Tree-huggin

I woke up to 5,713,483,902 posts celebrating Osama Bin Laden's death today...give or take a few.

I hate hearing his name, it brings back such awful memories of the losses suffered in our country and on a more personal note, it reminds me of the death of my hero. I love our military. I am eternally grateful for the sacrifices our service men and women make on a daily basis in order to secure our freedoms. But I found myself feeling really sad today. What does it say about us on a human level? Americans and people around the world are celebrating. They're literally dancing in the streets. When did we as people, sink down to rejoicing in the very death and destruction we claim to be fighting for? Am I the only one who sees the irony in that?

I am sure there will be multitudes of people who will read this and think "well, she is just anti-American, she has no pride in her country, she hates our military even as they defend her right to say that.." or some other crap. I am not wearing flowers in my hair, birkenstocks and hugging a tree. You will not find me marching in protests on the street with the anti-war set, and singing "Give Peace a Chance". Say what you will, but that is not what I am putting out here. I am simply looking at today, a day that will surely go down in history, and wondering how we all would feel from another point of view.

Osama Bin Laden. He was a man. A father. A mother's son. He was definitely my idea of an extreme waste of human life. But he was still a creature on this earth. A fellow living, breathing being. I do not celebrate today because he is dead. I take no happiness in knowing that in order for justice to be served we were reduced to hunting down a man like a dog and then casually disposing of him, extinguishing his life as though changing an empty toilet paper roll. I do not wish he were still alive. I only wish people would take a moment and feel some sort of compassion, on a basic human level, for such a wasted life. A life that began as all ours do, child to teen to adult and beyond. Of wasted opportunities and potential. Of dying in shame, humiliation and despair.

I heard Jeremy Kingsley speak at a conference a few years ago. He was telling a story about right after the 9/11 attacks, while speaking to a friend and gloating about how many Taliban would be killed by U.S. troops, there was a moment where he had a realization. Although it is good to love your country and be proud of your military, in God's eyes we are all His creation. He weeps for all lives lost. Taking pride in your country is one thing, but that does not mean happiness over the death of another. He was a human being. A creation of God. I feel sorry for how far he strayed from the path of right and wrong, choosing instead to live the life and wreak the destruction that hurt so many other people. But I cannot go out dancing and singing praises, rejoicing in the fact that he is dead by the hands of us all.