you they have seen and heard far worse. I know kids have always seen and heard things, but not this graphic, and not this often, and not from people who are supposed to be “role models”.
I have no idea what constant exposure to such things does to a 7-year-old, but I know it must be damaging. The average child today will see explicit pornography by the age of 12. I have no idea what that does to a developing brain, but I don’t think it does much for realistic expectations. I suppose there has to be a kind of horror, followed by curiosity, and eventually a pleasure response that leads to repeated behavior. Hopefully imitation doesn’t follow, but I suspect it does.
Here’s the point: School isn’t what it used to be. In some places, teachers and that most prim and proper of educators, the librarian, have become purveyors of filth. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I do know that vigilance is a good idea. Combine limiting screen time with paying attention to conversations. Kids are not CIA agents trained to withstand interrogation. They will reveal their secret lives if you listen long enough.
Talking with healthy and sensitive adults is the only source children have to get the accurate feedback they need to make good decisions. The days when kids are corrected by adults other than their parents seem to be gone. It might help if adults were not afraid to talk to young people. We’re not afraid of the kids, we’re afraid of the parents’ reaction. When other adults make comments to you about your child, don’t get defensive, get curious. What prompted the comment?
We can’t realistically expect to protect children from exposure to the world in which they live. We can do our best to inoculate them against its contamination. Bring them to church early and often. Interact with the children’s workers there. Ask for feedback, and don’t get touchy if it isn’t what you want to hear. (Consider volunteering yourself. You reap what you sow.)
The people in your church may be the only reliable allies you have who share your core values. Relationships with godly adults are important. An atmosphere that values God and godliness matters. Take steps to expose your kids to both.
pastorvirgil.com 