When I was in the 7th Grade, my heart and the hearts of all my classmates were filled with the fire of youthful exuberance. Our teachers generally kept it in check but even that responsibility often taxed their patience and ruffled their feathers. My teacher that year was tough enough to handle us and, generally, our behavior only tickled the borders of chaos now and again before being silenced with a look of matronly menace that soon returned us to the sobriety of our lessons.
One day, however, my teacher was ill and a very young student teacher was sent to watch over us. She was not up to the task. Her voice was too soft, for one thing, and her fortitude was far too feeble. When an animal imitation from one boy in the back was not answered with at least a glare of disapproval, it left another encouraged to answer from across the room. Soon boys were making rude noises of every kind and eventually they stopped looking up to the teacher’s desk to see if all was well as they descended into that familiar state of Three Stooges-like pandemonium that springs so naturally from the society of teenage boys. The girls lasted longer than we boys did, of course, but even they couldn’t sustain their good behavior when there was no one holding them accountable and eventually they too surrendered to the general disarray. Leaving their desks and forming a circle on the floor, they began to talk enthusiastically and compare notes like they were all on the playground outside.
I remember that student teacher eventually rushing from the chaotic room with tears in her eyes and I also remember the angry entry of the principal just moments later. During the week that followed we were all on a very short tether and we chafed under the weight of it. We weren’t a bunch of criminals, after all, we just needed the boundaries that kept us on the sunny side of natural havoc. Disorder can be like fire, when unquenched it will grow and eventually consume all that is around it.
I’ve thought about that day a lot in recent years. Our society seems bent on creating the same kind of bedlam on a much larger scale and those who have been historically responsible for limiting the chaos have often been demonized for doing so.
I am speaking for our police and perhaps it’s high time someone did.
Recent events in Covington have only served to remind us of the dangers inherent in the profession of law enforcement. Men and women who vow to protect and serve go in knowing about the natural dangers inherent in their profession but one wonders how often they realize how little thanks they will receive when all is said and done. Officer Ogilvie gave his life to defend the lives of others and he was rightly honored for doing so. Those honors, however, will not restore his life to his family. This is hard enough… but when we consider how little respect many of our policemen and policewomen are given when they are yet alive and serving, it should make us wonder about their well-being even when the bullets are not flying.
In the present national madness there have been cries to “defund” them, as though they were corporate criminals in need of comeuppance. Officers have gone to jail, sometimes for doing nothing more than to carry out the proper protocols of their profession, and there have been relatively few in the gallery of public opinion who have risen and cried out on their behalf. One has to wonder how the colleagues of Officer Ogilvie are doing right now. I have a relative out West who was a police officer for a time; but the rules of engagement became so filled with gray lines that he eventually changed professions, not because he no longer wished to serve but because he no longer felt safe to do so.
How many other officers feel the same? What would happen in our society if such reluctance became endemic? We would either have to redraw that “thin blue line” with far less worthy workers or we would have to forgo law enforcement altogether; a possibility that would soon leave civilization in hospice, without hope of recovery.
So let me end this short essay with hope for our protectors. Our churches are with you. Most of us know that God has himself established societal protectors as a necessity (Rom 13:1-6) and any profession that is established by man’s Creator is a high calling, whether the present world recognizes that or not. Let officers know that if they are discouraged or inconsolable there are many churches in the region who can offer a listening ear and even a helping hand. There are ministers in our region who are former police officers themselves and there are others, like myself, who grew up in families of law enforcement personnel who feel at least some of your pain and wish to stand with you in a troubled time. We ministers, after all, have been occasionally vilified ourselves, and if our empathy only springs from that shallow well it could still be a good foundation for relational support. Look to the Lord, weary soldiers, He loves you all and He has given you the high calling that is your profession. Even if much of the world has forgotten this, there are many of us also who have not.
Rev. Vincent Hartford
Lone Star Advent Christian Church
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