Cancer is nasty but I've met worse.

I have a lot of people who comment on my great attitude and praise me for staying so positive in the face of cancer. It makes me feel like a fraud.  Cancer is an evil nasty disease but I've met much worse face to face.  At least cancer is a thing...a disease...a faceless, emotionless, entity.  Imagine that cancer was a person and not just any person but a parent or a caregiver. 

I've met those people.  Parents who care more about their own selfish desires than about the well being of their children.  Caregivers who would rather be drunk, high or stoned than take care of their sons or daughters.  People who think children are property and have no rights other than to serve them.  Cancer is a domesticated pet compared to these people.

Most of you know that I worked and volunteered with the CASA program. I know that many people would prefer to believe that child abuse and neglect are not problems in their own community.  It doesn't take much to know that isn't true.    Listen to your evening news.  Last week on mine there was a report of two toddlers, scalded and drowned by a caregiver.  Open your newspaper.  In my local news, there was a story about teenagers sexually assaulting children in their own neighborhood. 

I am confident that with advances in science eventually there will be cures for most cancers. This may even happen in my lifetime.  Do I think child abuse and neglect will end during my lifetime?  Unfortunately not.

I know this sounds rambling but I'm sorry.  Last week, I heard so much hateful speech directed toward the GLBT community by so called Christians that I started to wonder.  What would happen if instead of judging others, the all powerful Christian right movement used their time, energy and money on protecting our most defenseless, the abused and neglected children in our country,  Maybe then I could envision a world where all children are loved and safe.

We love because he first loved us.  If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, who he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command; Whoever loves God must also love his brother.  1 John 4:19-21.

For if every man were to regard the persons of others as his own person, who would inflict pain and injury on others? Hillel, first century AD rabbi.

If you are interested in learning more about CASA, please check out http://www.casaforchildren.org/. If you want to understand why this is so important to me, I recommend you read the books by Dave Pelzer, "A Child Called It," "The Lost Boy," and "A Man named Dave."  These are honest accounts of his life as a battered child.