Monthly Archives: April 2007

A few hours ago, just over an hour from where I live, at least 30 people were murdered. Some reports say they were lined up and shot in an execution-like manner. Some reports say the killer may have been looking for his girlfriend.

I was talking with a friend at a coffee shop early this morning when I saw the breaking news on a television monitor. The body count kept going up. The bottom of my stomach fell out.

Why?

I was watching a movie last night that had a graveyard scene. The scene caused me to contemplate the prospect of life after this one. The importance of knowing I’m prepared for it.

This morning’s bloodbath at Virginia Tech is the rudest of awakenings as to our own mortality, how quickly it can all be ripped away from us. None of those students woke up this morning knowing it was their last morning. They were reviewing for exams, cursing because they overslept, excited over new relationships, groaning because it was Monday. And then it was all taken from them. None of them saw it coming. None of them deserved it.

Why?

What is it that is so broken in our society? In ourselves?

If you pray, please pray for the families of those lost.

While you’re at it, pray for everyone. There is no such thing as safety.

Okay, okay, so Imus is an insensitive idiot. Let’s be serious, though: he’s a shock-jock. He’s said this kind of thing before, without nearly the nuclear fallout. This time, however, the resulting mushroom cloud got him fired.

My issue is this: what Imus said wasn’t dangerous. Calling the Rutgers basketball team “nappy-headed hoes” was offensive and hurtful, but, as free speech goes, it was not yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. We’ve over-reacted here.

Imus’ comments were derogatory, but they were not dangerous. They were offensive, but they were not hate speech. There was no danger that could have resulted from these comments, only insult. Therefore, legally, they were within the realm of free speech. Yet, he loses his job over them. Do you think maybe the insult has been exaggerated? I rather imagine that the members of that basketball team have been the recipients of worse jabs from other ignorant people. While the comments Imus flippantly made are morally sketchy and racially ignorant, I fail to see how they are worth firing him, essentially censoring him, which is infringing upon his constitutional freedoms.

Should Imus receive consequences for this? Absolutely. Should he be fired? Absolutely not. This is a serious slippery slope we’re starting down. Are artists to be told what they can and cannot paint or write? Are journalists to be told what questions they can and cannot ask? There’s already way too much of this going around for my taste. Almost every professional organization I’ve worked for has regulations as to what sort of content can be contained in email communications. That’s creating a professional work environment. I can live with that. Compare this, however, with a certain evangelical school, where the staff at the campus radio station are not only under specific regulations as to what sort of humor they can engage in on the air, but also strictly forbidden from making any comments against the school’s founder. That’s censorship. It should be illegal. Instead its tolerated. That’s just wrong.

Someone’s opinion may be stupid, as in Imus’ case. The opinion may be controversial. Here, however, we all have the right to express that opinion. That’s what sets us apart as a free nation. Tragically, this may be a trend that leads us to a freedom that exists in name only.

I didn’t know what to write yesterday. I guess I didn’t want to write anything normal, traditional, or flippant. And, honestly, I was trying to unpack the significance of it for me this year.

So, I was meditating on the Spring bloom around us. Curtailed as it has been by “winter’s last blast,” you have to appreciate the beauty in it. In the south, everything is pastels right now. Not really my color choice, but, still, you have to appreciate the beauty in it. The birds singing, everything coming into bloom.

And for the first time, I appreciated the reason we celebrate Easter during the Spring. I mean, I always knew it was to associate the resurrection of the Christ with new life, but I just really appreciated it for the first time. The whole takeaway from Easter is a redemptive one, a new life that is available to us. That is what makes Easter the core of the Christian faith, the culmination of the divine plan: new life. Easter is about the ultimate apologetical argument for the Christian faith: no body has ever been produced. People were and are willing to die for the name of Christ, and that’s not something you do if you hold doubts. There is no body because of the new life that Christ initiated for us.

And this morning, the day after Easter, as I was looking out the window, I couldn’t even really pray. I could just mouth the words “thank you.”

Happy Easter.

Two verses today. Jesus had been buried, people had prepared burial spices, and nothing further was done today, because Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath.

I was trying to contemplate the silence that must have been present today. I read a poem last night by Garret Keizer called “The Errand.” It’s written from the hypothetical point of view of the person who took the borrowed colt on which Jesus had ridden back to the owner. It hyposthesizes what the owner must of been like…interesting.

It gives this feeling about the absence of noise and commotion, though, I have to imagine that today all those centuries ago must have been just that. Grieving and crying enough to go around, I’m sure. But if you went to Golgotha on that day, for example, I bet you would have encountered horrible, pervasive silence.

I wonder if there’s a significance to that? Why Jesus didn’t rise until after the Sabbath? I wonder why the pause? Was it to allow those who had observed the events of the previous day to allow it to have an impact on them?

Interesting, don’t you think? The world had just shifted, and there was only silence.

I’ve wondered often why we call this “Good Friday.” I mean, I’ve never researched the background for the title, but its the psychology behind it that I have difficulty grasping. Good, I suppose, in that what He chose to endure that day would have salvific repurcussions for all Believers. I guess it just seems a little too happy for as black a day as it was, as traumatic as Scripture records it.

I didn’t read this part of Scripture today, I listened to it as an audiobook instead. I’m not really into audiobooks, but this was cool in a radio theatre sort of way. The part that really stayed with me was the emotion in the voice of the actor who portrayed Jesus. He was crying often during the reading, and, at the end, when Christ claimed “it is finished” at the time of His death, the actor screamed. An anguished scream, truly in pain.

I imagine Jesus screamed and cried a lot during that 24 hour period. I guess I get wrapped up in His divinity so much that I forget His humanity. He hurt, He suffered, He experienced an actual death. The translation that the actors read for the audiobook phrased Jesus’ words as saying that He gave Himself for the salvation of many (I’m not quoting, I don’t remember it verbatum). All that pain He went through was for one purpose.

So, I guess, knowing the ultimate outcome of all this, I can see calling it Good Friday, because the result for me and many others and any others who choose to accept it is that we’ve been liberated.

So, yeah…it’s good.

Happy Good Friday.