"do not rejoice when your enemies fall"

[Gutenberg]

Published on the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good website on May 2. It is worth rereading.

http://www.newevangelicalpartnership.org/?q=node/124

[haikuman]

Thank you for posting this sensible discourse.

Rudie *(:>*

[RgrF]

Aw shucks. I can't celebrate when the Lakers lose?




























again!

[Grace62]

and then there's

"When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, And when the wicked perish, there is joyful shouting." (Proverbs 11:10)

I don't disagree with that author's couple of paragraphs on the topic of OBL's death, but there is so much more to this, in terms of morality, justice, revenge, and forgiveness. Americans, and in fact people all over the world, experienced a wide, deep range of emotions from simple relief to outright joy to contempt and anger. I won't judge which is right to feel. It is the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another. It will be interesting to see how the lessons of May 1 reverberate, or don't.

[haikuman]

What happened, May 1, was part of an equation and solution. The math is complete. We do not need to soil our own selves with fanaticism.

Simple stuff... me thinks

Rudie

[SteveO]

Well said. Pax Christi (a Catholic peace group) also published a similar statement and said that this should mark a turning point for our relations with the world and how we treat one another.

I posted it on my FB page and got exactly one comment...vehemently disagreeing with the Pax Christi letter (actually I don't think the guy even read past the first 3 lines of what showed up on the FB post) and saying he "rejoiced" when he heard the news of OBL's death and was glad to live in a nation that behaves as we do.

My reply was, "You gotta start somewhere..."

It is so sad that we are such a bloodthirsty people.

[Black]

Here's a new piece with a broad sampling of perspectives, superficially by religious affiliation:
http://apnews.myway.com//article/2011050...FFR00.html

[haikuman]

We do not need a bible, a church or some religious leader to help us discern between right or wrong...
my gosh ~!~ OBL was a Fanatic that planned mass murders. He is dead. Exaltation is best defined by getting better at being a person... and that my friends is a lifetime project. Being humble, comes with grace...grace is a practice of balance....

Today is May 9..... move on it is a new day.

Rudie

[Black]

haikuman wrote:
We do not need a bible, a church or some religious leader to help us discern between right or wrong...
my gosh ~!~ OBL was a Fanatic that planned mass murders. He is dead. Exaltation is best defined by getting better at being a person... and that my friends is a lifetime project. Being humble, comes with grace...grace is a practice of balance....

Today is May 9..... move on it is a new day.

Rudie

Why does this discussion threaten you so?

[seeing.the.unseeable]

haikuman
wrote: We do not need a bible, a church or some religious leader to help us discern between right or wrong...

I agree; I think that OBL reaped what he sowed, but I also think that his original actions were not conveived in a vacuum.

Each action taken by each variable in this equation - Al Quaeda or the U.S., the Middle East or the West - has provoked a rection. Almost always an unequal reacion, but invariably an opposite.

Whether we like it or not, OBL/AQ was a reaction. Rejoicing in his removal from the equation is understandable but should be approached with some degree of sensitivity and moderation.

I know that many will disagree with this, but I don't see it reflecting well on any group that rejoices in the "failure" of an enemy when the reason the enemy came into existence is unlikely ever to be addressed in anything approaching empathy.

There's that whole "turn the other cheek" thing, too, but I understand how hard it is to follow any of these axioms.