"A Mother's Day in Court"

You can call her Sally.  This is not her name, but everything about this seems a bit surreal and unfathomable.  Sally has lost her children.  They have been removed by a governmental agency.   The agency has done this to protect her children from her.  This unfortunately, is not a new or strange circumstance.   All over the country, in courtrooms dedicated to family issues, this scene is played out. 

Sally arrives with very little.  She has a concerned friend who can speak to her character as a parent, and me, her pastor.  She has not been a long time parishioner, but she is one of the' flock.' 

Without a lawyer, she stands before a judge who, despite this fact, wants a hearing right away; to satisfy a statute meant to protect those who are in her circumstance.   She and her children must have a hearing within 72 hours.  It has already been a week.  I still wonder why the rush now, when she has little defense prepared.

The judge assigns an attorney to her case.  I am anxious.   He, the attorney, looks uninterested, and a bit bothered by the proceedings.  The judge was emphatic.  There was going to be a hearing; but not yet.  Sally and I left and waited.  As we waited I was engaged in conversation with another lawyer who expressed outrage as to what the government agency does.   He related a horror story of foster home rape, and this agency's resolve not to be wrong.  Though a family member was indicted, this agency, out of arrogance perhaps, put another child in this same home.  This was the story he related to me.  I wondered, who checks on how children fare who are being protected from their families?  "It's a statistic that will never be known," he said. 

As we sat I noticed Sally's lawyer sitting outside of the courtroom also.  He was reading a paper that sat upon his girth, on a food spotted tie.  I instructed Sally to go and talk with him.  It seemed the reasonable thing to do.  After all, she was to be defended by this man, just assigned.  As she approached him I watched him as my newfound lawyer friend spoke to me of other incredible agency stories.  Her lawyer's eyes expressed disgust.  He got up and left.  Sally came to me and indicated he didn't want to hear anything from her.  This would be done his way or not at all.  She said she was just trying to tell him her side of the story.  Her lawyer didn't want to hear it.

As I arrived to this court on the second day another mother and father greeted me.  They were not members of my church but knew me.  They asked if we could pray about their circumstance.  They were there because their son refuses to go to school.   When this first happened the father said he would take care of it.  He physically brought the son to school.  Oops!  That was the wrong approach.  He received a warning that he had abused his son.  This was heeded and the father said he would not bother the boy again.  You guessed it.  The son refused to go to school, so now the court will decide if his parents are fit to raise him.  What kind of statistic will this boy be?

There are many more stories.  Going to this court was like going to Veterans hospitals all over this country; a sad and disturbing scene.  You see a place meant to help, but you come away with a feeling that they have forgotten this a long time ago.   Sadly, this is the story for many mothers in our society.

Happy Mother's day from the agency, the courts, the lawyers, from a society that has little regard for much beyond their personal sense of right.  Who is to blame?  I really don't know.  What do you think?

By the way, Sally's case is as complex as ever, but she was assigned another lawyer who has demonstrated great and wonderful concern for her client.  This, as I see it, is the very least that could be given to her; the very least.