“Did you hear what those kids did to that frog?” my daughter asked me.
“Yeah.”
It happened like this: a boy across the street picked up a toad. The toad made the mistake of peeing on the boy’s hand. The boy quickly exacted his revenge, his friends watching. He got a can of red spray paint, grabbed that poor pissing frog with some sort of old shirt, held it down in the middle of the road and sprayed it red. My mother-in-law yelled, “You’re killing that frog!” to no avail. The boys were unmoved. One of them grabbed a magnifying glass, and aimed it at the dying animal, hoping to add “burned alive” to any forthcoming autopsy reports listing causes of death.
My daughter and I were talking about this unfortunate frog and his untimely demise when my sons wandered in. “What happened?” they wanted to know. I told them the story.
“What do you think about that?” I asked my oldest son.
“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging, his voice revealing a sadness, and then, in order to cover that up and seem “manly”, he added, “It was just a frog. There’s like a million of them around here.” My youngest son, oddly enough, was silent.
“Son, a man’s integrity is measured by how he treats those who can do nothing for him,” I said. “The frog did nothing to warrant what happened to him. That boy was intentionally cruel to an animal that could not defend itself, for no reasons but these: the frog embarrassed him, and he wanted to teach it a lesson.”
“When they sprayed that frog, they clogged all of its pores,” Allyson said. “He suffocated to death.”
“Yes,” I said. “And, to that boy and his friends who just stood by and watched, that was not cruel enough. He tried to burn the frog as well.” My boys were quiet. I continued. “It does not matter that there are ‘like a million’ frogs around here. There are ‘like a million’ dogs, cats, and people, too, for that matter. That frog was a creature created by God. It’s not as important as you or your sister is, but it was alive. It may not have had a soul, or ‘feelings’ that could be hurt, but it did have nerve endings, and it could feel pain. What those boys did was cruel, and it was wrong.
To participate in, or stand idly by while others participate in such behavior is the worst sort of sin. It is sheer hatred, for the purpose of entertainment and revenge. A real man would never have any part in that. A man would try to stop it. A man would show mercy. Do you understand what I am telling you? Being tough, and being a man, is not about exerting force over the weak. It is about doing right, being kind, and valuing life.”