A Good Word. A Twist.

"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." ~ John Donne 1624 (Quote found at BEEP!BEEP! IT'S ME!)

Am I the only one who felt sorrow when we killed Abu Musab Osama al-Zarqawi? I don't condone his violent acts but he is a human being, and shouldn't cheering over anyone's death repulse us? Not to mention our complete seemingly collective indifference to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians? What ever happened to "hate the sin not the sinner," or "love your enemies" or "thou shalt not kill"? They are obviously empty platitudes to the Christians extremists, the only ones who have a voice in our society.

Much of what these right-wing "Christians" have to say sounds like satanic pea soup-spewing venom (perhaps it has always been this way. I mean really. What about the Salem witch trials?). They fixate on the very things they need to let go, like preventing gays from getting married along with making it harder for heterosexuals to divorce, trying to justify their wealth because God wants to bless them and killing people who aren't like them. They are hateful, selfish and arrogant whores in the house of power. They are haters.

It's easy to become a hater. When I hear one of my students talking trash about another student, I try and show them that they are acting just like the people they hate. They take on their "enemy's" behavior, saying nasty things about them and wanting to beat their ass, or other stupid bullshit. They always say, "They started it!" They won't budge. Fifteen year old kids just can't seem to understand (and neither can the aforementioned Christians) that it takes more strength of character and self-control to not mimic the behavior of their enemy. I appeal to their martial arts movie-watching sensibility and try to make it macho and sexy and cool to not act. But they don't get it. I beat my head against the wall.

And of course I am not immune to thinking myself in circles and becoming that which I hate. I start out talking about love and peace and end up wanting to wipe-out stupid fundamentalist anti-intellectual unimagininative Christians, (nearly half of whom think that human beings did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so.)

I go searching for good words, not sappy or sentimental or obligatory, but filled with struggle and self-doubt and motivated by kindness and real love (which isn't always pretty but is never petty or cruel), and what do I find? Smart, funny, honest, humble, soul-searching Christian bloggers. Of course!