CAPITAL PUNISHMENT TAKES AWAY LIFE -- IMPRISONMENT RUINS IT

I have often thought about the thoughts that you see above.  Lately they have been more insistent because for the last three+ years we the people of this country have seen human life attacked on many fronts.  

Lately, with the re-introduction of capital punishment in the USA, I have been shaking my head and clenching my teeth over the frontal attacts on human life that have been perpetrated against us.  You see, we humans are a community of creatures not simply a collection of individuals.  That means that what happens to one is felt by all and what happens to the many, shakes the one.

That is true of the heroically good as well as the demonically evil.  That is a truth that doesn't seem to resonate very clearly in hearts of people.  It seems that the spiritual vibes of loving happiness and devotion are in a constant skirmish with the power of the volcanic, burning heat of destructive anger.  

Beyond that, I wonder if we creatures of mind and emotion are confused about the definition of our values.  

Do we ask ourselves about the way we judge our behavior? 

Do we sk ourselves if we believe that humans actually have an impact on global warming?   Do we know what we mean when we proclaim ourselves to be "pro-life?"  Do we even know what we mean when we proclaim ourselves to be "pro-choice?"  Do we bother to dive to a deeper understanding of what it means to be "socialist?"  Do we try to reach into the inner meaning of what is means to be "capitalist?"  

I think of many things along such lines and then I shake my head when I read some of the false choices that people expostulate to make themselves appear to be more intelligent or more virtuous than they really are.  I think of the discussion that I encountered the other day before the execution of a man who had been on death row for more than a decade.  There was a question about the efficacy of the drug to be used to cause his death. The question was how long it would take for him to die.  Really?  I remember that same discussion from a few years back.  I wrote to the publisher and suggested the guillotine.  That never fails.  But, wait!  It is said that it is so quick that brain death is not immediate and that even the eyes still function for that fractional delay.  Hmmm, back to the drawing board.  In no part of the discussion was the idea put forward that after more than a decade on death row that this person's life had already ceased to be his own.

I present all these scenarios to make the point that the only one who really knows how to take life away is the Creator of life Himself.  I also am telling you that, since I am leaving the management of life to the Creator, my only choice is to be "pro-choice," just as He wants us all to be.