To celebrate or not to celebrate?

May 2, 2011

Today’s Bit of Advice…

“To celebrate or not to celebrate?”

This bit of advice is difficult for me to write because it covers one of the three topics you don’t discuss if you like to avoid controversy – money, religion, and politics.  I’ve noticed that I cover religion fairly frequently but I try to do it in a way that won’t spark debate.  Money is one I can usually keep calm as well.  But, politics?  That’s a tough one for me to write on because I am quite conservative, a bit opinionated, and convinced my beliefs are right (aren’t we all?  LOL)

I’ll start with this statement:  Death is sad.  Death is hard.  Death is a time of grieving. But death is also joyful.  Death is a time for celebration.

That seems to be a statement of conflict but that is only because death affects two different groups of people: the person who has died and those who are left behind.  For those who remain in life, the death of a loved one is sad and difficult, full of grief because we feel the loss in our own lives and hearts.  It is normal to feel sad for one’s self in the time of loss.  But, for those of us who have great faith that heaven is real and life with the Lord is to be desired, the knowledge that a loved one has finished the earthly portion of their life and has moved to live in eternal splendor is joyful.  And we can celebrate the life of that person with peace in our hearts, knowing that his or her new life in heaven is filled with love.

Death is a time for celebration.

But death and murder and not synonymous.

Murder is not a time for celebration. 

Our world is full of wonderful people but also full of evil.  We have a responsibility to keep ourselves safe from that evil and, sometimes, that means that humans must take life from others.  God does not condone murder, nor does he condone evil.  But I believe that He does not punish the good when they must take life from those who perform evil acts, impose terror on others, and threaten the lives of the innocent. 

The murder of Osama Bin Laden brings relief to all who lived in fear of his terror and evil acts.  His death protects the innocent.  But it is not a time for celebration.  Those who dance in the streets and celebrate this day as a “sweet revenge” are celebrating a murder.  I am pretty sure that Bin Laden will not pass in death to heaven – at least not the heaven I believe God has in store for all who live in his image.  If hell exists (and I’m not fully convinced of that yet), there is likely a special little room for him there.  While we celebrate the passing of a loved one from life on earth to life in heaven, the murder and passing of an evil leader to hell is not a time for celebration. 

It’s hard to watch the celebrations of Bin Laden’s murder on television and in the newspaper.  We are better people than that.  We can be relieved that his reign of terror is over or at least diminished.  We can sleep better at night knowing that his evil has been stopped.  But to rejoice that good men from our military forces had to murder another human is not what I believe is to be celebrated.

A priest (formerly of my parish) used to end a good homily with “That is all I have to say.   Is there anything you’d like to say?”  I hope you’ve taken my words in the spirit in which they were written.  I try to stay away from those three risky topics as much as possible, but this blog post needed to be put on paper and shared.

Thanks for the read.