like a bad song
April 21, 2010 (Wednesday)
I started writing these blogs in 2007, and each one is begun with a rough draft in a word processor. It goes into a separate file that has a number just for my purposes. As I wrote the number of this blog at the top of the document today, it jumped out at me, screaming its name: 911. That’s a designation that has made its place in the vocabulary of the world. Before September 11, 2001, it was just a number; today it is “a date that will live in infamy.” All our lives changed that day, as war came to the shores of the U.S.A. The weapons were our own airplanes; the victims who died that day are casualties of war as surely as those who died in each of the wars fought by this country throughout its history.
It is so much a part of who we are now that here I am writing a blog for April 21, 2010, but find myself talking about 911. I wonder how many times references are made to it every day.
When we think of the reasons for the irrational behavior of terrorists, we are saddened beyond measure. People kill themselves and many others in these senseless acts almost every day, which make even less sense when the stated reason for the terrorism is love of God.
When Jesus said, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” he was stating a principle that has many applications. Think about it. Everything people do that you see, hear about and read about each day is a result of thoughts. The tall buildings downtown began as thoughts in the minds of planners. The robberies and murders are the result of distorted thoughts. Good or bad, our thoughts will eventually produce concrete deeds. So, in the spirit of a nursery school song, “Be careful little eyes what you see, be careful little ears what you hear, be careful little hands what you do,” be careful, dear friend, what you think. Sorry to sound so “preachy;” sometimes I just can’t help it. But I’m always preaching to myself first.