thanks to people like jim nix, our children live in a safer world

(or a more socially retarded one)

let's forget for a moment that the guy in question is not the father of my child. let's forget for that moment that, even if all you know of my and hannah's relationship is this blog, most everyone i know realizes i would take a bullet for my baby girl, much less a co-ed sized softball. let's also forget that every ground ball hit to me yesterday evening at humc's youth/adult softball game i would have been comfortable laying down on the ground and fielding with my teeth. and let's forget, finally, that the guy in question wears shirts that look like american flags to church. let's forget all of that for a second and know that his intentions were good.

"the road to hell is paved with good intentions." - unknown

"i didn't want to be mean, but we would have felt terrible if something happened to her." three-quarters of the way through the softball "game" yesterday, i invited hannah onto the field with me. she had displayed extraordinary patience for the first hour and a half of the event, playing with james and lena and morgan and being her all-around usual big self. so, as a reward for her patience, i led her out to short with me and we were going to hang out for a minute and let her catch some of the "action" from the field's perspective. pitching for the adult team was the aforementioned jim nix. a player, perhaps, in his past. he showed up to the game with a softball bag full of old bats and balls and, for all intents and purposes, was ready to play. his readiness showed in other ways too. it showed in the way he swung at the ball as mightily as he could, torpedoing it towards youth boys and girls that had never played softball, much less against grown men bent on reliving the glory days of their athletic past. his readiness showed in the way he would not give the youth an out. it showed in the way he proclaimed (maybe with his tongue in cheek. maybe not.) his want to maintain his shutout. it showed in his command of all things on the field. his team. his team's batting order. the score. the pace of the game. and who was allowed on the field and who was not...

...and we are back on point. for when hannah joined me at short, jim stopped the game, absolutely refusing to throw a soft underhanded pitch to a girl that was not going to hit the ball for he "feared" hannah was in too much danger to participate. was she really in danger standing next to her father? i would argue, "no.", unless jackson willis had stepped up to the plate. and while i urged jim to continue and tried to convince him that hannah would be fine, he put his foot down and would. not. have. it. i thought for a second about arguing with him. i thought about asking him to defend this knee-jerk reaction. i thought about calling him out and making him look foolish. i thought about making a scene. but i didn't. and i walked hannah off the field and let her run over to mommy because she didn't understand any more than i did why she couldn't play with daddy.

was hannah in danger? of course not. i can be silly, even stupid, at times, but i am not silly, much less stupid, with hannah. the bigger and more relevant question, though, was where jim's fear even came from. was he honestly concerned for hannah's well-being? maybe. or were his concerns self-serving, ignorant, or even mean? hmm. you see, hannah spends plenty of time at the ballpark. she is not completely aware of how to play softball or what "danger" she may be in at all times, but she knows very well enough to listen to her mommy and daddy when they encourage her in one way or the other. you see, hannah was more safe with me than 95 percent of the youth manning their position when jim, mark rafferty, or jeremy came up to bat because they were swinging away like it was the world series. where was the "concern" then? where were the good intentions? i don't really understand the double-standard. maybe i am wasn't supposed to.

there are people in society, in all walks and levels of authority, that peddle fear because it furthers their own agenda. because it enhances their authority. because it makes them look important. or feel important. there are people like this in society, ergo, there are obviously people like this in church. in my church. people that would rather make rules and enforce rules without having an intelligent conversation on why those rules exist. a rule without reason is a bad rule. a rule enforced because you think it's right, debate be damned, is a rule i am going to have issue with. and i'll be honest, people in church, in my church, that enforce these types of rules because "it's the right thing to do" are the biggest reason i questioned coming back to my church in the first place.

now, let's not read me as a complete anarchist. i am not talking about murder. i am not talking about stealing. shooting people in the foot for the fun of it. there are rules, commandments even, that are in place because the evolution of society has discovered that certain things are just bad if you are in the business of being human. but i am talking about being "fearful" and having no idea why. spilling words of "good intent" with one breath, and playing the game (of life, if you will) outside of those constraints.

it may, in fact, "take a village" to raise hannah into a responsible adult, but in the night club that is her rearing, jim nix is no longer on "the list".