Home Before Dark

There was not a youngster alive when I was growing up before the time of promiscuous parents, who did not hear the words from an anxious mother, “get home before dark”. Whether a short distance away or many miles away, our mothers wanted us in the house before dark. Later in life, there was a curfew. At my grandparents' house, my aunts and uncles said the curfew was 10:00. One of my aunts, now in her 92nd year, said when she was 18 there was a evening when her boyfriend had a flat tire and they walked the rest of the way home. Her parents were sitting on the front porch watching and waiting. My mother had a curfew of 11:00 o'clock. She did not go to sleep until we were in the house and she could tell us, to the second, what time our two large collie dogs barked, hearing the car many miles away. They knew the sound of each vehicle. These dogs and my mother had a line in the sand which we crossed if we dared. Another aunt, now deceased, said she never went to bed until her son was in the house. As an outstanding athlete, he had many night games. He would say, “why aren't you in bed?” She said, “Some day you will understand.”

In a culture of lying and deceit, snakes and vipers (Matthew 23:33), when Harry Potter is more important than George Washington, when we have a president in the White House whose lies have caught up with him (There is now a Presidential Enemies List.), when government agencies such as OSHA gives out erroneous information (deaths in the workplace), when Cap and Trade is just picking the pockets of the tax payer, when proposed health care legislation is socialized medicine from which other nations are seeking to escape, when we are involved in winless, useless wars, we find that Col. Kadafe and President Chavez seem sane and serene.

Added to our national and international problems at a time when spiritual comfort is sought, both Christians and non-Christians see little stability in the churches. The Episcopalians and Lutherans have decided to put homosexual pastors in pulpits. Senator Edward Kennedy's funeral in Boston was highlighted by Catholic hierarchy. How the Catholic church can give such a resounding send off to a man who left a young woman to die in a swamp at Chappaquiddick when he escaped from the car, and walked by three houses and a fire station, without seeking any help for the poor girl, went back to his inland hotel and tried to establish his alibi at his hotel and with the Kennedy PR and lawyering firms before ever admitting he knew the woman. His non-Christian lifestyle, in my humble opinion, was a distraction to the congress and to everyone who knew him. But, as with most “Big D” democrats, even President Obama (who has some religious problems of his own) hand carried a letter from the “sinful Senator” to the Pope at the Vatican. Obviously, Senator Kennedy wanted to get home before dark.

Amber Alert: Iredell County is looking for two missing children, Keara Hess, 12 years old and 9 months pregnant, skin color black, and her sister, Sierra Hess, 11 years old, skin color black along with their adoptive father, Matthew Hess who is white. This was on the news on September 30th, 2009. The above Amber Alert is not rare anymore. As Gen. Colin Powell, said in a speech some years ago, shame is a lost word. Parents and children no longer experience the psychosis of shame. Anything goes.

A mother said to me, not long ago, could I imagine how many hours she spends in prayer for her daughters. When a young man sees a young girl, tattooed and unkempt he can readily surmise that this is not a future mother for his children. Defaced money is taken out of circulation. Too often, abused boys and girls become popular. “It is 10:00. Do you know where your children are?”