I'll be honest with you. My default response is judgment.
Mothers who yell at their 2 year old boys to shut up, let them play in busy streets, and walk around in -10 degree below zero weather without hat or mittens make me angry. Angry maybe isn't a strong enough word. Perhaps indignant is better. It starts out as anger, morphs into regret and repentance, and finally meanders it's way to the back door called compassion, but my point is not my broken response to brokenness.
Have you read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers?" You should. In it he writes about the mysterious and almost random sets of circumstances that set various people up for success, but I wonder if it's limited to success. In fact, it seems obvious to me now that it's not. Many sorts of people seem destined to fall down, melt into a pool, and sink down into those weed filled cracks . Folks grow up dirt poor. They grow up in the system living off of handouts and becoming far too used to it. Boys grow up to be wife beaters, and girls grow up to be single moms, let their kids play out on busy streets unsupervised in -10 degree weather, and with no gloves or hats.
It's dangerous to write in generalities, but I'm starting to think that there are failure "outlier" traits. I'm also starting to think that maybe that's who Jesus was talking about when he stood up in the temple, grabbed the scroll of Isaiah, and started describing his kingdom "...good news for the poor... freedom for the prisoners... recovery of sight (does an outlier know that she is one?)... set free the oppressed... proclaim that it's the season for experiencing Abba's affection (Italics mine)." Outliers every one.
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