Matthew 5:44-47
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
I had a terrible thought, 2 really, that came to my mind in the past 3 or 4 days. They're political thoughts, so if you ain't in for that kind of thing, cut out now. I've been taking in all this vocal effluence in over the past few weeks concerning the COVID deaths and the Presidential campaigns and all the little ways the media overlords are trying to twist public opinion one way or the other. My wife is very good at reminding me as I argue or present a point during a family meal or in a small-group setting that my points may be valid and true, but there are any number of opposing points from the other side of the argument that are valid and true as well. And she is right, in fact it's that exact counsel that exploded behind my eyeballs when these two thoughts finally clarified in my mind.
Yes I am one of those guys who thinks the media is out to hoodwink us all. I believe they take sides and purposely miss-inform and under-inform the public in order to drive the dollar signs up in their ratings. I can't listen to network news without rebutting the on-air personality as though they were in my living room. Opinion matters, though it may be wrong or skewed or misinformed, it matters.
Love your enemies...
The first thought focuses on the terrible thing has happened in the state of New York, thousands of old folds and sick folks living in rehab centers and nursing homes have died because the State of NY opted to send patients WITH COVID to those places to finish their recovery process once they were over the danger hump. Most of those patients who were moved to the places where old and sick people died got better and went home, but the old folks who lived there, who were spending their last months and years of life there suddenly found that those months and years turned to weeks and days when they were taken by the much feared disease. Many of these elderly patients never got a chance to see their families again because of the "safety" rules put into place by the medical boards and the State. Many died alone, scared and confused. Many died WELL before their time. This point was driven home by a story from NY about a Mrs. Janice Dean, who lost both of her in-laws, a couple married for almost 60 years, after first the wife, then the husband, contracted COVID when their nursing home was used to house infected patients. She called out the Governor of the state for his buck-passing and politicizing of the death rates in the nursing homes. She pointed out that he never once voiced the fact that it was his executive order that moved the infected patients to places where the MOST at risk populations could be found. Right after reading her story I read that the US Navy Hospital Ship Mercy was leaving NY because it was not being used, and the Javits Center temporary field hospital is closing down because it was not being used.... A terrible thought struck me as I finished the second story, "I'll bet that lousy good-for-nothing Cuomo didn't use the hospitals provided by the Federal Government via the Military because he didn't want to give Trump ANY opportunity at receiving good press. He sent those COVID patients to the nursing homes KNOWING old people would died by the thousands all because HE WANTED TO WIN some stupid political game of "Who Has The Biggest Set!"" In that moment I wanted him to die.... I raged in my heart that HE should be tied to a bed in one of those nursing homes in a room FILLED with COVID patients and be left to suffer the consequences he forced on thousands of families.... I HATED HIM.
The second thought that hit me a day later was concerning Joe Biden. It was on the day he uttered the words that probably cemented Donald Trump's second term as POTUS. During an interview on a nationally syndicated radio show, he closed the interview (because HE was pressed for time even though the host had many more questions for him) by telling the host, "If you have a problem figuring out if you're for me or Trump, YOU AIN"T BLACK." "Ouch," I thought, "that's gonna leave a mark. How are his "handlers" going to handle this one?" Joe Biden has a history of saying the wrong thing at the worst time, and at first I just tossed that one into the Homer Simpson file of fame. "Biden is SUCH an idiot," I thought to myself... I may have even said it out loud. As I pondered Biden's latest gaffe, I soon found myself pitying the man. He can't continue this fight. As we sit and watch, his entire list of life accomplishments is being covered up by a series of mental lapses in judgement that always seem to happen on tape. "The man is being used by his own Party," I thought. "They are going to ride him until he is spent and useless to them and they'll finish him off publicly at the Convention in as shameful a way as they can, by either dumping him for a "surprise" candidate or tying him to the greatest political failure in modern history..." and at that moment I pitied the poor schmuck.
Yesterday I got to pondering these two things; my hatred for Cuomo (based on my unprovable theory) and my pity for a man I do not respect in the least. And that's when the words of Matthew 5 spoke to me. I was the pharisee, the publican, the hypocrite (depending on your translation). I was ready to curse these men, I was ready to hate them in my heart, but had I prayed for them? I was guilty of choosing whether they were worthy of redemption. I wept, for I was ashamed. As I prayed for them to find true peace, I hated and pitied myself.
I'm glad no one made that choice about me 30 years ago when I was a different man.
