Isn't it ironic, doncha think?

There is an irony to life that has been bugging me the way a scab you pick at all day does. Not really painful, but not comfortable either, and you just fuss with it without ever meaning to. It strikes me that the people who dislike something so much, that they dedicate their energies to it's banishment or management, end up faced with the thing they hate the most constantly. For example, I imagine that fitness buffs hate sloth and fat. But if they pursue this as a career path, they end up working with overweight and heavy people. And granted, they'll likely transform these people into fitter and healthier versions of themselves, but there will always be another heavy person to take their place.

But what has been on my mind lately are the people who fight for sexually abused children.

A couple of years ago, I remember watching an Oprah (Must have been when I just had one of my 3 kids. Really the only time I ever watched her show with regularity. What else can you do when you're breastfeeding a kid on the couch?) which was focused on child pornography. There were 3 people they were interviewing about their work, which was, of course, facing budget cutbacks. There were two women who spent their days watching child pornography (the phrase kiddie porn makes something heinous seem less horrifying so I don't use it) building cases against the alleged offenders. The one guy was the detective who had to slog through the case files and arrest the perpetrators.

What struck me about the three of them was that there was a world weariness around their eyes. That they all looked at things that turned their stomachs and that they knew they had to do it because otherwise there would be no way to bring justice down upon the perpetrators. Theirs were the eyes that watched when the children were being violated. Their eyes were the ones that recognized the suffering. It was their witness that could testify against the rapists for the voiceless children. The male detective said that there were nights that he had to tear himself away from his desk because each one of those files sitting on its top represented one more child who was going to endure a living hell. One more waste of breath violating another innocent life. And it weighed down his soul to know that the next day, more files would be added to the stack. More children, more perpetrators. More.

I think what has brought this to the forefront for me is the latest scandal at Penn State. I've tried to avoid hearing about it but it is even on NPR. So I turn the station and it is all over the morning talk shows.  But that's the deal, isn't it. While the whole pedophilia thing upsets me and makes me want to call down some serious smiting from the heavens, it is so beyond my understanding that I cannot let it into my psyche. I cannot look at it square in the face. I cannot believe the reality of it because it shakes my basic understanding of what it is to be a person. I know it exists, but I cannot pay attention because to me, it feels like breathing in asbestos -- it is destined to grow cancer on my soul.

I think that is why there is inaction on the part of other adults faced with the ugly truth of some kid being violated by an adult. There is a desire, unthinkable and unforgivable, to wish it away. That if the accusations would just disappear, then there would be a return to normalcy. The world view that adults protect and nurture children would not be replaced by the world view that somebody you know is abusing, molesting, and raping children. I think this is why so many adults err on the side of complicity. You would hope that the first adult a child approaches would be the hero. Likely, it is the only adult that the child will have had the courage to approach. And if that person cannot get past the inertia of not wanting their world view to change, then that child's freedom is likely lost.

I think this is what happened in the Penn State case. I think that the coaches couldn't believe that this was happening. Despite being confronted with the actual act of rape witnessed by another person, inaction prevailed. That one of their coaches, a guy they've hung out with, been friends with, discussed strategy with, had been a voice of reason and a good sounding board for them, could ever be the kind of person that raped children. The children who were victimized were already from troubled homes. These kids were already voiceless in their own lives, and this predator took advantage of the groundwork laid by other adults.

I don't have much insight to offer here. Just making the observation. If not for those investigators, those detectives who are willing to look the ugly of our society full in the face, those kids would remain voiceless. They don't wear capes, nor can they fly. They're not trumpeted or given keys to the city. But what they have devoted their lives to, they pay the price. What they do is no less than heroic.