So, I decided to take my own advice and take a break from obsessive news watching.  I’ve found that life is more pleasant and less chaotic if I’m not inundating myself daily with horrid news stories and the decline of mankind.  I do need to slightly keep myself in the loop though, so I still try to catch about 20 minutes or so of news each morning or at least a quick overview online just to be sure I don’t need to duck a meteor shower, or worse…  In doing so, recently two newsworthy items happened that I can’t seem to let pass without a statement.

The first being The Boy Scouts, which I send a big giant “tsk tsk” to.  Really?  Here I sit, a female, who has never once felt excluded or discriminated against because the Boy Scouts wouldn’t let me or my daughters in their group.  Exactly why has it become egregious to have something exclusively for males or females? And how do we not see that we are confusing children by telling them to fight their instincts in order to be more like each other? Let boys be boys and girls be girls and let the in between co-exist in the middle. Why are we stifling individual God given instincts and differences?

I get that there are those who are not, and perhaps do not want to meet, the cookie cutter idea of a male or female. Then why not make an all-inclusive-come-as-you-are third box for those who choose to join? Why do we have to deny the many who want to remain exclusive in an effort to accommodate the few?  Seems to me that as of late, some have been on a very slow and deliberate path to villainize and shame males simply for being male. It’s a very confusing and destructive mindset for our youth. All I can say is, be very careful what you wish for… It stands to reason that removing the balance, which is by definition harmony and equity, you ultimately create imbalance.

The second bit of news that I cannot wrap my head around is the gut wrenching story of Alfie Evans. Another very slippery slope that we are headed down, but this one can potentially cost us our loved ones and perhaps even our souls.

Thank God that I live in a country that cannot, at this point, dictate the fate of my child and force upon me an end to a fight I was not ready to forfeit. There are miracles every day, and a parent willing to fight for their child should be afforded that right without question, at all costs. How befitting that only a short time after the powers-that-be in England felt fit to let that baby die, against his parents’ wishes and pleas to take him to Italy for additional treatment, a miracle news story broke right here in the United States.  Trenton McKinley, a 13-year-old from Alabama regained consciousness a short time after his parents, who were told he had no brain activity and would be a vegetable, signed papers allowing doctors to donate his organs.  Imagine that, science was wrong, and if doctors had begun organ transplants one day sooner, Trenton would be gone.  I realize that the argument will be made that in contrast to Trenton, Alfie was sick for more than a year.  I argue that when it comes to our children, there is no measure of time, not to mention that his illness was an undiagnosed neurodegenerative disorder. Who’s to say moving him to Italy would not have resulted in the answer to his plight, and in turn,  offered a treatment of some sort?

Modern medicine and doctors are amazing, and I think we can all agree on their tremendous advances over the years, but as a result of those successes perhaps we’ve begun to lose faith in the greater power that guides those very accomplishments… Miracles – when we stop praying for them, believing in them, and giving time for them to happen, we sell ourselves very short.

In Alfie Evans’ case, all they asked for was what should be a parental right world-wide. A chance to receive a miracle for their child. They had flights lined up, doctors waiting, and mass prayers being offered daily for their son.  It breaks my heart, as it does many, that as much as they fought to hold on for a miraculous intervention to happen, those who fought against it still won.  Or, maybe they didn’t… because honestly, I could not imagine laying my head down for a restful night sleep after voting against allowing Alfie the right to fight.  God bless that little man and his parents.

Okay, I’ve said my peace. I’ll now retreat back into a soft-news bubble to try to keep my mind clear of the chaos and insanity that often grips the world, until of course I find something else I can’t hold my tongue about.  In the meantime, embrace who you are instinctively and always pray for miracles… Two things that are so easy to do, yet they have fallen by the wayside.

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