Monday, May 2, 2011

Life vs. Death & Mixed feelings

Last night, I felt a sense of Patriotism and Unity. It would've been to fun join the party and wave an American Flag! At the same time, I felt weird about it.

A Tolkien quote came to mind during all this:
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

On an opposite side of the spectrum, this other quote followed my thoughts:
It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

Life is a very sacred thing to me.  I hate death.  Lifeless bodies, even of animals have this effect on me.  I'm Pro Life! In every sense of the phrase, haha! I often avoid killing bugs and sometimes aplogize to them when I do...except not so much for cockroaches, because I HATE them!!
Silly, but you get my point.

I've been seeing this quote on Facebook today and it got me thinking again:
"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy...
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
I don't feel hate was the motivating factor rather than justice, even though there is hate in many hearts.  I struggle with rejoicing in someone's death.  Even Bin Laden's.  Yet, I felt a bit of rejoicing.
So I have mixed feelings. I will just leave those feelings...Mixed. 

1 comment:

ginalenore said...

I had the same feelings!! Turns out that the Martin Luther King Jr. quote wasn't really from him, but it's a great one all the same! Glad someone else feels the same way I do. :)