Today we hear that the U.S. Navy Seals ONLY shot Osama bin Laden’s young wife in the leg. Yesterday, the story was that she had thrown herself in front of her husband as a human shield and in doing so was killed. It is her that my mind and my heart goes out to this morning. I can’t help but wonder what her life story is. Where is she from? What had she dreamed of as a child? Was she precious to her family? Did she desire having children? Were any of the children in the compound her’s or theirs together? Had she been dreaming of a happier life lived outside secrecy before the raid? Would she hate me because I am an American or could we have looked deep into each other’s eyes across the kitchen table and seen unshed tears over the state of the violence that grips the globe?
I think of these questions so that my mind does not become numb with the reports that I am barraged with every time I seek out some relaxation in front of the television. Mind you, I do not go there often but a day spent in study or in search of new employment can stretch my brain to a point that I could use either some of Mr. Roger’s love of life or news regarding the newlyweds in England. I go there hoping to sit for a bit and relax. I do not seek out the National News which always seems to have a political slant buried deep within the smiling faces reporting it. For news, I head to Public Radio hoping that the system of media reporting has not stretched it far beyond the recognition of actual reporting of events. So I question myself to ground myself in the reality that in a town thousands of miles away there are families trying to go about their day loving their children, cooking the day’s meals, going to and from some form of paid employment, glad that the sun is shining, and worried that there will not be enough of what they may need to keep them out of poverty or injustice’s harm. It is a day like my day and violent death has entered their picture. I feel sad for them. I feel sad for the children who may have nightmares thinking someone may be coming for them. I feel sad for the destruction of life and property. I feel sad for the celebrations that are occurring in our country because of death.
We are 11 days into the Easter season; the season of Christ’s Resurrection and triumph over death. Each day a new day dressed in the white pureness of redemption and heavenly glory. We, Christians, are an Easter people and have our eyes turned towards upward into an assent of our mind and heart hoping to see the world as God sees the world; hoping to understand more deeply how He wants us to live and how we through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit can live lives overflowing with charity. There have to be questions; questions that ground us in our faith and lead us to see how life should be lived. God was in that room with the Navy Seals. God was overseeing all that were His creations. He has told us through Holy Scripture that there is nowhere that we can go that He will not be there…to the mountain…to the sea….into the forest….in the midst of the compound. It became another moment, another fire fight, another news story, another wife shot in the leg. May God have mercy on our souls and be with us in the silence of the night as we question “What really just happened here?”
