A picture can do one of two things: It can tell us about a person or event, or it can tell us about ourselves. Or it can do both, like the one on the front page of the August 15th issue of the Chicago Tribune. It is a color photo of a nine-month old baby girl in the arms of an American soldier, Staff Sgt. David D. Highsmith. Her dark eyes are wide with confusion, and possible fear, despite the gentle arms of her protector.

On the inside page, in another photo, Highsmith is surrounded by his fellow soldiers, obviously smitten by the child, who continues to look startled, not yet sufficiently relaxed to be comforted by the attention and obvious adulation of her admirers. Both photos are by New York Times photographer, Johan Spanner.

Journalist Stephen Farrell tells us the child should be dead, for she is underweight, malnourished, fatherless and half Sunni, half Shiite, has grown up in Saydia, a battlefield suburb that has become one of the worst sectarian killing zones in Baghdad.

On July 25, Farrel reports that a death squad shot her mother and uncle three times each in the head. Fatima’s 7-year old brother flagged down a joint patrol of the Iraqi National Police and American soldiers, who found the bodies and collected Fatima’s siblings from neighboring houses. The 7-year old kept asking, “What about my sister?”

Outside, in a garbage- strewn yard, under a metal sheet, in 120-degree heat, they found the baby, who was taken to the Combat Support Hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Nurses say she is making good progress.

Maj. Andy Yerkes, an American police adviser, who happened upon Fatima in an Iraqi police station, decided that because she bore a Sunnis surname, she would not be safe in an Iraqi hospital.

In the Green Zone, American soldiers and Iraqi policemen visit her, and the hospital staff coddle her. Yerkes said she isn’t safe yet, much will depend upon where she is sent.

Without microphone or script, the baby has taught us well, has reminded us of who we are, who we want to be. Bombing and killing have taken us into a land where Hell is more than a name; it is a location. Even at home on Main Street, we do not recognize ourselves, as military budgets explode, and domestic programs are slashed right and left, leaving the poor, poorer and the rich, richer.

We walk the streets, looking ordinary, but the questions in our hearts are anything but so. “Who are we? Who are we becoming, as citizens cry out for peace, and leaders, in the name of Big Oil, shout for more soldiers as fodder in the fields? Whom can we elect in 2008 to save us from ourselves? Or have we reached the point of no return? Has our recklessness and cowardice condemned us to lives of wandering around in a desert of our own making until a foreign power swoops us up and sets us down in a world with a strange tongue and our bombed-out buildings turned to rubble at every corner?”

Or, do we yet have time to redeem ourselves before our God, before our brothers and sisters around the world? Is it too late to turn our swords into plowshares? Bombs into Teddy Bears?

Since the Chinese treat our precious children as unheeding consumers of lead in toys, do we possess sufficient humility to roll up our sleeves, gather draftsmen and women around tables, hire engineers and plant supervisors, and begin to produce toys on a scale of our not-too-distant-past?

In fact, the company, Whittle Shoreline Railroad of Louisiana, MO, makes wooden trains and trucks, and posted a banner on its Web site several weeks ago: “100 percent kid-safe, with lead-free paints.” Mike Whitworth, the company’s owner, said the recent recalls of Chinese-made toys found to contain lead in their paint has been good for his business. Very good. (New York Times, U.S.-Made Toys Benefit From China’s Troubles, 2007/07/15, by Andrew Martin)

Whitworth sells his toys over the Internet and in neighborhood toy and train stores, and has seen a 40 percent jump since June. He said he is looking for a new track maker. If he cannot find one soon, he said, “I’m going to have to buy offshore track.” We hope that won’t be necessary.

Martin further reports that several manufacturers of American made toys said they have been inundated with calls in recent weeks from retail chains and customers inquiring about their products.

“It’s created a lot of buzz,” said Mike Rainville, owner of Maple Landmark toys in Middlebury, Vt., who said his company had experienced a ‘nudge’ in sales. “We expect the impact to manifest itself more as time goes on.”

Makes us proud, doesn’t it? We always knew our people made better products than what we’re getting from China; they were just undersold and sold out to Big Business, majoring in Greed.

Mattel once had a sterling reputation, manufactured toys that were beautiful to look at, sturdy, with sound educational values. Now, that’s as shattered as its lead-painted products. Falling is easy; it’s getting back up that’s going to be difficult.

Hold the Kleenex, friends. There was plenty of gravy on Mattel’s train as long as it lasted. Save your sympathy for the little children who may have been so injured by the lead paint they will never be able to read fluently, or hold down a decent job, or be sufficiently stable to keep a long-term relationship.

If we can manufacture lead-free toys, why not bring back our garment industry, steel, hand bags, furniture, lamps, etc., etc. We’ve done it before; we can do it again.

Lord, please help us to put aside our attachment to bombs and guns, and place our hope in your peace and our Yankee penchant for hard work and honesty. Bring us home to ourselves, to what you want us to be. Amen.

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