The B. S. M. G. Report

Jonathots Daily Blog

(4280)

It is much too easy to establish the will

To take a life and learn to kill

BAD

Yes, it’s bad.

He’s dead.

I didn’t know anything about him. Other people did. They were convinced he was so evil that he needed to be destroyed.

His name was Qasem Soleimani.

He was sixty-two years of age.

And now every small city in America has an anchor person who has to learn how to pronounce his name.

He was like a big general who spent all of his time thinking up ways to scare the world around him so the philosophy and lifestyle he held dear could achieve primal consideration.

SAD

So it is. It’s sad.

It’s absolutely sad that we felt the need to blow up this fellow because of what he’s done, and of course, what he might do.

And see—here’s where it gets me.

A killer kills. That’s bad.

But a killer is killed. That’s sad.

Because one of us—who are supposed to be the good guys—has to do the killing. And no matter how righteous we may think our cause is, there were people before us who thought they were just as righteous, who killed and ended up losing what they had because of it.

I’m not going to wave my flag so hard that I start believing that killing is all right. It is not.

That’s what makes me…

MAD

We’ve become killers.

We have gone into another country and killed one of its high officials and said we had the right to do it because the work he was doing for his country was wrong. Or at least, we considered it wrong.

Yet if I spent five minutes in that country, and they explained to me that we sent thousands of troops to their land—to kill and maim—would I be in danger of being convinced that their cause was just as plausible, if not noble?

When a killer kills, and a killer is killed, we become killers.

We can talk about it, debate it…

GLAD

…but here’s the weird thing.

I’m glad we killed him.

I’m not proud. I don’t want to dance on his grave.

But if my choices are BAD, SAD, MAD and GLAD—well, I’m more glad.

But if I could make one request:

Let’s just stop for a while.

Killing, that is.

 

 

 

Good News and Better News … December 18th, 2017

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(3525)

 

Christmas takes my breath away because it removes the stale air of predictable behavior and infuses the pure oxygen of the beauty of life.

It took a baby in a manger to address my childishness–because I am guilty of making the unimportant valuable, as I set aside the truly significant parts of life, praying in my soul that one day I will be able to give them their due.

Heft.

Yes, Jesus said there are “weightier matters” in life–things with girth, depth and breadth, which need to be addressed before all others, but are often ignored in favor of the pursuit of solvency.

It’s absolutely ridiculous.

The difference between religion and faith is that religion is satisfied to perform a service, and faith requires our full mustard-seed.

The weightier matters:

Mercy.

Mercy is not a lip-service devotion, but a proving ground, where those things that make us uncomfortable are forgiven so that we might retain human souls within the borders of the Earth.

Justice.

Escaping our family, clan, kin and even our country to catch a world-wide vision of equality within our race.

Faithfulness.

It is more than telling the truth and escaping the lie, but rather, making sure that the truth endures so that the lies don’t have a chance to gain root.

There is no season like Christmas.

There is no time during the year when “good will toward men” is considered a plausible possibility. There is no other occasion when redemption is viewed as a message rather than a human sacrifice.

The good news is that God weighs matters and gives them importance.

The better news is, if we place our concerns on the scale, we will know what value to give to each and every offering.

 

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