Sea Monster

There was terror in their little eyes as they watched him approach. 

Bulbous and stringy, shimmering-kelp seaweed hung slimily half hiding his face.  His back, just at the base of the neck, was bulgy – made more grotesque for the hunched-and-halting gait as he drew steadily near.  He was lumbering and erratic, a useless and twisted foot dragging behind leaving a snake-like trail in the sand.  Grunting and leering he came closer and closer, blackened fangs protruding beneath his upper lip.  Every few stumbling steps he thumped a club clutched in his boney hand.

The children sat frozen, transfixed in horror, then crab-like began inching away, their eyes widening but never leaving the creature coming toward them. 

“Da-a-a-a-a-a-d?”

The gig was up.  I dropped my disguise.  The seaweed stunk; the Styrofoam stuffed under my t-shirt itched; one of the pebble fangs had already fallen out (which probably gave me away); and I was, after all, not a sea-monster but their father.

Sometimes I just don’t know what gets into me.  Possessed I guess.  I mean what father, in his right mind, dresses up as a creature from the black lagoon to scare his little kids who are playing in the sand, oblivious to what has become of dad who is supposed to be protecting them from this . . . this thing? 

Who are we really? 

David Brooks wrote an op-ed for the New York Times recently entitled “When the Good Do Bad.”  His column is an attempt to answer the question everyone seems to be asking, ‘Who is Robert Bales anyway?’

Here’s an excerpt:

“Friends of Robert Bales, who is accused of massacring 16 Afghan civilians, describe him as caring, gregarious and self-confident before he — in the vague metaphor of common usage — apparently “snapped.” As one childhood friend told The Times: “That’s not our Bobby. Something horrible, horrible had to happen to him.”

Here’s how Brooks concludes his column, a derivation of a worldview no longer in vogue:

“Robert Bales, like all of us, is a mixture of virtue and depravity. His job is to struggle daily to strengthen the good and resist the evil, policing small transgressions to prevent larger ones.”

Someone once said that a river without boundaries is a swamp.  And swamps stink.

Bales bailed when his boundaries failed.

Without personal, inviolable, non-negotiable limits we place upon ourselves, and teach to our children, we too are susceptible, as Brooks observes, to “monstrous acts that shock the soul and sear the brain.” 

Values however are not a once-and-done exercise anymore than a necklace is just a string.  Rather like pearls strung one after another, our character is added to daily – better yet hourly – and so our reputation is established and trusted behavior ensured. 

So here's a thought.  Since our cell phones have an alarm clock feature, set it to ring on the hour.  As a reminder.  Of the quality of character you’re working on. 

Today.