I arrived home late yesterday afternoon from a long-weekend road trip to the Nashville area exhausted. I did my level best to stay awake, enjoying the serenity of my home and catching up on the TV I missed while away, but lost the battle with my eyelids and fell asleep on the couch at about 10 pm. I woke at 3 am to find that US Navy Seals, at the direction of our President, had located and eliminated Osama Bin Laden. While I understood my countrymen's jubilation, I was uncomfortable with some of the very ugly things that were being said and done. My emotions were conflicting: pride, relief, joy, concern, sadness, disgust, shame.
This morning I watched news coverage, read blogs discussing the event, listened to Secretary of State Clinton's address . . . I spent six hours last night and this morning trying to reconcile my feelings and, in the end, posted this to Facebook:
The world breathes a sigh of relief that the foremost terrorist leader has been eliminated, and rightly so, but let's not lose sight of temperance and grace. This is far from over and the actions we take and the words we speak today will color what happens in the future.Those who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks and all of the sundry other world-wide attacks masterminded by Bin Laden have closure, and that is a great thing. The leadership of this country set a goal and eventually accomplished it. We should celebrate that. But terror sects are designed to continue to thrive long after the head of the snake has been cut off. The world is watching us to see how we react. Let's do so with reason and compassion.
