{"id":1625,"date":"2011-05-03T05:34:20","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T05:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/karenspearszacharias\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2011-05-03T05:34:20","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T05:34:20","slug":"murder-isnt-the-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/karenspearszacharias\/2011\/05\/03\/murder-isnt-the-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Revenge & Redemption"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>I spoke with my friend Lillian tonight. Lillian\u2019s only daughter, Marjorie, was killed in the 9-11 attack on the Pentagon. I\u2019ve invited Lillian, a journalist herself, to write something to share with us here. Anything she wants. If she does, I\u2019ll be sharing that in the days ahead.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know Lillian before the 9-11 attack. She wrote to me after reading something I wrote about my father\u2019s death and our friendship grew from that.<\/p>\n

You understand me, Lillian says. \u00a0By that, she simply means that I understand something of loss and grief.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s quite a contrast to the note I received from another journalist,\u00a0this one in NYC, chiding me for remarks I made about how uncomfortable I was about the revelry over Bin Laden\u2019s death. This woman is someone I respect, so her criticisms aren\u2019t readily dismissed. What she said, in essence, was that given how I wasn\u2019t in NYC, how I hadn\u2019t personally lost anyone, I was out-of-line for scolding people over their celebrating.<\/p>\n

Perhaps she\u2019s right. I\u2019ve been out-of-line a time or two in my life. Okay. Maybe more.<\/p>\n

But let me address a couple of things here:<\/p>\n

\u2013 I think there\u2019s \u00a0huge difference between being relieved and actually celebrating the death of an enemy. That said, for anyone in NYC to suggest that the rest of the nation doesn\u2019t get it because we weren\u2019t there on that day, that we can\u2019t possibly understand, is simply wrong-headed. It marginalizes the rest of the nation. Including people like Lillian, who happens to live in Georgia. \u00a0NYC does not own the corner market on grief when it comes to 9-11. Remember that field in Pennsylvania? That military complex in Virginia? Even those who didn\u2019t inhale ash appreciate the loss, the devastation, the anger. We get it. You don\u2019t have to agree with my perspective but don\u2019t dismiss me as ignorant, or callous. I am neither.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Lillian, unaware of any of this, said to me tonight that she was uncomfortable with the celebrating. She said it reminded her of when school children in Muslim countries cheered the collapse of the Twin Towers.<\/p>\n

-At Katdish\u2019s<\/a> blog, she delineates the difference as she sees it between us celebrating the death of Bin Laden and others celebrating 9-11. I think we are walking a fine line here.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Frankly, when I saw the photos of people celebrating outside the White House it grieved me deeply. If you study the photos, I think what you\u2019ll see are mostly a young Georgetown \u00a0population . Entitled. Privileged. Educated. Myopic. Exactly the same kind of people who would have stormed the gates of hell had President Bush or President Obama enacted a draft as a means to help disperse the burden of finding Bin Laden. Perhaps I\u2019m wrong about that, but I didn\u2019t see many in the crowd from DC\u2019s more battered communities. I suspect those cheering the loudest would have been the same whining the most had their butts been shipped off to Iraq or Afghanistan due to a draft. \u00a0So spare me the victory chant.<\/p>\n

\u2013 I have blogged recently about a struggle I\u2019d been having spiritually over a story I\u2019ve been writing. It concerns the murder of a 3-year old girl. I have come out and said that I didn\u2019t think there was redemption for such a man. That I believed he\u2019d shot his wad at redemption when he decided to murder that child. Several readers challenged me on that, offering me scriptures and urging me to consider that God can redeem anyone \u2014 that our duty, my duty, as a Believer is to forgive the man.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Those same readers have gone on the record taking a different stance against Bin Laden. So I\u2019m left to assume that it\u2019s not murder that\u2019s the problem, but the number of people a person murders. Bin Laden crossed the line of redemption but the man who beat to death a 3-year old didn\u2019t? I\u2019m confused. \u00a0Help me understand how it is we choose who gets forgiveness and who doesn\u2019t? And who we are obligated to forgive and who to cheer to hell?<\/p>\n

\u2013 Lillian and I have talked numerous times about this issue. I would never tell her she had to forgive Bin Laden, any more than I would tell the little girl\u2019s father he needed to forgive the man who killed his daughter. \u00a0I\u2019m ready to admit that I don\u2019t know the answer but shouldn\u2019t we be consistent in our world view? If there is forgiveness and redemption for the murderer in prison, isn\u2019t it there for the mass murderer as well? Or is it like fishing? You catch your limit, you\u2019re done?<\/p>\n

\u2013 I\u2019ll confess this whole thing has left me cranky. I warned Tim of that before he got home tonight. I have an unsettled feeling about all of this. A heaviness. I had a good crying jag with God today. I\u2019ll probably have several more before week\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

\u2013 I am worried about us. About who we are becoming. I keep remembering a conversation I had with a friend in 2003, days before we invaded Iraq. She and I were standing in a manioc field overlooking Vietnam\u2019s Ia Drang Valley \u2013 a bloody battle there in 1965 took her father\u2019s life and ultimately led to my father\u2019s death. She was weeping the way I did today: Why? she wailed. Why? What was all this for?<\/p>\n

\u2013 A few weeks later a boy I hadn\u2019t met yet would lose his father in Iraq. The result of a suicide bomber. The boy was 5, he had a brother 3 and his mom was pregnant with yet another boy. He\u2019s in junior high now. I asked him once if he told the other kids that his father died in Iraq. No, he said. Why not? I asked. Because, he said, it hurts to talk about my father. Oh. I get that, I said. And another thing, he said. What\u2019s that? Kids today think it\u2019s cool when your father dies in war but I know it\u2019s not \u2014 it hurts.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019 t help but think that when we raise up generations of kids who think it\u2019s cool to die in war, that it\u2019s cool to kick ass, that it\u2019s cool to waste the bad guy, then how is it again that we differ from our enemies?<\/p>\n

Celebrate if you must but mark my word, people, Bin Laden\u2019s death is not the end of this story.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spoke with my friend Lillian tonight. Lillian\u2019s only daughter, Marjorie, was killed in the 9-11 attack on the Pentagon. I\u2019ve invited Lillian, a journalist herself, to write something to share with us here. Anything she wants. If she does, I\u2019ll be sharing that in the days ahead. I didn\u2019t know Lillian before the 9-11 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,177,272,913,1193,1296,1503,1610,1703],"class_list":["post-1625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-9-11","tag-bin-laden","tag-celebration","tag-justice","tag-new-york-city","tag-pentagon","tag-sacrifice","tag-soldiers","tag-terrorism"],"yoast_head":"\nRevenge & Redemption<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I spoke with my friend Lillian tonight. 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