Saw a story in the world recently … quite disturbing.
A young woman went on a girls’ trip to Mexico … pretty girl, objectively attractive, good weight, skin, hair, etc.
Anyhoo, while in Mexico, she heard that the Supremes handed down the Dobbs decision, and — for those only recently returned from deep space — women of childbearing age are now subject to states’ rights, sort of like the antebellum enslaved, when it comes to personal medical decisions. Good times.
Anyhoo, this young woman is commiserating with her friends about the regression of constitutional rights and she calls her mother from Mexico, just to see how she’s (the mom) is doing.
Mom is in tears. To be expected, but still … the young woman notices it is a bit much. So she lets her mom go, says she’ll talk to her later.
Calls back. Mom is still a wreck. Young woman asks, What’s the deal?
Turns out … Mom is pregnant. Young woman is excited! Congratulations all around, new sibling on the way, so much to look forward to.
Mom is still crying. Young woman asks again, What’s the deal? This is supposed to be good news.
Turns out … Mom’s baby daddy is the young woman’s boyfriend.
Wat.
Yeh.
So the young woman does what any modern woman of the contemporary age would do … she blocks her mother and soon-to-be ex-boyfriend on all social media, returns to the States, stays with friends until she can bear to deal with her new reality … mother is trash, boyfriend is trash, life (as she knew it) completely over.
Few weeks later she returns to the apartment she used to share with the boyfriend, finds all her possessions gone.
Wat.
Yeh.
Seems the now ex-boyfriend took her things to force her to talk to him. He apologizes, says he’s so, so sorry, wants to work things out, her mom will take care of their baby / he won’t be involved, yadda, yadda, more yadda and still.
To her credit, the young woman informs him quite simply that if he does not return her belongings she’s calling the cops, and he can go to jail.
He returns her stuff. As of the video, she still hasn’t spoken to her mom.
There’s an upstanding young man from Memphis? Miami? Some hot, southern place (so many) who has … wait for it … 14 kids with 14 women …says he wants more.
Half said the guy is building a harem. So where are the eunuchs? {Acts 8:38}
AND and there’s another delightful lass with … wait for it …11 kids and 8 (yes, eight / XIII / 12345678) babies’ daddies. Seems proud of it, too … {1 Tim. 5:6} … but at this point what else can she do?
But there also the guy who beat his six-year-old daughter to death with a baseball bat for no discernible reason.
How did we get here?
I know.
We stopped paying our debt to morality.
Wat.
Yeh.
It costs to do the right thing, to hold yourself together and keep the legs closed and the parts in pants.
It costs to maintain some semblance of decency and self-respect. Adulting is hard, like really, really difficult.
But entirely doable … if one will pay that daily debt to being decent … every day.
Because becoming a human trainwreck, a living cautionary tale, takes some time. Rarely overnight (unless driving drunk and honestly lots of folks do that repeatedly until somebody gets dismembered/disabled/dead) and, thankfully, the process of destroying one’s life takes many bad steps to accomplish … going out when should have stayed home, saying yes when should have said no, going with instead of staying away …
But, also thankfully, the second chance is there until we die.
Denzel (is there any other?) Washington did this movie called “Flight” … not great, but there’s a really good plane crash and final scene of redemption … he ends up going to prison for killing a bunch of passengers and his pseudo-girlfriend but he’s a better person for it.
Nice.
So to bring it back around … gotta lotta monkeys, but nothing irredeemable. Not like getting impregnated from unlicensed whoobanging with my kid’s romantic partner … or sprouting 14 other humans because I lack any discernable reproductive control … or being the repository of the ejaculate for nearly a different man for each finger and more kids than I can count on both hands … or having beaten my pre-tween daughter to death for absolutely no acceptable reason ….
Haven’t done any of that, so doing just fine.