Bill Harbeck's Blog

I was blessed to be in the field of education for 32 years.  Every single year the schools I was affiliated with performed fire drills to prepare both students and staff for safe exit in the event there was a fire emergency.  In addition we would perform disaster drills, and lock down procedures all with the intent of having students best prepared for any potential threat to their safety.  In my 32 years I was never involved in an emergency situation where a student’s life was in danger or was a student injured due to a fire or natural disaster.  In fact, I am aware of few if any that I have heard of who have suffered injury from fire or other disasters.  I am sure there are some, but I believe that number is very small. 

In my years in education, never once did I attend, hear, or participate in a workshop, chapel, or assembly that prepared children for the dangers of childhood sexual abuse. Surely one may argue that it falls outside the schools jurisdictions and responsibility to teach abuse prevention or even awareness.  And yet today there are over 40 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse in this country alone while the number is increasing more rapid than ever before.  

So,  if schools are failing to address this, and if churches are failing to address this, and  if families where it exists cover and hide it…to whom will the children turn?  Therein lies the  problem.  Ignore and deny and maybe it will just go away.  Or maybe we will just keep on keeping it a secret. 

“How different would our life be were we truly able to trust that it multiplied in being given away!  How different would our life be if we could but believe that every little act of faithfulness, every gesture of love, every word of forgiveness, every little bit of joy and peace will multiply and multiply as long as there are people to receive it…and that even then–there will be leftovers.  Imagine that your trusting that every little movement of love you make will ripple out into ever new and wider circles…just as a little stone thrown into a still pond.  Imagine, imagine…Could you ever be depressed, angry resentful, or vengeful? Could you ever hate, destroy or kill?  Could you ever despair of the meaning of your short earthly existence?”     Henri Nouwen–Life of the Beloved

“And those who know the Ancient Star-Song watch with singing for the sign of footprints in the galaxies through which the tiny planet rides in routine cycles of despair. But Joy seldom sleeps for long, and someday in a lonely moment mankind will shake an unfamiliar hand and find it wounded.”     Calvin Miller – The Singer

Imagine for a moment what the outcome for a child of a dysfunctional family like this one would be.

“He was raised with an odd assortment of characters that seemed to have no clue about the emotional needs of a child. He was dragged like a rag doll all over the place, and subjected to conditions that had to be disturbing and alienating.  His biological grandfather came from a dysfunctional climate where he found the body of his mother after she committed suicide. The grandfather was then abandoned by his father when he was eight.

The boy’s father and step father were alcoholics.  He was abandoned by both parents, and ‘schlepped’ from country to country until settling with his grandparents with whom he’d arrived at an unspoken pact…he could live with them and they’d leave him alone so long as he kept troubles out of sight.   Eventually the grandparents entrusted the grandson’s mentorship to a man who was a pedophile, an alcoholic, and a misogynist.”

One may assume that this boy’s outcome is destined for disaster.  It is well-known that pedophiles may have 400 victims in a lifetime.  It would be safe to surmise then, that this boy was sexually abused.  Childhood sexual abuse leads to numerous adult dysfunctional behaviors especially if the  abuse is not disclosed. Adult depression, psychological disorders, and substance abuse are some of the manifestations of the unresolved damage done. 

One could assume that the outcome for the boy in this story was disastrous.  Instead, he became the most powerful man on the planet.  That’s right.  The boy in the story is President Barack Obama.  I do not know nor could I say for sure if he was ever molested as a child. Considering the nature of pedophiles, one may conclude he was and consequently suffers with a damaged soul. It follows that since the abuse to compensate, he has longed for a meaningful close relationship and continues to have deep longings to acquire the admiration of anyone and everyone for the worth he was deprived as a child, and the damage he suffered at the hands of adult abusers. 

We are all on this journey called life.  The consequences of abuse touch us all.  Hope for healing rests only in the hands of the wounded one.

Current statistics are difficult to secure on this issue:

• “100,000 websites offer illegal child pornography”
• “20% of all Internet Pornography involves children”
• In December 2005 child pornography was a 3 billion dollar business”

Child pornography requires by definition young children.  Thousands and thousands of children are being illegally sexually abused to provide viewers their drug of choice.  Pornography viewing is an addiction and child porn is increasing every year.  The brain is wired to desire more chemical stimulants as addictions grow.  Addicts require greater perversity to supply the craving.  Children.  Children are damaged for life and they are walking among all of us.  This is destroying the foundation of our world. 

 “What you do for the least of these, you do for Me”.

Dependency is interesting behavior.  We are dependent on all kinds of things and yet we value…no treasure…our independence.  So much so that we will do anything to maintain control of our independence. Including becoming dependent on behaviors, habits, or ideas that eliminate our independence.  When we come to the realization that truly nothing of eternal destiny is within our control we recognize that dependency in God is true independence.

Have you ever heard a sermon on the consequences of childhood sexual abuse?  Have you ever heard a sermon on the consequences of any type of abuse?…physical, verbal, spiritual…No one questions the truth that abuse does devastating life long damage to the human soul.  There are 40 million survivors (a conservative estimate) of just chilhood sexual abuse in the United States alone.  Every family knows of someone that has suffered abuse.  And yet, very few if any have the courage to address this issue in a public forum.  Why?  In a word…Shame…The sheer evil of sexual abuse shames our world into silence.  Perpetrators are quickly wisked away and hidden from view while survivors slip into self imposed silence.  Silence hides shame and communities prefer to ignore rather than confront.  Millions live  in the shadows enduring lives of internal suffering.  They are your neighbors, doctors, pastors, teachers…children.  What’s the answer?  Speak out…challenge your community leaders, pastors, and schools to make this a public issue.  Millions of lives are damaged and millions more are affected by this silent plague.  It is long past time to shine some light on this horror.