Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
I am frustrated and angry tonight at people who I served with and considered to be friends because I dared to criticize the draft dodging, combat veteran mocking President when it was reported that he is forcing the Pentagon to give him a big military parade like Bastille Day in France. I made my comments on Facebook which I use to keep up with friends. I do post articles and occasionally comments on those articles but I make it a point never to go to my friends pages and attack them for their political, social, or religious beliefs, even when what they post attacks on things that I deeply believe in. For me it is not worth it, I would rather remember the good times with people than to attack them and their beliefs.
But tonight I lost it after repeated attacks and posted something that was not very Jesus like, something about fornicating the President and his minions. When I did that, one former shipmate who had been one of the instigators of my anger threw up my clergy status and noted that Jesus never said such things. I readily agreed with him and admitted that I am a bad seed. As far as what is written in the Bible goes I am sure that he is absolutely correct that Jesus never said such things. But that being said Jesus did kind of mess up the money changers in the Temple day when he when all sorts of crazy on them. Likewise, St Nicholas, tired of hearing heresy proclaimed at the Council of Nicaea punched the heretic Arius, an act that the Emperor Constantine had him stripped of his office as a Bishop and imprisoned. One has to admire punching saints. Likewise, the great German Reformer Martin Luther was probably at least as foul mouthed as me, especially after a good amount of beer.
Since I still struggle with belief and since I know that I am a very poor representative of Jesus in many ways it was offensive. On a good day I believe about 60% of the time which is a lot better than just a few years ago and that is not because how well I have been treated by supposedly Christian friends, rather it is because of the grace, love, and mercy I have been shown by others who don’t claim to be Christian, as well as Christians not afraid to rock the boat or embrace those who do, even if they disagree with them.
I guess that makes me a traitor to the President and his minions. If so I’ll live with it and I’m sure that when the President gets his Reichstag Fire moment that I will be terminated in one way or another. Since I have have had my life threatened by Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists going back to 2010 I wouldn’t be surprised at anything. I know too much about History and human nature to believe the best about anyone in times like this.
Tonight I am angry, I am disgusted, and I am discouraged; but I won’t stop speaking out. If I stop speaking out I will be no better than the Wehrmacht Officers who turned away from the Weimar Constitution, who turned the other way when Hitler gave them what they wanted and eliminated the opposition, and who planned and executed his wars of aggressive conquest and genocide, and when the war was over blamed it all of the SS.
General Ludwig Beck who first supported Hitler’s military build up but resigned his post rather than to execute orders to invade Czechoslovakia noted:
“It is a lack of character and insight, when a soldier in high command sees his duty and mission only in the context of his military orders without realizing that the highest responsibility is to the people of his country.”
Thankfully one of my former now retired subordinates sent me a personal message asking me to take my most incendiary comment down promising to copy and paste it on his timeline without attribution. The comment was admittedly over the top and posted out of anger, not that I didn’t mean it; but he was right to tell me to take it down in order to protect me. It was a scathingly brilliant idea. I removed the post and the comments and he posted my comment without attribution. You have to appreciate people who “look out for your six.” Thank you my friend for doing so.
The last two glasses of wine and the support of other friends have taken the edge off my anger. The Apostle Paul wrote “be angry and do not sin” while the Martin Luther, a man as foul and melancholy as I will ever be wrote his faithful friend and lieutenant Philip Melanchthon:
“If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides.”
I don’t hide behind my clerical collar, or the cross on my uniform. I know that I am deeply flawed and certainly not an imaginary sinner. I sin and when I do it tends to get noticed, and I’m sure that God is watching and that She knows it too. I don’t know if I can be angry and not sin because my mostly Irish and Scottish DNA combined with my life experience and PTSD mitigates against it. My ugly and beat up feet are definitely made of clay.
That being said I’m not going to be some namsy-pamsy that lets people walk over him. Feet of clay or not I do fight back and when I turn the other cheek I frequently emit foul odors.
So until tomorrow when I write about the substance of what set me off, not the attacks or the people,
Peace,
Padre Steve
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 