Silly me, I had to go into the chat rooms discussing the air marshal shooting last week. Again, a bit like taking a swim in the castle moat at high noon on the first day of summer, in Madrid There are a lot of things I could say, but I prefer to post this entry from Wishful Thinking- A Theological ABC.
NEIGHBOR
When Jesus said to love your neighbor, a lawyer who was present asked him to clarify what he meant by neighbor. He wanted a legal definition he could refer to in case the question of loving one ever happened to come up. He presumably wanted something on the order of: “A neighbor (hereinafter referred to as the part of the first part) is to be construed as meaning a person of Jewish descent whose legal residence is within a radius of no more than three statute miles from one’s own legal residence unless there is another person of Jewish descent (hereinafter to be referred to as the party of the second part) living closer to the party of the first part then on is oneself, in which case the party of the second part is to be construed as neighbor to the party of the first part ad one is oneself relieved of responsibility of any sort or kind whatsoever.”
Instead Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), the point of which seems to be your neighbor is to be construed as meaning anybody who needs you. The lawyer’s response is left unrecorded. – Frederick Buechner.
I think what surprised me the most were discussions of things I’d never even tie to the incident. His wife’s appearance, that not agreeing with the marshal’s decision was somehow “liberal,” that being mentally ill affects intelligence, that the gene pool was somehow better off with this guy gone. Oh, and I’m going by the titles of the entry. The majority of them were dismally graphic if not almost obscene. Actually I guess they couldn’t get worse and still keep their AOL accounts.
On the plus side the Christmas lights are up, the tree is up, the cats are trying to lunch on said tree. and maybe it will get over forty tomorrow. I can only wish.
3 comments:
I had to stop going into those AOL chatrooms where politics and/or current events are discussed. Seriously. I would get so enraged at some of the posts that I would send nasty (TOS-violating) emails. I used a few bad words. LOL
All I can do is try to spread truth and ALWAYS vote. It's out of my hands after that.
xo,
Russ
This is why I NEVER go to the chatrooms. They are absolutely poisonous. Lisa :-]
Ditto for me. Chat rooms just give me the willies.
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