What comes to mind when you hear the number 12?
At this time of year, maybe the first thought that crosses your mind is the "12 Days of Christmas". If you are a math minded person, your mind might gravitate toward the 12 inches in one foot or 12 city blocks in one mile. A criminal justice mind might find itself focused on the 12 jurors charged with determining guilt or innocence. If you happen to be an aspiring Christian, the number 12 might bring to mind any number of things. Jesus first left home at age 12 and was found in the church, after a search that lasted a few days. For those who believe in baptism, 12 is the "age of accountability", which signifies the first opportunity for any person to choose Christ for themselves. Some might also recall that there were 12 disciples, 12 tribes in Israel, or that there are 12 precious stones in the foundation of New Jerusalem. For the statistical record, the number 12 is mentioned 187 times throughout the Bible (I didn't have that one on the top of my head, it comes from patheos.com). Biblical scholars say 12 was indeed intended to be a pivotal number, an important number.
This year in Cleveland, Ohio, a 12 year old boy named Tamir Rice was shot and killed by police. Even more ironically, he was shot on November 22, which is a pivotal date in American history. On that date, 51 years earlier, we lost a beloved president, John F. Kennedy. While no one would think that a twelve year old boy's death would merit national headlines, Tamir Rice's death has done just that. Today, the debate rages as to whether Tamir listened to or heard the officer's commands in the two seconds between the police arriving on the scene and his shooting. Some people have begun asking "how real did his Airsoft gun appear to the police?" Others have pointed out that the police were responding to a call of a "young black man with a gun" and had to make an instant decision as to the level of threat he posed. Still others have pointed out that this is only one, in a string of police killings, across our country. And so, the debate rages as to whether the police acted appropriately and rationally, in this situation.
For me, none of those questions begin to touch on the point. Why? Because I can still remember being 12 years old. Twelve was a great time. That was 7th grade. That was my first fishing trip to American Horse Lake in my home state, Oklahoma. Prior to that, I had been restricted to pond fishing, which was well-suited for my Zebco 202. Twelve was a time of spelling tests and geography. That was a time when cowboys and Indians was a game to be played, and was not yet taboo. So I sometimes found myself fully decked-out in my cowboy boots and cowboy hat, complete with feathered headband. That was a time when my younger brother and I bought our first bows. No arrows, because my dad would not allow it. Some of my cousins had BB-guns, but again my dad thought they were too dangerous. He would say "someone will lose an eye". Obviously, this was long before air-soft came on the scene. Twelve was a time of street football with the neighborhood boys, and sometimes girls. Twelve was curb-bounce (a made up game which consisted of bouncing the ball off the curbs, on both sides of the street, for points). My older brothers, who were both in high school, had found their respective sports, so I got to spend my fair share of time watching AAU basketball games and wrestling tournaments. Twelve years old was once a great thing to be. Cops and robbers was still a game. On Saturdays, my brothers and I had Mid-South wrestling, and I still dreamed of being a rodeo cowboy. For me, twelve was a safe age to be.
I chose to be baptized at 12, mainly because I knew Jesus had started on his path at the same age. During that time, I often wondered what Jesus would have done, if he had lived during my lifetime. I was intrigued by the idea of Jesus as my friend. Today, I try to imagine a justifiable reason for Jesus to have been killed at age 12. I imagine all the miracles that would never have occurred. I imagine the Bible as a much shorter book. There would have been no disciples, no crucifixion, no walking on water, no sermon on the mount, no last supper, no raising of Lazarus, no spit/dirt mix covering blind eyes, no feeding of the multitudes, no throwing out of the money changers, no woman at the well, and no one to teach two brothers to become "fishers of men". As is the case not only with Jesus, but with most great men, if we cut off their lives at age 12, their life story changes to one of few accomplishments.
As America continues to test the upper end of our tolerance for violence, I think we may have simultaneously found the lower end of the acceptable age range for gratuitous killing. Twelve definitely seems more attached to the "age of innocence" than the "age of accountability", in a society that questions the acceptability of shooting it's young. In many ways, the fact that a video exists, to shine a bright light on this incident (which is probably more appropriately described as an accident) is a real inconvenience for our American psyche. In some ways, it forces us to look at a situation that we would feel much better pretending could never happen. It forces us to consider and take sides on something that we are better trained and equipped to ignore. Age12 should be a time of mall trips, birthday parties, testing independence, and awkward socializing. Twelve should fit neatly into a small window just before life becomes real, when dreams and reality are still very closely connected. Twelve is definitely more childhood than adulthood.
What has changed is that today, all across my America, parents of "children of color" are grappling with the idea of how to explain to their preteens how to take caution and avoid being shot, if they fail to properly identify their Airsoft guns. That is not a subject we expect to find in the preteen section of the "parenting 101" handbook. Moreover, no matter how many times it is explained, a 12 year old mind will sometimes fail to fully grasp the gravity of that situation. While 12 years old is a great time to decide to follow Christ, and many churches will fully recognize an individuals right to make that choice, it hardly seems like the right time for martyrdom. Even for an advanced student, death is not yet a "real" concept at age 12. However, I guess that has changed in certain areas of our country. Yes, I had known death by the age of 12. My great grand-father had died in a car accident and a little girl from church had died from leukemia. But I did not really understand either of those deaths.
I cannot imagine the final moments of Tamir Rice's life without a very high level of sadness. Not because he was shot by police. Not because his life was taken so young and so needlessly. No, my sadness is aroused so clearly because today I am forced to accept the fact that in my America, in my generation, we no longer universally mourn the death of a 12 year old child. Instead, our ability to even feel sympathy has now been subjugated to our powerful and growing national filters, which allow some of us to ignore the pain that Tamir's family has been needlessly forced to endure. I still wonder what Jesus would do to force us to understand the importance of the number 12?
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