Not Right At All

After hearing us talk today about the tornadoes that swept through the South yesterday, the boys wanted to see video of a tornado.  Jeff pulled up a montage from The Times.  After a few minutes, Ezra, who looked disappointed, said, “I want to see screaming, and people running for their lives.”

I gasped and shouted, “Ezra!”

I was going to go on to say that we never want to see people running for their lives. But then I realized that would be a lie.  We do want to see that, or there wouldn’t be so much of it all over the internet.  And it didn’t seem right to say, “Look, Ezra, we are all a little callous toward human suffering.  The trick is to hide it better.  You need to shake your head and mutter under your breath about just how truly awful it is.”

That didn’t seem right at all so I remained quiet.

Later, when Jeff was praying before dinner, he spent a minute praying for the people who had lost loved ones in the storm and people who were without homes and dinner this very night.  Throughout the prayer, Zach was eying his dinner with pure lust.  He was literally licking his lips and saying repeatedly, “This looks so good.”

I shot him the evil eye, my silent version of the gasp.  I was tempted to tell him that when people are praying for others, we don’t think about how great our next meal is going to be. But I realized that that too would be a lie.  And I could hardly say, “Look, Buddy, I know you care more about the fact that there is a special sausage in your pasta tonight than you do about people who have lost everything.  But when these things happen, grown-ups spend a few minutes in reverent prayer before we move on and act like nothing happened. You should start practicing now.”

But that didn’t seem right at all.

There is nothing like someone else’s blatant indifference to highlight your hypocrisy. God help us all, especially those who have lost everything. For real.