McMahon Life

We are always incredibly appreciative of the thoughts and insights of others in our lives.  There are times we write about issues upon which we are far less than authorities (parenting, for example).  Sometimes we are blessed to receive thoughts and insights from those far more appropriately recognized as authorities on the subject.  We wrote last week about the struggle between protecting our own children and engaging the world around them.  A good friend of ours, Cindy Locke, wrote a response that we received her permission to share with you here.  We think that this topic warrents further discussion, so here are some more thoughts!

As a parent I have wrestled with the same issues of exposing our kids to the “sin, pain,etc.” that is in this world versus protecting them and shielding them from all the uglies this world has to offer. Raising kids in a happy, clean, safe world and protecting them from the outside is a tempting way to go. However, I don’t think kids will be prepared to go out in the real world and deal with it if that is the way they are raised. I also think that it is dangerous to expect kids, teenagers to be able to handle being exposed to things like drug use/ sex and addiction, mental illness, violence, etc. without having a strong parent or adult to walk alongside them as they reach out to hurt people. I think a lot of times parents allow their kids/teens into situations that they are not ready to be able to handle. Every child/teen is different, each has a different level of inner strength. Some are leaders and not easily swayed, others are followers and can be sucked into unhealthy behaviors much easier. “Good” parents are those that are in tune with their children and know who can handle which situation. For our family bringing hurt people into our house has been an ongoing ministry. Personally I feel much safer having hurt people stay with us and have our whole family ministering  (loving on them) than having our kids going elsewhere to reach out. Besides foster kids we have had many adults live with us (usually when we don’t have foster kids). We’ve had pregnant teens and women, a woman who was in prison and granted clemency to die outside of prison with liver cancer, a women with severe post partum psychosis who was in and out of inpatient psychiatric unit, persons with addiction issues who have suffered every type of abuse, we’ve had three people die in our house from terminal illnesses. Each person that stayed with us got to be loved by an entire family and our family got to learn how to love and be loved by all sorts of people with all sorts of pain. I haven’t had to worry about if our kids will be pulled into drug use/addiction, teen sex/pregnancy etc., Our kids have got to see the other side, not the glamorized side of sin. They also got to walk though extreme life situations with a family who is very present and they know how to cry out to God. I hope that in the end it has made the kids much stronger in their faith and in their love for people. In your blog you talk about balancing protecting versus making a impact in our world. It is possible to do both as long as the family is right by their child’s side as they reach out. If not much damage can come. I understand why a parent wouldn’t want their son hanging out with another teenager who is actively smoking pot but I also see how that family (not just the teenager) could reach out to that teen and make a huge impact on his world. It does all come down to the family not just the teen to be able to avoid some of the potential pitfalls.

There you have it.  Thank you Cindy for your encouragement to us to move from a mindset of “protection” to one of wise engagement!

It was the standard Wednesday night scene for us in Seattle: we were standing outside the chapel before youth group, hiding under the overhang watching the rain come down.  What occurred next was a moment that remains entrenched deep within me.  Not deep in the way that it’s so far back I’ll never be able to recall it, but set deep in the way that it has constantly affected me – it challenged me, frustrated me, and ultimately served as the first step on the journey in which I still find myself.   We had just begun a friendship – we were perhaps two weeks of Sundays, Wednesdays, and text messages in – and Nick, a 7^th grader I was standing beside, turned to me and said,

“Dude, this sucks, my dad won’t let me hang out with Nathan because he has friends that smoke pot and my dad’s afraid they’ll influence me.  I want to bring him to church, but my dad says I can’t hang out with him.”

Two thoughts came to my mind in that moment, two thoughts that seemed contradictory in practice but essential in faith.  The first was: Friends influence.  If you hang with bad friends they will influence you in bad ways.  I totally understand why your dad doesn’t want you spending time with them. The second thought brought the conflict: If we never hang out with “sinners” how are they going to know the love of Jesus? Do you see the dilemma?  I’m sure it’s an issue every Christian parent has wrestled with on numerous occasions.  How do we balance the call of Jesus to be light in the darkness with our role as responsible adults and parents to protect our children and those in our care? As easy as it could be as a youth pastor to become frustrated with Nick’s father for removing Nick’s ability to influence his friends toward Jesus, criticism and judgment are never the answer.

The past couple weeks we’ve been helping our neighbor get a hold of her life.  Long-time alcoholic and leader (and enabler) of her family, she has spent years helping everyone except herself.  As we’ve been walking with her she has come to the realization that she needs to take care of herself because she has no ability to truly take care of anyone else.  As those who support life-change we have assisted her with things from electric bills to rides to church and job interviews.  Over and over I have heard her say, “I need to get out of here.  I need to get off the Road.”  By here she means The Bluffs, and by the Road she means Casino Road.  She has this understanding that it’s her living in the ghetto that keeps her from getting her life back together – that if she can just eliminate the “ghetto” from her life, she can save herself.

Our neighbor was coming from the opposite end of the situational spectrum from Nick’s parents.  Our neighbor felt contaminated by the darkness of the influences around her.  Nick’s parents were trying to protect him from the negative influence of bad friends, to keep that very darkness that our neighbor felt as far away from their son as they could.  But their perspectives were the same: the problem is the environment.  Get out or avoid the environment, and you will be safe. If this is the case, if the environment is the problem, then finding the solution is as simple as finding an environment that contains no darkness.  Right.  When you find it, let me know.

When we remove ourselves from an environment that contains incredible darkness we often find that we are present in the exact same kind of darkness that we tried to get away from.  Our neighbor may move, but chances are she’ll fall into the same patterns of darkness in her new environment.  Nick’s parents may not allow him to hang out with Nathan, but chances are he’ll find some way to hang out with some friend who will influence him negatively.  Taking ourselves out of our environment recognizes only the darkness around us.  It fails to recognize the light within us.  I’m pretty sure that in Matthew 5 Jesus did not instruct his disciples to take their light and run as fast as they could from the darkness.  To focus on protecting ourselves only from the environment around us removes us from places of influence, from the ability to bring light into the darkness.

At this point there may be some of you who are ready to string me up by my thumbs.  Maybe you have a child who has been hanging with the wrong kids and you’ve seen him or her wander off.  Maybe you’ve had neighbors that stayed in negative situations and were swallowed up by the environment.  What I am not talking about is status-quo.  What I am not talking about is taking a hands-off policy to our kids and telling our neighbors to just stay where they are.  What I am talking about is a different kind of movement, a different kind of change, a different kind of friendship, and a different kind of parenting.

When we choose to remove our light, we choose to allow the dark to stay dark.  We see this constantly in the ghettos.  A ghetto is a ghetto because it is populated by a lot of people without a whole lot of money.  It stays poor because when people find money, they run from the ghetto as fast as they can, taking their money with them.  Where’s the hope in that?  I wonder what our ghettos would look like if people chose to move into them, instead of move out of them.  I wonder what the projects would look like if people of hope moved in and befriended a neighbor like mine and showed that neighbor that there is hope for change within, within community, without having to constantly run.  There is change without running!

I wonder what our communities would look like if parents invited the “bad” kids over instead of forbidding their kids from playing with them.  I wonder what detention at school would look like, what juvey would look like if, instead of banning their kids from playing with those kids, they had them over and showed them love, acceptance, mercy, forgiveness, and grace.

Is it easy?  Absolutely not.  Is it messy?  Completely.  Does it take time?  More than most of us have right now (which necessitates another discussion on our choices of life).  We need something different.  We need this.  Telling our kids not to play with bad kids doesn’t work.  Moving away from darkness doesn’t work – it always comes with you.  Protecting ourselves from the world doesn’t work.  We need something different.  We need to change our defensive protection strategies to creative offensive engagement of our communities.  Only by opening our arms and our homes to our communities can we truly protect our own people, and we’ll transform lives in the process!