Author: Heather McEwan

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The disconcerting thing about that image

The slightly disconcerting thing about the graphic above is that I wrote that story at about age 6, and all but the last page of it has come to be – and in the order it is written. Now perhaps theres some prophetic license being entered into here but this little story has long caused mirth in our family. It was first read out at my 21st – married then for 18 months and no kids in sight for a while – all those babies were ficticious hilarity but even then it was noted that I had indeed:

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Broken boys

Oh Lord – he’s 10.
He’s 10 with a broken brain.
Can you mend a 10 year old broken brain?
Of course you can. I know that. But will you?
Would you?

Oh Lord he’s 10.
Or 11.
Maybe he was 10 when he did it and 11 now.
But his brain got broken a long time ago.

This doesn’t just ‘happen’
Are you in the business of mending broken brains?
Sometimes I don’t think so.
But what if that’s because we only see the ones that didn’t get mended.
– or haven’t yet.

What if you’ve mended more brains that we could ever know
Because we haven’t seen the effects of the brokenness?

Oh Lord, he’s 10. Or 11.
Does it even matter?

You Who dwells outside of our now – do you see the man he ‘is’ in a simple pivot of the line of time? Is he a monster? Is he fixable?

Oh Lord – a broken boy.
Please God might you mend him?

Might you put your people around him to help him heal?
Would you protect others in the now, and in the future, from the spread of this specific sadness?

Would you?
Oh Lord he’s 10.

So many fearful others, so sure of the ‘should haves’.
And would I be too in their position?

Oh Lord – the other broken boy.
Heal, protect, love, tear down, build up, surround and restore.
How long oh Lord.
How long.
He’s 8.

Oh Lord.

Written after one boy abused another at a local school.

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Alternative Education for Year 11/12

If you have kids soon to be in the years 11-12 age bracket – this link and this link (both at the Department of Training and Workforce Development) provide a host of very viable and affordable options to school. Kids can leave school at the end of year 10, while still in the compulsory school-age bracket, as long as they’re in a situation that is of equal or more benefit to being in school – work or training can both qualify – there just needs to be an arrangement in place with an employer/trainer and the Education Department.

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Remembrance

I almost never open this box, though I keep it close, as I know the contents and all they summarize will reduce me to a puddle. And every year before his birthday I wonder about posting – and mostly I do – but mostly not much – as his story is not fully my own, yet his story so completely a part of me.

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An unexpected turn of events

I’ve also been thinking about the story of the woman caught in adultery in Matthew 8. It occurred to me to try and imagine what her life would have been had she not been outed. The religious leaders that dragged her, possibly naked, into the public arena of the temple where they knew Jesus would be, had precisely ZERO good intentions. They didn’t care about the law, they were misusing the law – after all, where was the dude? No justice there.

They didn’t care about her reform or status or situation in life (likely a prostitute – with no other means of survival). They were fully intent on trapping Jesus with what they thought would present Him an impossible call, and used force, shame, power and the perversion of justice to bring this to a head.

Very not fair.

Outrageous in fact.

So they brought her, guilty as charged, totally shamed before her community for either a judgement of death on her, or a means to create hatred and dissent toward Jesus.

And they failed.

In the end it seems everyone but Jesus and the woman left that place with a measure of shame. The leaders themselves caught in their own trap and the woman though guilty, was freed from her condemnation and shame.

What an incredible collision of intentions, actions and people.

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