LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1983, Page 130

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

132 OTHER PRESENTATIONS

triplets wasn’t one of them. I suspect they’d have done
him in.

On Monday they stripped the leaves from all the
plants in the bay window—30 little fingers—zip, zip, zip.

On Wednesday they took 46 little stuffed toys and
gave them a bath (in the bathroom, but not in the bath
tub!).

And then on Friday—you’ve heard of siamese twins?
Well, they got into the super glue and turned themselves
into siamese triplets.

And here it was Saturday, and Dale was calling me
long distance—in tears. It seems it had snowed during
the night, and because they had a cold (which is always
a joint project) and couldn’t go out, Dale read them a
picture book about a snowman. Now two hours later,
she was on the phone crying because in her living room
was a snowman. There stood Joshua, his blue eyes
sparkling with pride—the only color showing on a body
otherwise totally white, covered with talcum powder by
his brothers Jonathan and Jeremy.

My sympathetic response to this calamity? Typical
grandmother, I asked, “Did you get a picture?”

Luther knew something about that kind of bedlam,
living as he did in a home with not only his own six
children, but also a variety of foster children and
orphaned nieces and nephews. Yet, he loved to be at
home and could say of children: “They are the best wool
on the sheep.” (WLS, #400, p. 137).

And he would say about people whose principal
reason for marrying is a desire for children that while
“their number is small, ... I simply class them with the
angels” (WLS, #2800, p. 897).

But something happened to children on their way to
the seventies. They stopped being capital investments
and became consumer goods; they stopped being
precious and became costly; they stopped being a gift
from God and became commodities to be rejected if
inconvenient, imperfect, or simply unwanted.

Think of what we have done to children! We exploit
them in child pornography, injure them with Halloween
treats, batter them at an epidemic rate, sell them on the
black market, and abandon them in their most forma-
tive and vulnerable years to child care that is based on
economic agreements, entrusting them to a parade of
people with whom they can form no lasting relationship.

Certainly, there are some of us who are diligent in
seeking people who would consider the care of their
child a primary responsibility, who would find caring
for their baby fulfilling, who would know what their
child needs in terms of love and understanding.

But how do we miss the irony in that? We expect
more of a substitute mother than we do of ourselves. We
expect her to do for money what we won’t do for love.

Unless a mother absolutely has to work—and there
are those cases—what is worth missing the child’s first
smile, first step, first tooth? What is worth the missed

hugs, kisses, bruises, confidences?

It is estimated that before the age of seven, a child
will ask 500,000 questions. Who will answer them for
our children? day care employees? baby sitters? other

children? television? or worse—no one?

Think of how we can work ourselves, our values, o
beliefs, our God into the life of a child through his or hy
questions. If we have not been available to answer theny
when they are little researchers, after age seven they:
will no longer ask us. :

Today’s perspective on child care: “When that wis
harlot, natural reason ... looks at married life, she tury;
up her nose and says: Ah, should I rock the baby, was’
diapers, make the bed, smell foul odors, watch throu
the night, wait upon the bawling youngster and healii
infected sores ...tend to this, tend to that... suffer thi
suffer that. ... Should I be so imprisoned?” (WLS, #276

His high view of children. In little ones He noted:
attitudes which He said ought mark those who are th
adults in His kingdom, and He manifested those very
qualities Himself when, in childlike obedience, in child-#
like submission, in childlike humility and trust, He gavi
Himself for us. It is clear from the Gospel that while H.
intended that we are to teach children, He intended tha:
we ought also be taught by them.

One of the lessons we are to learn from children 1
found in Luther’s response to a friend’s praise of God’:
creation as found in a branch of cherries hanging ove
his table. “Why do you not daily learn,” said Luther
“the article of divine creation by looking at your children
and offspring. ... They are of far greater worth than al
the fruits of the trees. Here you may behold the pro
dence of God, who created them out of nothing. Inah
year He gave them body and life and all their memb
and also intends to support them. But we pass by th
gifts” (WLS, #405, p. 138). 0

We “pass by these gifts” indeed in many ways. Bu
the one most clearly documented is the destruction
which takes the lives of almost 2 million children a ye
through abortion-on-demand.

In order to justify and tolerate abortion—and no
infanticide—we must discredit children, and one wayis
simply to see them in terms of deficiencies—what th
are not, what they do not have, and what they cannot
do. Their lives are in jeopardy because they do ni
measure up to our adult standards. When the value
children is diminished, so too is the value of caring ft
children.

Contemporary secular religion—which has as
god Self-fulfillment—has pushed the traditional no
of sacrifice that rearing children entails into disrepu
As one of its adherents, a prominent TV personalit
wrote: “It doesn’t matter whether children are swé
and marvelous to have; even if one wants to pay.
price for it, I believe that if God were still speaking to
even He would say that the way to be fruitful is: Do
multiply!”

Had Luther followed that advice he’d have beet
spared a lot of heartache, emotional stress, expense, ane
energy. Maybe he could have produced 210 volum
instead of 110. He would certainly have avoided th

1