Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead

I'd like to be profound about the death of Osama Bin Laden, but I can't describe what I'm feeling. In some ways it's anticlimactic. We've been hunting for so long that it hardly seems real. In other ways, it bothers me that we go out hunting for human beings to kill. It bothered me when we hunted Hussein down with the specific orders to kill and it bothers me that we hunted Bin Laden down. Still, it's nice to have that one tiny chapter of the whole mess closed. Maybe.

One of the commentators said there were "possibilities" of reprisals. I think using the word "possibilities" is optimistic. Selfishly, I am glad we are flying to China on China Air. I might be more nervous if we were on American orUnited.

Bin Laden leaves behind relatives and friends and heartbreak, I'm sure, just as I know there is weeping in Libya at the death of Gaddafi's son and grandchildren. I hate that there needs to be war and that people need to kill people....for what...? I also hate that there is such jubilation at the death of Bin Laden. I agree it was a necessary thing, but do we have to cheer and have big celebrations?

What would Jesus or Muhammad do? Weren't these influential religious leaders men of peace? What if they were to meet with their followers and see the havoc that reigns, the bodies heaped in piles...men, women, little children?

We seem to have reached a point where in many places in the world we have reached our basest instincts. I listened to the emotional interview of reporter Laura Logan on 60 Minutes tonight, bravely speaking out for all victims of sexual assault, describing her assault in Egypt, how her clothes were ripped from her body and her body violated over and over again, raped by the fingers of many men, her limbs pulled so strongly that when she got to the hospital, they had been moved from their normal place on the body, hunks of hair pulled in an attempt to remove her scalp. She was only saved by the actions of a group of brave muslim women.

I hate these stories. I hate (some of) the world we live in today. I hate that we are seeing so much ugliness about us.

But then I look at people like Terrell and Kristen and Maureen. Terrell and Kristen live in Texas and are raising three children. In 2003 Kristen traveled to Nairobi, where she met Maureen, a 2010 graduate of the University of Nairobi. Maureen wanted to help the young girls having backstreet abortions in Nairobi. Out of that grew Mercy House, which opened earlier this year and now will provide maternity care for young girls raped and abandoned on the streets of Nairobi.

Read about Mercy House here.

Just three people like you and me who saw a need and worked for years to see it start to be filled. It's one of the perks of having come in contact with Compassion, Int'l -- seeing how many people are doing how much for children, with little more than the resources that you and I have. Some people are "just" sponsoring a couple of dozen children. At nearly $40 a month per child, this is a significant contribution, but the stories which come out of the centers from the children show that each sponsored child is profoundly affected by the support from their sponsors.

There is Women for Women, Int'l, where women sponsors in the States agree to sponsor women who are victims of war and help them get back on their feet and learn how to be self-sufficient.

There are little grass roots organizations all over the place that give me some hope that perhaps we are good people after all.

But I wish we wouldn't sing and dance at the death of a human being, no matter how bad he was.

The one thing that makes me proud is that the White House has announced that Bin Laden's body is being handled respectfully and in accordance with Islamic tradition.

For my enemies aren't demons
They're humans just like me.
I will not delight in the slaughter
Or rejoice in the victory

- Steve Schalchlin from his New World Waking