When You Think About It: Blind and Toothless

Words and photo by F LoBuono

It was one of the most shocking pieces of video that I have ever seen: security camera footage of a young man, tall, dark, and athletic enters a busy piazza in Sri Lanka. He is strides casually into the square, wearing a fully loaded back back. As he passes a young girl holding hands with her mother, he pats her gently on her head. He continues his sojourn seemingly without a care in the world. After he crosses through the square, he enters the side entrance of a church packed with Easter Sunday worshipers. Then, the video is abruptly stopped as the young man detonates the massive bomb he was carrying in his back pack.

How could a young man, seemingly so full of life, apparently without ANY fear or trepidation, so wantonly, so readily, blow himself and countless other innocent victims literally into smithereens?

By what means do we combat an enemy so ready to not only sacrifice their own lives but take so many others with them? How does another human being become so indoctrinated into a culture of hate that they would use the very words of their own Prophet to commit the most heinous acts? The people who perpetrate these acts are NOT monsters. They are human beings - they have mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. They are capable of not only feeling hate, but love, as well. AND, obviously, they are so committed to what they believe that they are not only willing to die for their cause, but to kill without remorse, too.

Well, it's easy to say, "kill them all". But, this just perpetuates the hate THEY use to fuel their doctrine of malevolence. Then, we are left with an endless cycle of violence. To paraphrase Gandhi in reference to the biblical definition of revenge: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth only leaves the world blind and toothless - not a very appealing prospect.

There just has to be a better way - if we have the courage to find AND, follow it. Jesus showed us when he said "turn the other cheek". Martin Luther King refined it by saying: "darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

We MUST find the light. It is our only hope . . .