A Day For Reflection

Perhaps, in light of the dreadful new of yesterday, it’s time to take a moment from our review of The Sermon on the Mount and think about the possible lessons it may teach us. In the early hours this morning, I developed a few. Perhaps the Galilean would approve.

I think that it is time for me first to contemplate why friends whom I consider decent, caring, hardworking, thoughtful, and educated people, currently view America along with me, and yet come to political opinions that are the exact opposite of mine. Where was the crossroad that separated us, and how might our paths join once more? Could the Galilean's most famous sermon help?

That  having been said, I think it is past time for the President of the United States of America to moderate his inflammatory rhetoric and cease using a “minimum-word” format to voice opinions about topics so deep and complicated that they have puzzled far deeper thinkers for centuries.

I think that it is time for parents to start teaching their children that science and education will save our planet, not mythology.

I think that someone should force Franklin Graham and his cult of manic-evangelists to read The Sermon on the Mount. It couldn’t hurt. It might help. It will surely surprise.

I think that if political leaders truly believed in the words of the Galilean, we would be governed differently. Consider: “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

I think that it is time that people who become fabulously wealthy start contributing to higher-order endeavors than destroying our public schools or persecuting our brothers and sisters whom nature has provided sexual orientations that differ from theirs.

I think that it is time for religious leader to confine their teachings to the better angels of their belief system and not to twisted political dogmas that preach annihilation of those with differing beliefs.

I think it is time we understood that guns are not the only cause of violence. Gun worship, social animosity, personal hopelessness, and a society that teaches its young that violence is the final solution to any problem fuel rampages.

I think that we first learn to control our own rhetoric and to understand that good people sometimes reach opposite conclusions after studying the same set of facts. Then we may discuss ways to calm our violent impulses.

I think we pay way too much attention to military solutions in resolving social or religious differences.

I think it is time to cease suffering fools, even lightly.

I think it is time for me to understand my own heart better.

I think I’ll start by reading The Sermon on The Mount again.

Won't you join me? Let's hold hands while we read together.

They say the Galilean wept once.
Why make him do so again?