Angels or Devils? Escher, Texas CPS and the Apostle Paul
Trolling back through the stack of hyperbole and innuendo written in the immediate aftermath of YFZ Ranch invasion, I encountered (not for the first time) a screed by AP writer Todd Lewan. Lewan’s piece was republished in scores of papers around the country, including the Abilene Reporter News, on April 19, 2008, two weeks after Texas CPS kidnapped 450+ women and children from the FLDS ranch. First, take a look at the graphic below. What do you see?
What caught my eye in Lewan’s article this time around was one sentence in the following passage:
The March 25, 2004, story atop The Eldorado Success’ front page — “Corporate retreat or prophet’s refuge?” — sent shockwaves through Eldorado.
Everyone wanted to know: Were these outsiders like the Branch Davidians, whose compound near Waco was stormed in 1993, resulting in the deaths of 80 people? Would they kidnap their sons and daughters? Brainwash them? Would they try to conquer by ballot, voting as a bloc for judges, commissioners and school and hospital board members sympathetic to their ways? . . .
Local pilots buzzed the property in their planes, snapped photos of FLDS women in long pioneer dresses tending gardens, men digging small graveyards, erecting 5-foot-thick walls around their temple and building enough dwellings to establish a mini-city. . . .
OK, I’ll admit that the part about “men digging small graveyards” is pretty off-the-wall, too.
Did you know that in a four-county area of West Texas — Kerr, Kendall, Bandera and Gillespie — CPS child-grabbing doubled in the first five months of 2008 over the prior year? (ht:kbp) Kerr County lies about 50 miles southeast of Schleicher County, where the FLDS ranch is located. In all of 2007, CPS snatched a total of 270 children in those four counties. Reportedly, through May of 2008, CPS snatched 235 children in the same area. Annualized, this translates to a 109% increase in one year. Does it strike you as odd that the reporter, Lise Lieder Miller, does not even question why CPS snatchings are up so dramatically?
Friday night, I watched Numb3rs, Episode 418, When Worlds Collide, in which this dialogue takes place:
CHARLIE
I think we're looking at "Angels
and Devils."
FRALEY
Excuse me?
CHARLIE
M.C. Escher's print of angels and
devils, an example of the figureground
effect in perceptual organization.
Enter Audience Vision:
ESCHER'S CIRCLE LIMIT IV [see the graphic at top of post]. --
CHARLIE (V.O.) (cont'd)
How we look at things is often
determined by our predisposition.
In the case of Escher's "Angels and
Devils", one either can see figures
of black devils --
Shifting perspective ever so slightly -- print becomes an
interlocking pattern of WHITE ANGELS.
CHARLIE (V.O.) (cont'd)
-- or white angels. Our perception
is largely influenced by our
thinking.
Finally, I read this report in the West Kerr Current and I remembered the words of the Apostle Paul to the Romans:
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou ajudgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. (Romans 2:1, KJV)
I’ll let you connect the dots.
4 comments
Pleased to see KJV being used!
Keep up the great articles! Your website is educating more than you might realize!
Since we are connecting dots: this reprinted article — particularly your highlighted line — “would they [the FLDS] kidnap their [local folks] sons and daughters?” — suggest it is not only a revelation of the thinking of the local folks, particularly that of those lions of charity and nonjudmentality the local FBC, it is a forecast or a prompter for a pre-emptive strike against the FLDS.
If you are shopping for a way to “legally” kidnap THEIR kids before they kidnap YOURS, voila! CPS is your ticket. Talk about hired guns!
Surely there ARE other Baptist (and Methodist) congregations around Texas, or around the nation, that may be moved to express regrets for what has been done to the FLDS. Surely there are some among their number who believe in charity, who believe in the passage quoted above, on withholding judgment. They can’t all be in agreement with what happened in El Dorado Texas. Yes, it takes courage to speak up. But it would be a gift of love and a restoration of their credibility if some among them would speak up.
Dear Mr. Schulzke:
Thank you for including the link to the conviction article of a habitual child rapist published in the local Hill Country area on June 12, 2008 & electronically afterward. In the paper version for subscribers, the accompanying article cited the crisis in caring for abused & neglected children in the area, particularly those removed from their homes when a parent would not evict the possible perpetrator of physical abuse or sexual abuse, as during the investigation, as mandated by state law. Several volunteer agencies were interviewed as to their needs for donations of goods to be sold in thrift shops, volunteers for summer activity outings so these non-profits could continue providing meals to the elderly, counseling for families, school supplies, clothing, job training & other services for the burgeoning group of local residents needing some assistance.
The probation office of the 198 district court & Child Abuse Hotline cite the increasing use of methamphetamine by parents or guardians as the number one reason for the rise of protective custody numbers over 2007. This epidemic of drug abuse cuts across socio-economic boundaries & has resulted in neglect & abuse cases from the country club sets through the university students & on to every demographic from youth to senior citizens.
The rural areas in the counties you cite provide favored remote locales for the cooking of meth. Crack cocaine use has also made a resurgence further stressing the services to children under 18. Teachers, law enforcement & neighbors have described in detail grandfather, mother, aunt , boyfriend adults living in squalor with an infant nursing a sour bottle & a 3-day soiled diaper in crack or meth houses. A couple was arrested in the Walmart parking lot for selling meth out of their motor home while towing the mobile meth lab behind & having their young children riding with the flammable chemicals. Other cases involve having children shoplift food or merchandise when the family funds are spent on drugs.
Mr. Lemon failed a drug screen before his trial & had his bond revoked. In a case tried last week in Kerr County a parent who was abusing drugs allowed adults to repeatedly abuse her child. Mental health workers, CASA volunteers, local attorneys, judges, business representatives plus school & church officials continue to map out strategies to staunch & prevent the need for protective custody of minors in neglect & abuse cases. These plans are detailed in the Kerr Country Strategic Plan for 2008.
Readers of the West Kerr Current are acutely aware of the growing numbers of children needing services & the main reasons for the marked increase in our small community.
Mr. Lemon was a Little League coach, a neighbor to many inside the city limits of Ingram. The stepdaughter he raped near daily for three years was one of the 90 students in the grade of my daughter at the junior high for the three years before his arrest. His wife’s refusal to make Lemon leave during the investigation resulted in four of her five offspring who were minors,being taken into protective custody. The chiuldren were returned after the mother agreed to lawful, safe conditions for the children. Recently, neglect allegations have been made against the mother relating to cocaine use.
My sister’s foster child formed a bond with the family during a Girl Scout program called Scouting Behind Bars 6 years ago when the 12 year old’s mother was in prison on drug related charges. Her custodial relative had a boyfriend that sold drugs out of the apartment while she worked as an exotic dancer & let the girl to watch her own sibling & 2 of the woman’s children. The girl was not safe & CPS could not find another relative who they could allow to have custody. Drugs cheated the girl out of a mother & even a safe home within the family. It has been four years since the call came into my sister’s home that the girl was thrown out with the clothes on her back for refusing to do something disgusting & illegal.
The article accompanying the conviction of Lemon did quote the volunteers about the sharp rise in children removed from homes where there was no food, no heat, no lights, drugs being made, sold or used by parents & strangers, physical abuse & truancy.
Sutton County, (County Seat Sonora) which adjoins Schleicher County has experienced the meth epidemic & subsequent damage to children. The inmates from Schleicher & Sutton counties often have irreversible “meth mouth “when they are brought in for dental care. Prominent ranching families have sons & daughters incarcerated & custody of grandchildren taken away from parents too high to care about their kids. When a drug bust is made or neighbors in these close-knit communities report neglect, CPS takes the all the children into protective custody & tries to find relatives with safe environs for the children as quickly as possible. CPS saves lives, stops abuse & makes reuniting families a priority many times over the objections of the law enforcement & courts.
Instead of wondering why the protective custody cases have increased, the sidebar article asked “how can we help these children?”. This emphasis makes helping victims the priority & channels the energy generated by outrage over child abuse into positive, proactive behavior.
The publisher of the West Kerr Current would run a guest column from those with information that balances the coverage given the FLDS; because the church members are largely silent about their daily lives, little information is available to report except the dark side. The Current welcomes opposing viewpoints or a fresh perspective in an effort to let the reader make up his own mind. The excerpted dialogue is true that perceptions influence thinking.
Please let the Current hear from you if you would like to set the record straight on any points.
Regards,
Lise L. Miller
Kerr & Sutton County Resident
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