Death

Death, Killing, Dying, Running Again

Several tasks to accomplish today. Impossible to prioritize them, because each one is more important than any of the others. In fact, each one is more important than all of the others combined.

Interestingly -- a great word and greatly overused in that whatever it is employed to introduce is never interesting, especially when it is phrased "interestingly enough" -- the electronic age has no limits. In the news, Karzai’s government of fools releases prisoners who will go straight back into the fight, and as I read along I notice I’m reading The International News. WTH? Checking, it’s Pakistani media, and its news is almost entirely about people killing other people in that large part of the world where anarchy and chaos are not figures of speech but horrifically, incredibly, everyday life, the way it is. Should we keep American troops there? Only if we want Afghanistan to be the front line against terrorism instead of Times Square and the local movie theater and the Boston Marathon and Publix. I feel sad for the people of Afghanistan and lucky to be an American. Someone said, “Don’t say ‘lucky,‘ say ‘blessed.’” That’s a crock, an alphabet crock: it would blaspheme the Name and Love of God to say that God blessed me by placing me here but failed to bless, even damned, other humans by placing them there. Why me? Why me indeed: a theology of stewardship attaches that is entirely lost on fools. The theology of the beatitudes in Matthew and Luke. The theology laid on Adam in the Garden. Are we Christians or not. Well -- not. 

Many of the people I admire most in life see things differently from me. Not just different, mind, totally different. In mind: capital punishment, last evening’s execution here in Florida. I am certain of my view. Absolutely certain. My certainty haunts me, damns me. What saves me, though, is the anguish, my inner struggle about my certainty. Mind, I am not struggling with my certainty, I’m sure, comfortable and certain with my certainty; my struggle is about my certainty -- where a center of my theology is that certitude is the greatest sin. My struggle is that I am so certain. 

All of which is always to say, I never have to go outside to look for someone to damn.

Death last week, and this. And next. It’s what I do, isn’t it, part of my trade, like my grandfather Gentry clipping a magnifying glass onto his right eyeglass, prizing open a dead watch, peering into it, with microscopic tools take it apart and repair it, no big deal. No, it is, is a big deal. The watch ran again. Starts ticking and runs again. Talitha, cumi.  

TW+