Innocent or evil?

Man is inherently evil I'm told. I keep the news from my atheist friend who's spending his retirement in service to others. I won't tell him because I understand the power of perspective. It's a lesson I learned quite young.

By the time I was six, I had decided not to leave childhood. I took this stance with the fierce determination of one who had seen the future and didn't like it ... and with the naivete associated with children and other idealists.

I had reached this pivotal point in my young life not by accident but by observation. By sneaking suspicions that materialized into full blown conclusions the day the missionary came to our home.

Before his appearance, I had already suspected that growing older meant growing unhappy. I saw adults as joyless. They were the spoilers who told me to be a little lady when I wanted to run; the ones with never-ending reasons why I shouldn't pick the flowers, touch the knick-knacks or put my hands on the glass. Before the missionary came, I had also begun to fear that my sister, some two years older, was falling prey to this brand of misery. She began citing their rules. She was becoming one of them.

You might suspect that I was demon spawn. Yet, doing bad was never my intention ... despite evidence that suggests otherwise.

On the morning that the missionary arrived, however, none of this was on my mind. Our home was brimming with excitement and I was caught up in it. Not only was a visitor coming, but one unlike anyone I'd ever known; one who had lived in Africa! My siblings and I were already gathered in the family room as he entered through the side door with my father.

This was to be an important meeting. With Father in his first year of seminary, it would help my parents decide whether or not to enter the mission field. I'd already been instructed not to badger our guest with too many queries, but upon seeing a small bundle tucked under the missionary's arm, my curiosity got the better of me and soon questions were pouring forth.

“What is that? Is that from Africa? Are the people there naked all the time or just sometimes like in National Geographic? Do you speak African?”

Undaunted by the onslaught of questions, our guest -- a kindly, pale man -- soon took center stage. With all eyes fixed upon him, he revealed the contents of his bag -- a carved wooden object -- and asked if we knew what it was. I was quick to respond. “A doll,” I said. I loved dolls, but a cold fear had already struck my heart that this man, before he left Africa, had stolen some poor little girl's plaything.

“No,” he replied. “This is an idol. This is what the African people worship. They think it's a god.”
With all the worldly wisdom of a six-year old, I was skeptical. “It doesn't look like an idol,” I said. “It looks like a doll.”

There was a sense of unease in the room as my mother arrived to usher us to the table for lunch. I know this because I was getting the look. I saw it on my sister's face. And my father wore the look so sternly his two eyebrows had scrunched into one. “Children are to be seen and not heard,” my mother reminded me.

As we began the procession into the kitchen, the missionary placed his African momento on our television set and, turning back to us, announced, “this TV, it's an idol, too.” To which my father said, “Amen.”

I don't know what Mother served for lunch. I don't know what passed for conversation. I don't know because, throughout the meal, my mind never left the wooden carving on the TV.

It wasn't long before I asked to be excused from the table. With a feigned nonchalance that should have aroused suspicion, I meandered back into the family room to re-examine the figurine. I studied the object from all angles. I admired its worn, round face and dark painted eyes before finally daring to pick it up. Seeing wooden pins at the shoulders, I carefully I rotated its stiff arms until the doll seemed to reach forward toward an embrace.

Maybe the missionary didn't have a daughter of his own. Or perhaps she didn't play with dolls like I did. I gingerly cradled this one in my arms and carried her to the sofa, wondering what her life had been like in Africa and what little girl must have loved her.

I was lost in those thoughts when my father returned with the missionary from their meal. The men froze together in silence as they spotted me on the couch with their idol tight against my chest. I wasn't innocent; this they knew for I was embracing what was forbidden. But was mine the face of evil? Certainly they must have wondered.

I still can feel the sting of the spanking I received that afternoon. But stronger yet was the angst that came with the full understanding that my own observations would always be discounted when up against the beliefs of those who make the rules.

In some ways I did grow up that very day, despite my best intentions. Although I had to keep the lesson hidden, I learned that what we see is colored by what we expect to see ... what we want to see. Perhaps even by what we fear.

Was the carving an idol? Or was it a toy? It depends. How do you see it?