A Lover of Justice

My son loves justice. Mercy will need to be taught with time. He makes swords, daggers, and spears out of linking cubes.  Always fighting the “bad guys,” he has temporarily agreed to imprison rather than execute them.

As I watch my children play in the backyard, I see two of his younger siblings entrapped in a hockey net or soccer goal.  The perpetual “bad guys,” these two are just happy to be included in his play.  When driving in the car this past week, I heard my older son tell my younger son that he better behave, or else he would wind up in the “slammer.”

We have avoided all toy guns in the house, only to have various automatic machine guns made from linking cubes, legos, and sticks.  I’m slightly disturbed when my 2 year old daughter approaches me, semi-automatic linking cube weapon in hand, and says “psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, mom you dead.”  She then walks casually back into the playroom and gives a cocky high five to our six year old son.

The other day, after acting out my own death about 10 times, I was feeling very ready to move beyond this phase.  And then I went upstairs to tuck my little boy into bed.  We said the St. Michael prayer, he asked me some questions about the types of swords St. Michael uses to kill the devils, and then he sweetly stated, “Mom, when I grow up, I want to fight for God.”