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DR. OMED’S LATE NIGHT SERMONETTE: THE UNFORGIVEN
As a Baptist I was taught to "love the sinner but hate the sin." Of course, we are all "sinners" in Baptist doctrine, tho' some Baptists forget that, all of us are in need of repentance and forgiveness. Personally, I'm not too good at repentance, but I do pretty well on forgiveness. Senator Inhofe, who represents my state—Oklahoma—in Congress, has put me in an occasion of sin. I find him unforgivable.
I haven’t posted much on current events lately. There has been a superabundance of grist for the mill, but this miller hasn’t had the heart to grind it. I feel what almost amounts to a duty to give good blog, and to do my part to “comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable,” not to mention offend the offensive. But I put my fingers on the keys and no clicking ensues. I open my mouth, and nothing comes out. It’s all I can do just to take it all in. I am left speechless by what Bush is doing to my country, by what our soldiers are doing to Iraqis, by what insane Jihadis did to a stray American.
But Senator Inhofe, R-OK, is not left speechless:
"I have to say I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. The idea that these prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cellblock 1A or 1B these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents, many of them probably have American blood on their hands, and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals. I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying."
I understand that Senator McCain, ex-POW, got up and walked out of the hearing room as Inhofe spoke. I think Inhofe’s remarks pretty much left McCain speechless. Some words did come to mind as I listened to the soundbyte. Not my words, but the words that the Army attorney Joseph Welch spoke in his televised confrontation with Ray Cohn and Joseph McCarthy in June 1954:
“Senator, you won't need anything in the record when I finish telling you this. Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.”
“If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think I'm a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.”
“Senator, You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Hatred isn’t just for conservative fundamentalist Christians and Moslems, anymore. They are teaching the world to hate, in perfect harmony. I have learned hatred from the righteous; in the words of Psalm 139, “I hate them with a perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.” I don’t like hating people, but I do. Another occasion of sin, courtesy of Osama Bin Laden and George W. Bush. In the end, it could be that Osama Bin Laden's Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2:29 "Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart") was to set off not a war against terror but a war of terrors, a war of shadows made real, fear vs. fear, us vs. them, Neocons vs. all comers, a psy-ops civil war waged via the internet and mass media. I don't think it's too strong a term to call it civil war. If my wife were awake, she might look over my shoulder at this point, and say, “It’s all about dicks.”
Had an odd dream last night. Dreamt I was watching a new "reality" show like "Survivor" except with kids. Young children, 5 and under. Two groups of rug rats are given scaled down weapons—swords, spears, and such, and face off. It's to the death. Rather than Kindergarten, call it Kinderkreig.
“…we live meanly, like ants, though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness.”
Oh, that's not the Bible, it's Thoreau. Here’s the Bible, Psalm 33:
“A king is not saved by his mighty army. A warrior is not saved by his great strength.”
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