The American classroom is a microcosm of our nation, and what every teacher knows is, the problem with our world is not racism.
It’s not guns.
Or violence.
Or corruption.
Those are symptoms.
If we’re going to have a serious conversation about how to heal our nation, we have to identify the inconvenient truth about where to start.
When I was a teacher, I witnessed what I suspect every teacher sees… the deep, complicated source of the problems that overshadows many students’ entire reality.
Home-lessness.
The children were home-less.
There were fewer dads and moms, replaced by caregivers, who were usually extended family members.
When we sent home letters, we had to stop using the phrase your child and change it to a more general term, your student, to include grandparent, aunt, or guardian who might be raising the child.
Gone are the days letters were addressed, Dear Parents.
The children were hungry.
I’m not talking about kids who weren’t awake enough to eat breakfast before school. I’m referring to those who, because there’s no food, went to bed hungry again. The ones who woke up hungry.
The children were disoriented.
They didn’t know where their textbooks were because they weren’t always sure where they’d end up each night.
They even stopped asking where each other live and began using the more temporary phrase, Where do you stay?
It took me too long to realize this. Kids will break your heart with their brave-faced moxie.
The children were victims.
This affects 1 in 3 souls who pass us on the street. Despite our very best efforts to ignore the dark underbelly of the American “home,” ours is a nation of victims.
I won’t linger here.
Many American children no longer feel safe, lack basic nutrition, aren’t growing up watching dad fix things or mom make things, aren’t getting to see families problem-solve together…
They have no home-life.
So we end up with home-less, hungry, victimized children with little or no critical thinking skills… growing up into adults.
Before you wonder if I’m defending or declaring anyone innocent, I’m not.
I’m trying to see this from ground level, where we stop trying to make sense of evil and be about the hard work of healing our nation.
I believe we do this by pouring ourselves into the youngest among us of every descent, journey, and creed.
As my favorite missionary says, Love looks like something.
Human love isn’t a feeling. It’s a reflection of God.
…Love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
~ 1 John 4:7
The most important time to love adults is before they’re adults.
Teachers will tell you, they cannot unsee the child in every adult who was once their student. We will always see the child we once knew.
Even in their mugshots.
Because we know, somewhere, something went terribly, terribly wrong.
Evil leaves a wake of weeping hearts that will never unbreak. The suffering caused by criminals on both sides of the law cannot be ignored or overstated.
But just talking about it, the symptoms of an increasingly home-less culture, isn’t helping.
We’ve talked about it until our words have become rote cymbal-clanging.
Darkness is everywhere, but the Bible says where sin abounds, grace explodes.
Where sin increased, grace overflowed.
~ Romans 5:20
Now’s a good time for grace to explode creatively through prevention.
Grace means loving a home-less child, even if the child is all grown up.
It means communities having meaningful relationships with law enforcement.
I have friends and family who are honorable, self-sacrificing LEOs, and I think they’ll agree one of the best ways to help them is for us to nurture and encourage our young people long before the unthinkable happens.
It truly does take a village.
Or a nation.
Some groups are already busy trying.
There’s an Upper Room near here where children and their parents receive prayer, school supplies, clothes, hope…
There are backpack ministries that send food home with children so they can eat on weekends and holidays while school cafeterias are closed.
There’s a beloved group that often fires the Sunday School lesson to instead go rebuild homes for very messy people in their community, for free.
There are soup kitchens, shelters, dental ministries, foster families, and abortion-prevention harbors.
There are churches who wear themselves out creating activities for children within communities of all kinds.
Sometimes kids just need to laugh.
All these are for one purpose: to love people, because Love looks like something.
No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us.
~ 1 John 4:12
Pray—always pray—and while God is doing the impossible, we can do what’s possible, even if it’s just letting someone go ahead of us at the grocery store.
The children are watching to see what Love looks like, whether it even exists.
Let them see Love in us.
Let them see God in us.
Let your light shine so others can see, in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
~ Jesus
{Matthew 5:16}
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never, ever overcome it.
~ John 1:5
Love looks like something.
~ Mama Heidi