Where is the Shepherd

Reading The Hindu has become a spiritual process these days, there’s just a sinking feeling of nothingness when you come across news about atrocities inflicted on little children. How do you reconcile to live with what you’ve just read and imagined? Recently an 8-year-old boy was sexually assaulted, had his throat slit and head smashed with a boulder. Girls as young as 3 years old and sometimes even babies are sexually abused and molested. Similar stories keep surfacing and the evil perpetrators don’t seem to fear anything, in fact gruesome child rapes seem to be on the rise and it is mind-numbingly baffling. How can one torture and traumatise a child in an unnatural and inhuman way, how depraved does one have to be to force his perverted carnal desires on a little child’s body. Aren’t they the littlest of lambs, the smallest in His fold… tiny playful little lambs. Who snatched them away, where was the Shepherd? How does one go about life, knowing such things are not a rare occurrence? What can be done to weed out the scum in society and make the world more humane? How do you deal with a lethargic government that drags and falters every step of the way when it comes to protection of the weaker sex or race? Why can’t the science of evolution and adaptability take over, make us stronger or give us wolverine like claws? How long are we going to read reports like this in the news, shudder at the horror of it all, say a prayer and hope that good will triumph in the end?

The onus rests on all of us to reform as a society, first sex should be treated as something natural instead of sweeping it under the rug and making it sound like a bad/dirty/forbidden/disgusting/sinful activity that should never be discussed. Sex education ought to be mandatory in schools for teenagers; students should know what it is and should be able to talk about it with an adult. Younger children should be aware of how people interact with them, school and parents should collectively inform them about the methods of touching and playing; what constitutes the good and friendly touch and what areas of their body should never be touched by other people. Steps to improve society can only start at the ground level, children should be taught to respect each other and their surroundings. Right now everything in mainstream media is blatantly sexual, and try as we may there really is no way to protect them from all this, but we can talk to them, monitor what they watch and just do the best we can in this fast paced world. Whether we like it or not, they are going to get all their information from the internet and we can only hope that we have given them enough basic knowledge and love to judge for themselves and make the right choices. That’s where prayer is really necessary, we can’t always be there for our loved ones but if we instill in them this deep faith and love for Christ, then they’ll know what to do when troubles arise, they’ll go straight to Him. And trust me when I say this will be the best thing you’ll ever do for them. Even now when I am faced with difficulties, I still remember what my mom used to say, ‘Do your best, God will take care of the rest’. And mom was really right, Jesus has always come through for me, life is just so much easier knowing Him.

The Shepherd is always there, has always been there and will always be there… it is us, society that has brought upon itself all kinds of malaise by our perpetual hankering for physical and material pleasures, not realising that the only one who can truly satisfy the human heart is the one who made it.