LION AND THE LAMB: Lions and lambs and monuments

Opinion

December 1, 2009

By Bob Hoyt / Chronicle contributor The Crossville Chronicle Tue Dec 01, 2009, 04:00 PM CST

This is the season of Veterans Day, of Thanksgiving Day and of Christmas. We paused to remember our war dead. We gave thanks for all that our country means to us. And as Christmas nears we exercise traditional expressions of hope for life beyond this imperfect place.

Lack of peace is one imperfection. Young Americans are buried in cemeteries across half the world. They sacrificed their chance to see their own children running to them with open arms through autumn leaves. They will not sit and rock in old age on their front porches and watch puppies playing with grandchildren. We also remembered those who served and came home never to be the same. And what of the millions in other lands who lost their lives?

How have we failed each other? The elderly long remember other generations praying for peace. But repeating, “God has a plan,” is not enough. Merely saying and praying that we believe in peace has not produced an end to war. Humanity needs to replace limp slogans with a good plan and leaders who will carry out that plan. Perhaps that is what God is waiting for.

Peace will not come so long as religions do not teach their followers to get along with others who believe different things. Peace will not come so long as nations use war as the response of choice to political transgressions. Peace will not come until those who believe in the right to life understand that too much other life is being lost to ignorance and stubbornness. Peace will not come until humans learn that shouting harsh lies at each other only sets us all back. And peace will not come until we become as proficient at seeking peace as we are at building and wielding war machines. We must find better tools to revitalize ourselves and our land. Our nation must once again become the world’s unquestioned example of what is possible.

Extremism does not improve the world. Shouting “no” to every progressive idea may be free speech, but it is not speech for freedom. It is time to reassure each other that freedom and knowledge will light the way. Perhaps the older generations dropped the ball. But now it falls to the young to demonstrate freedom so the oppressed of the world will take up the cause.

So what must change? No person, country or religion has the right to force itself on the rest of the world. We must be free to choose, and we must choose wisely. We shall resist wrong if we must, but never forgetting that too many foreign cemeteries are already populated with Christian crosses and Stars of David. The fallen never got their shot at a full life. But they did their part for us. They paid for our freedom with their young blood. Let’s hope each New Year will offer new opportunities for today’s young to pay their price with learning and sweat and not their own blood. If our leaders face the real problems and do more things right, perhaps new generations will soon give thanks as they build a monument to the day that dreams for world peace came true. That hope endures at the heart of much that this season is all about.

Text Only

Opinion

Gary's World: Game? What game? I'm watching the commercials
Anyone who really knows me, knows that I'm not much of a football fan.

February 2, 2012
Hazel Smith
Hazel Smith, 86, of Grandview, passed away Jan. 27, 2012, at Rhea Medical Center in Dayton. Funeral services were held Jan. 29 with Bro. Donnie Humphrey and Bro. Jim Schaffer officiating. Burial followed in Reed Cemetery in Alloway.

January 31, 2012
We the People: Crime and Punishment
Maybe we don’t have enough tools. Maybe we don’t have enough imagination. Whatever the reason, we in the United States seem to be confused about finding and applying effective solutions to major societal problems. We seem to have a one-size-fits-all solution: use more force, increase the punishments. Our approach seems to be based on anger and revenge instead of logical thought.

January 31, 2012
Lion and the Lamb: Football and religion
Football games and religious services have many similarities. Both deal with the human struggle toward various goals in life, the importance of both individual and group effort, liturgical celebrations that include music, singing, pageantry, symbols, bidding calls and responses, and the ingestion of food and drink. Also, those sports and religious figures that are deemed most successful, such as by filling large gathering places with celebrants, are usually given special rewards and higher remuneration.

January 31, 2012
Random Thoughts: Enjoy a ride on a Merry-Go-Round
Our first son sent a picture of a sign which told about the man who hand carved the elegant animals on a carousel in San Diego, CA. A second picture was of that son, of retirement age but still working, and his young son mounted on two of those animals. Both males wore broad smiles.

January 31, 2012
Tidbits: Everyone wins with 4-H
I am not a speaker. Ask me to get up in front of a group of people and do much more than introduce myself, and my mouth goes dry, my palms get sweaty and my mind goes blank.
Public speaking is the number one fear reported by people in the U.S. It's above bridges, snakes and spiders, possibly even a greater fear than encountering a snake and a spider while on a bridge.

January 30, 2012
Stumptalk: Capitalist economic system versus progressive economic interference
When fully implemented in 1983, Reaganomics brought America 25 years of very rapid growth with two minor recessions and that is fact. Another fact is that few of us have ever been hired by someone who has less wealth than we have no matter what the progressives say.

January 30, 2012
RANDOM THOUGHTS: Doomsday clock has been reset
This week I observed another birthday. My choice of observed rather than celebrated should give you a clue as to the number of candles that would have filled a birthday cake. I admit for those who knew the number there were expressions of unbelief. I felt the same way!

January 24, 2012
LION AND THE LAMB: How do you wish to die?
What? Wish to die? No one wishes to die. But most of us do—someday. And most of us wish to put off that day as long as possible.

January 24, 2012
WE THE PEOPLE: The primal scream of America
America the beautiful: land of the free and home of the brave. Then Columbus landed. Five hundred years later the land, air and water are polluted; the tops have been blown off the mountains; virgin forests have been clear-cut; the land is littered with junk; and the beaches are littered with tar balls. And we the people are faring no better than the environment.

January 24, 2012
More Opinion Headlines

Opinion

Search Results

LION AND THE LAMB: Lions and lambs and monuments

Site Map

Contact Us