Dear world, let this dead baby in a bag be a lesson to you.

Note: The orig­i­nal sto­ry report­ed that the baby was mis­car­ried; then there was a report that the baby was born alive and suf­fo­cat­ed, which was lat­er retract­ed. The offi­cial cause of death is still unde­ter­mined.

ho knows what was going through this teenage girl’s mind. Does any­one want to make a guess? Maybe she was men­tal­ly ill. Maybe she was on drugs. Maybe some­thing went hor­ri­bly wrong in how her par­ents raised her.  (Which I am more than will­ing to bet, regard­less.) Maybe she has just been over­tak­en by evil.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Watch the news, wher­ev­er this sto­ry is cov­ered, over the next day or two or (if we’re lucky, because a week­end is approach­ing) three.

After three days, the sto­ry will have exceed­ed its half-life.  We will return to what we had been doing.  The sto­ry will have reached its max­i­mum life-span, in which we may wring our hands and spec­u­late, and then do noth­ing, and then go on.

Here’s a guess:  Maybe that’s why.

I am writ­ing this in a white heat, and I do not intend to change much, and that is so far from my nor­mal prac­tice that I am sur­prised that I am per­mit­ting myself at all.  But if the writ­ing remains raw, then it remains raw.

This needs to be said.  And this needs to be said over and over and over, and not let go, until this awful and numb and pagan world we live in returns to some sem­blance of san­i­ty; even if it has to be shout­ed and beat­en back into it, which may be the only thing that will work, because shock isn’t work­ing for us.

If this sto­ry shocks you, world, too bad. I don’t have sym­pa­thy.  I don’t want to hear it.  Stop sit­ting on your butt and being shocked for two days, and instead get up and do some­thing about it.

Dear world, stop being so blip­ping bleep­ing numb!

Dear world, stop being shocked for a news cycle.  Stop feel­ing what the news cycle tells you to feel. 

When you live in a cul­ture in which abor­tion is con­sid­ered just anoth­er right, then you have no right to be shocked by a teenage girl car­ry­ing around her dead baby in a bag while shoplift­ing at Vic­to­ri­a’s Secret as though it were for a bur­ial shroud. I have one word: Duh. What did you expect?

When you live in a cul­ture in which sta­tus is deter­mined mate­ri­al­is­ti­cal­ly, by how many things we own, then a teenage girl who is appar­ent­ly more con­cerned with accu­mu­lat­ing lin­gerie by theft, than with bury­ing her mis­car­ried baby, should not shock you.  I have one word: Duh. What did you expect?

When you live in a cul­ture in which a wom­an’s val­ue is deter­mined by her physique—don’t give me any of this fem­i­nist crap, just watch what we hold up as an ide­al of the beau­ti­ful in pop stars and x‑rays—then don’t be shocked either when this teenage girl’s desire at the time was to steal some­thing from Vic­to­ri­a’s Secret.  I have one word:  Duh. What did you expect?

Are we lost?  Are we mad?  What has hap­pened to us?  And why, for the love of God, are we going to talk about this for three days and then act as though it had nev­er hap­pened?  It will just get filed away with last week’s news.

Per­son­al con­fes­sion time:  I lost my daugh­ter to a still­birth.  My ex-wife had eclamp­sia.  When I look at some of the morons who suc­ceed in hav­ing chil­dren, and mis­treat them, and then I con­sid­er that the only chance I ever had to raise a child was tak­en from me with­out my con­sent, I get angry.  There is not a day that goes by when I would not give up every­thing else I have in order to have my daugh­ter back, and I don’t care how spe­cial needs she may have been.  I just want her back.

But my anger and my hurt about that are not the issue, only fuel for me just now. The real issue is this; this is the thing that we have lost, dear sweet world:  that life is good. That all life has val­ue and mean­ing, because it is made in the image of God.

I will ven­ture this guess:  The teenage girl was numb about the val­ue of her own child because she was numb about her own val­ue.  What was she doing at the time this was all dis­cov­ered? She was shoplift­ing at Vic­to­ri­a’s Secret.  She was shoplift­ing lin­gerie.  While still a kid, she was try­ing to dis­cov­er her val­ue in being sexy. Who was the father of that child?  Was she try­ing to be sexy for him?  Did he care about his child or about his organ? Who knows?

If I had not lost my daugh­ter, and I could write her a “Dear Daugh­ter” blog post, and talk to my dear daugh­ter before she went to bed at night, this is what I would tell her: You have infi­nite and pre­cious val­ue for one rea­son.  It is because you are alive.  It is not in what you wear, it is not in what peo­ple think about you, it is not in who you can impress, it is not in how much mon­ey you can make, it is in noth­ing oth­er than the fact that you are here, and no mat­ter who else loves you or does­n’t, I am always your dad­dy and I will always love you.

But here is the men­tal and moral evil that you face, world:  You are let­ting the worth of your life be deter­mined by oth­ers. You are allow­ing your­self to be told what life has val­ue, what life does­n’t.  And when that starts, we reach the point where soon we val­ue no life, not even our own.  And that’s when we’re lost.

A healthy, sane soci­ety will respond to each and every life, from the moment of con­cep­tion to the moment of nat­ur­al death, as in the Nativ­i­ty:  with awe and with love.  The good of life is the first val­ue.  With­out it, no oth­er val­ues have mean­ing.  With­out it, all oth­er val­ues are lost.  That’s where we begin.

Here’s the solu­tion: Stop lis­ten­ing to what the politi­cians tell you about who you are. Stop lis­ten­ing to what the adver­tis­ers tell you about who you are. Stop lis­ten­ing to what the media tells you about who you are. Stop hav­ing your val­ue sys­tem formed by the noise around you. Your val­ue, and the val­ue of your chil­dren, comes from the fact that you are here and you are made in the image of God and you are his beloved child.

If you don’t believe that, maybe you ought to pray.

If you do believe that, maybe you ought to start shout­ing from the rooftops until some­one starts to lis­ten. That’s what I’m going to do.