"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
- Hamlet, Act I, Scene V
Just thinking: Perhaps for every man, woman, and child killed by an American-made weapon oversees, a man, woman, and child is killed by an American-made weapon on the streets of America.
Without much thought, we seem to take an unseemly pride in the number of Islamists we kill by drone in the Middle East; in how we tacitly approve the 10:1 ratio of Palestinians killed by American-backed Israelis; and celebrate Russians killed by American-made Heimers and howitzers, and soon, our own cluster bombs in Ukraine.
But, what of the karma, balance? Death is demanding; life is on call. A notch in our belt in Bakhmut may be answered by a corresponding notch from the southside of Chicago.
I wondered about this, even as the news flashed of a man in Queens, New York who randomly shot people - apparently for fun - from the seat of his scooter. Where does such wantonness come from? How is it reckoned?
President Clinton, toward the end of his second term, ordered a missile strike on a large pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan. (He had erroneously believed that terrorist activities were being planned there.) Fortunately, he did not kill 3,000 people, which would have equalled the number of Americans killed a year later on 9/11. He did, however, destroy an economic sector that, to the Sudanese, may very well have been equal to America losing the Twin Towers. Though they determined that no terrorist activity was transpiring at that Sudanese plant, I doubt that "Big Bill" said so much as a "sorry."
Think of it this way: East calamity we foster will reverberate back upon us with an equal force, kind of like Newton's Third Law of Motion: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." So, a death there could mean a death here? Sounds weird; even far-fetched. But, impossible? I think not. Shakespeare said, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." That opens us up to endless possibilities.
In 2022, there were 647 mass shootings in the United States; there are 369 (as of July 10) this year. That is thousands of deaths, and tens of thousands of wounded each year in America, or likely, about the same as the number of mean, women, and children killed and wounded each year in our interventions overseas. Coincidence? Or, is something metaphysical at work? Just thinking. There are more things in Heaven and Earth...
1 comment:
Yep! I never mixed it up with Shakespeare, but that’s definitely another interesting observation you have at an up close angle of focus of the violent drama portion of the big ginormous antarctic blue whale size picture of life. No doubt, it makes the overall beauty of life seem very stark. However, that being a reality we live with (and death being sure & inevitable one way or another), it would be to our best interest and perspective to (properly) understand the contrast. Oswald Chambers, a noted Bible teacher in the years leading up to World War I, had interesting insights which bear examination. He believed elements of war (antagonism) are inevitable, as recorded in the December 4 devotional of ‘My Utmost for His Highest’ (a daily devotional book, which is one of my favorites, I’ll send you a copy). The title of that day’s writing is ‘The Law of Antagonism’, of which he begins by writing “Life without war is impossible either in nature or in grace.” I’ll spare you my long windedness of the topic, and simply say that when the bell tolls, rings, chimes, clangs, or rang, it most certainly is “…For Us” and signifies time for attention. But what if I’m deaf? That’s rhetorical, just like ‘can men live without war?’ Keep Bangin’ Cuz!
Tico
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