Oh! My heart breaks yet again for this new and senseless tragedy in Norway. I am unaware of any Norwegian ancestry, yet my mom is a Peterson from Danish origins. And we are all human beings.
What a sickening, heart-rendering and unnecessary horror. The supposed perpetrator is in the custody of Norwegian law enforcement. They are a civilized nation and will see that our weak forms of human justice are exercised as well as they can in their own honorable tradition of law.
We try so hard to understand and want to find and root out the cause. It is so difficult. And it is so tempting to cast blame and fear and hatred. As I saw some initial reports come out, there were comments expressing the most vile and vitriolic hatred of Muslims who had been assumed to be the "terrorist conspirators" who had done this. But that doesn't appear to be the case. And it does no good jumping to conclusions on the other side that this is the fault of the Christian religion because of the evil heart errors of the one who now appears to be the principal culprit.
In no way do I wish to excuse him and in no way do I condemn him or his origins. We must allow the Norwegian Nation to deal with him and any others in any connected plot.
And I will moralize to this extent, unfortunately, and no doubt to the offense of some who may not see it this way. But can we not repent and forgive and change our hearts and encourage those of others whether they be Nordic Christian Fundamentalists or Muslims of a darker skin hue, or Hispanics of whatever legal residency status, or those of whatever political, religious, cultural, or any other differences in our human family? Each of us are no less nor no more inherently capable of the greatest good or most horrific evil as we chose every moment of every day which side of that line through our individual hearts we are on.
We need a higher power to heal these our hearts. Please turn to a Holy Savior or a Messiah or a Buddha or even the Hope in Humanity for that Healing. And choose you every moment of every day whom ye will serve - and let it be each other and your God.
(Anon/M)The most chilling thing is that the maximum possible penalty in Norway is 21 years in jail. The man is 32. You do the math.
ReplyDeleteI mean no offense, Anon/M, but the math is not what chills me. Would 20 years or 22 years be any better? 50-75 years? Did Norway's liberalism "cause" this when that was apparently his "target?" Death penalty? Would that stop this sort of thing from ever happening again? Sure, with this guy and maybe it's deserved for such a thing. It didn't offend me too much when they took out that guy in Pakistan.
ReplyDeleteGod is the only ultimate hope and even that is risky as He can be interpreted to condone this sort of thing as may even be the case with this guy. But where else do we turn? (I guess I've hit that theme before.) I'm an idealist - guilty as charged. And a broken-hearted one at that.
(Anon/M) No offense taken. I'm not really for the death penalty and don't believe it's a deterrent. Even in our system, horrible miscarriages of justice happen. But, if that man is guilty, I don't think he should EVER see the light of day and walk the streets again.
ReplyDeleteWell, I can't argue with that.
ReplyDelete