Happy Easter, everyone. I’ve been trying to reflect more on what Jesus means to me and the significance of his sacrifice as it’s easy to get caught up in other things. Sometimes it’s hard to apply his philosophy of peace, especially now with so many people out to kill us. Turning the other cheek is not an option when people want you dead. And with all the violence in Iraq now, one starts to wonder if any good will come out of war in the end. I just found out that a Marine friend of mine who went back to Iraq is actually in Fallujah right now. I fear for his safety, but Fallujah is where the Marines need to be.
I’m kinda babbling, as I’m not good with the serious commentary, but I do have a point. When Jesus was crucified, when was dragged though the streets bruised and battered finally to be nailed to the cross, things could hardly seem darker. One would pray from a good outcome, but it would hard to believe what it could be. But the he rose again, and in doing so gave us eternal life.
There were a number of times in my own life when things seemed dark and hope was lost, but, then, in the end, things turned out better than I could have imagined – better than I even prayed for. It’s a lesson I often forget, but I try to keep in mind. Right now things are looking dire in Iraq, and a lot of people think it’s going to be a disaster when the U.S. hands over power to the Iraqis in June, but we need to have faith. As dark as it all may seem now, a democratic peaceful Iraq is still possible. We’re in there to do good, and it would be hard to believe Jesus isn’t getting our back.
So everyone say some prayers for our troops – our troops from all the nations out there helping us in this – and for the Iraqis. God bless.
Foist!
“it would be hard to believe Jesus isn’t getting our back.”
I concur. Great writing as usual Frank.
OK, now that I actually read your post – good one Frank. People are getting skeered about Iraq and we need to hang tough. If that means flipping through the Good Book for appropriate passages, so be it. “Pray without ceasing” St. Paul says.
We gotta hang tuff back home. Remember, these are our countrymen (yes and women, I know) bringing the fight to the enemy instead of letting them bring it to us. We should be grateful – not doubtful. Consider that these “uprisings” are being funded and often fought by Iranians, Syrians, Jordanians and other Inians and you’ll see we are doing the right thing by fighting them THERE, instead of HERE.
God Bless the USA (heathen may substitute God for pegan idol of choice) and God bless our troops!
I think it’s really important to remember how limited (in the temporal sense… like, we can’t see the future) our minds are. 🙂 You said that things often work out better than you could have imagined they would, even when things seemed to be awful at the time, and I’ve had the same experience over and over again… where I couldn’t see what God was doing until months later, and then I looked back and was like, “OH, that’s what that was all about!” The crucifixion without the resurrection is just what some newspaper columnist a while ago said it was- “a gentle teacher’s violent end.” When the crucifixion and the resurrection are taken TOGETHER, though, suddenly the end of Christ’s life becomes the most triumphant, beautiful moment in history. It’s like that with a lot of things… you can’t correctly judge the importance of a moment without knowing its outcome. What may seem like a “quagmire” now may be hailed years from now as a dedicated effort to bring peace and freedom, or maybe just the opposite, but you gotta believe if you’re doing what’s right that everything works toward good.
Lovely sentiments, Frank, and a happy Easter to you! 🙂
ali 🙂
You’re better at serious than you let on dude. Prayer and faith – I’m right there with you.
Thanks for posting this, Frank. Your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs hit very close to home. God bless you and all of us, especially those fighting for the good of the world.
I know Jesus is there with the Marines.
“Ain’t no atheists in a fighting hole.”
Amen.
God is good!
Holy crap, this war on terror is like so f***ing working! I can just feel it!!1
So I’m listening to my Lee Greenwood CD and then I had this ephiphany “Why are those little urchins in Iraq so f***ing irritating?”
I mean like come on. We shock and awe these f***ers for two months and blow up family members, but it’s not like we MEANT to do it. Come on man, it was a f***ing mistake. You’d think they’d be a little more understanding.
We even gave them frisbees!
What a bunch of f***ing freedom-unworthy assholes. How big do they want these frisbees for them to love us? I swear, when Americans died at 9/11 because of those Iraqi hijackers frisbees would have been like so chill.
Those assholes in Fallujah will learn to f***ing love us. Man, all this war has me hungry. I’m gonna go get some freedom fries and pray for Bush.
God bless the troops
happy easter everyone! except for the anonymous troll, who can have a happy day burning in hell.
Frank, you complain about your serious writing but it’s pretty much on point. I hope that you don’t hold back any serious thoughts you have, as they may help people appreciate things that may not have been understood before.
that didn’t really come out well, but huzza! on your post. I agree completely.
Even a heathen like me can agree with Frank on this one. There is a lot of hope for the future, even in Iraq. Freedom always prevails. When tyranny raises its head, that head gets stomped. When pissants like our current enemies get uppity, it may take a moment to get our very large boot up, but that boot will come down.
So, whether you’re remebering the Resurection of the Christ or enjoying the new green grass on the festival of Ostara (Easter), remember that things will get better.
BTW Frank J, your serious writing is pretty good. Keep practicing and someday your serious stuff will be far more moving than your funny stuff.
Happy Easter, Frank!
At mass this morning, our priest said “whale doo-doo during the homily. I can safely say that’s the first time I’ve heard that in church.
I am not that much optimistic. Individuals are not as a whole society and a society is not even as complex as the Middle East. You are right to say that when individuals can manage to solve their problems themselves it makes the solution easier for the society, but what happen in Fallujah is a big mistake from the American.
First it kills American soldiers and they are too young to die. Then it kills Iraqi civilians and that is not right. It happened one week only after the death of Yassin. The Iraqi said that they killed the US civilians to avenge the death of Yassin. To answer with firing on the civilians in Fallujah can only raise the Israelo-Palestinain tensions in Iraq and there is not any solutions about it. Not with the means that the army has used.
The victory of Iraq was a chance to bring the peace in all the Middle East accordingly to American rules, not the Israeli ones. The action in Fallujah makes it more and more difficult and I am really pessimistic about the end of all that.
The American who were exemplary become suddenly as bad as the worse dictatorships in the Middle East. It will be hard to recover from all this if not impossible because the American are not ready to “talk” neither are the Muslims. Iraq might become a very big problem. April 9 was the first anniversary of the victory of Baghdad but “none” of the Americans who brought the victory in Baghdad were there this day. And you know why ?
Because Sanchez is a dumbass. So is Abizaid too by the way. They are two male self proud but second class generals without the gut to take the decisions themselves, at least the good ones I mean. The first year in Iraq has been made painful with them and because nothing that should have be down has never been done in time. Such closing Fallujah and building an outside road. During one full year, there have been dozens of US soldiers dieing each months on the roads of Fallujah. Why do they still use this road one should say ? Because they have not yet though to build an other one. %@fff*$ !!!!!
The world’s history into the hands of those two men seems to me much responsibility carried back in America. It will be painful, and that is sad.
…one week only after the death of Yassin.
The resurrection of the Christ on this Christian day is not a resurrection, not even in chocolate.
Frank there is a problem with the comment section of your IMW:
An error occurred:
Invalid entry ID ‘1386’
It got posted prematurely. You won’t see it until tomorrow morning.
Agrr !
Young man, you are righteous and kind and you bring so much laughter and and an example of faith to a generation that desperately needs it. In all humility, be proud of what you. God is using you well.
Yeah, what Alex said. I Yeah, what Alex said. I <3 u, Frank!
don’t like it when these things cut off my comments. 🙂 But, anyways. Happy Easter, everybody.
Times of darkness are a test; a test to determine who really believes, and who merely says they believe. I believe we are doing the right thing in Iraq. I believe President Bush, and most of the American people believe it is the right thing. Pray for the soliders, sailors, airmen, and marines; mourn their losses, but do not shy away from what must be done. They cared enough about their duty to sacrifice their lives for it, so turning tail and leaving would be a slap in their faces. We need to stay the course, unflinching, and show what we all feel…that the United States is the most just, righteous nation on the planet.
Happy Easter everyone.
Thank you Frank.
Thanks, Frank. Happy Easter and God Bless.
Turkeyhead, it’s more a question of trust than of belief.
Nice post. God bless our troops. Happy Easter.
No, Amphitryon, the ressurection of Christ was very real indeed. It was, in fact, the penultimate moment of human history. I pray that this fact may be revealed to you, so that your new life may begin.
Nice post, Frank, and a fruitful Easter to all.
Nathan,
This fact can only be revealed to the Christians which I am not sure to be. I have a different conception of Easter and I don’t plan to begin anything on Easter other than the resurrection of the Christ. But probably here is the main difference between you and me. You are American, I am French and we are very much different particularly about faith, belief, God, religion and so many other things in facts. When I speak, I never pretend to be the Christ or a carbon copy of anything. And I was not born in an egg. I am not either the resurrection of anything. I am the heiress of a culture and I respect my culture for the good I have received of it which is a lot more important than to be and not to me.
I am myself and that’s enough, and I am Confucianist.
The only picture of the Christ that I know is the Sacré Coeur. The only picture of the church that I know are the apostles. And the only picture of the God is this one in Mary’s tears. I should have said prays, but that would be an offence of this particular day of Easter. As for the good of the Christ reincarnated, I only conceive the repentance as a resurrection that precisely may not be into today’s actuality.
Bush does not repent of anything and many mothers are crying their sons. Do you think other mothers will laugh of joy for them ?
That would be an insult. I tell you.
Nathan,
I am the eldest grand-daughter of my grandfather. Being a girl, I don’t see myself as my grandfather or my father or my cousins because the responsibility to be a grand daughter makes it to be different. I don’t have to be as anybody. I just have to be myself which is probably one of the many advantages to be a girl. A girl may know more than her own mother while a man has often conflictual relations or even not dare to know more than his father, or show that he knows more than his father.
A good example of this is Frank, named after his father. That is not in my tradition to have the same name as the father. Eventually the name of the father may be a second name, but usually the custom wants that the children have their own name while the second name is the name of the Grand-father simply because that is mostly how the goods of a family are transmitted.
Me I like the idea of the Christ, or Jesus, only as the father of the Church. The Alpha and the Omega, the new born and the ancestor. Between the Alpha and the Omega there is only history, but no one should be allowed to mess it up badly.
And I have been partly educated by a man who was not my father. I love him more and I respect him more than my own father… He brought me faith which my father has never been able to give me. And I have always believed that it was here the main difference that separated the Christian from the Jews, the monotheism brought to be universal. Catholic priest may love the children as their own, and that is own the church is showing the way.
Frank, you are THE Man.
Oh, and I’d like to nominate George Turner and all the others who trotted out the heavy guns to deal with postit for medals of some sort. Excellent work.
Also, it seems to me that all his posts would easily fit on a Post-it note, thus the name. I am amazed that anyone would post 3+ times in a row, each time on a different topic. That’s what generally how proper English (sorry, American) paragraphs are meant to work.
–Frank, you are right: Fallujah is where the Marines need to be… and the Marines are very good at being exactly where they need to be, when they need to be there. The USMC will be all right.
–The koran orders believers to kill anyone who refuses to convert to its dogma. It teaches that jihad against any and all non believers is an absolute requirement for muslims. It tells young men that, if they commit suicide while killing as many of us as possible, then they will get 72 virgins in the afterlife. Where is the “peace” in this religion? Anyone… please?
–Jesus Christ commanded to turn the other cheek and to love the enemy. After being tortured beyond human reason and nailed to a tree, some of this man’s last words were a plea to Almighty God to forgive His murderers. He washed the feet of His students and told them to do the same to theirs… He LIVED AND DIED for love and peace.
–Now… which religion is the focus of evil in the modern world? How much “understanding” do we need to apply to Islam when it is written in their own holy words to kill all of us? Anyone… anyone at all… please explain.
–I spent a while today meditating on this stuff… I don’t want to just be a “hater” of islam as some sort of knee-jerk reaction. I have studied their beliefs for a long time and I can see absolutely no possible way for them to peacefully coexist with ANYONE who does not believe as they do. When Christians come across “unenlightened” people who do not believe as they do, they try their best to lovingly bring the message of the Gospel to them. If they refuse the message, the Christians pray for them and leave them in peace. When islam finds those who do not believe in the koran, it demands their immediate conversion or death.
–How can so many millions be so completely and utterly out of their minds? Dear God help us… this is heavy and nasty stuff.
–Houston, we have a problem.
–Did you hear the good news? Christ is risen! From this, we go on in hope.
–And, by the way, may God bless our military personnel in Iraq… I’ve been there and, trust me, they need all our prayers.
–Thanks for being serious when you needed to, Frank. Perspective is cool.
–Well, since I’m on a roll and thus far unopposed…
–From Fox News: “Bodies were being buried at two soccer fields. At one of the fields, dubbed the “Graveyard of the Martyrs” by residents, an AP reporter saw rows of freshly dug graves with wooden planks for headstones over an area about 30 yards wide by more than 100 yards long.
Asked about the report of 600 dead, Marine Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne said, “What I think you will find is 95 percent of those were military age males that were killed in the fighting.”
“The Marines are trained to be precise in their firepower …. The fact that there are 600 goes back to the fact that the Marines are very good at what they do,” he said. ”
–No matter where you stand on the overall issue, you cannot argue with this: Every single one of those dead terrorist SOB’s in Iraq is ONE LESS terrorist SOB that will ever come here and do evil in our yard.
–Serious, major-league, infinity PROPS to President Bush for taking the fight to them… as opposed to the alternative.
…it’s weird being here all alone…
…weird, and yet… very cool!!
Devil Dog,
I have traveled alone in Sumatra, Indonesia, and have crossed the Island North to South, East to West. I have lived with people Muslims, and any time I had to pray, I only prayed with Christian words. I think that the one who is only looking for the differences only find the differences and may suffer of that. When in the contrary you try to look for what you may have in common with the people, you’ll find in them some good that you did not find in you. And if you open your heart, the people open theirs. Sometimes, it is more difficult to see how we are rather than how are the others and it may bring to very hard sufferences, but when you keep faith, you always find your way.
Every religions have their literature of hate but that is not the most important. The most important is how the people are, not how their books have been written long ago. Everyone must be given a chance to become what the modernity is, and the answer is not in the books. The answer is in the way how we are ready to perceive the people.
The problem of Fallujah is what happen on any soccer pool. They are pushed to exult all the violences at once, even those that are not properly justified. They don’t look for having reasons, they look for having means.
You know, when a child is screaming and shouting and start to become really nervous, sometimes you try to voice at him and it does not work. It becomes even worse because the only thing that the child wants is to shout, being right or wrong he does not care. The feeling that he resents don’t have words, or games, or colors, or forms, so to scream is the only proper expression such vomit sometimes is also an expression. Dirt also is an expression, something made to shock at the opposite side of any kind of normality. That is what is happening in Fallujah with the enthusiasm of death that most primitive society have when going at war. They have bloody trances which make them feel that they are invincible. That is the human gene. We cannot really explain it. But with a child the answer would be that to sit the child and ask him to keep quiet until the fury inside him comes finally to instinctive silence and then the dialogue can start with the words to educate the child on a same level of tons and expressions. If you speak nice to the child, after the silence, the only instinct is that to be pleased with the nice way you speak to him and usually, it works because the children like to learn. Every children like to learn.
Bremer has made a big mistake with Sadr and Abizaid has made a big mistake with Fallujah. Both mistakes have cost the life of 60 soldiers, most of them under 25 years old. I don’t think that Islam is only to blame. The problem is a lot more difficult than that. It is really a matter of personality rather than this of religion. When people are block heads at both sides it clashes and the drama is that innocent youth are dieing. If Bush really feels sorry for the life of his soldiers he would fire both Abizaid and Sanchez. They have not the temper for the job. They already have made a lot of mistakes, and the problems is that there are not that much jokers.
amphitryon, why is it that you sometimes have the language skills of an english-speaking eight year old, and other times you sound like a college grad? and often times in the same sentence! you make my head spin.
and i mean that almost completely in a good way.
just to clarify, i understand that english isn’t your first language, it’s just that you don’t have a consistent level of english. sometimes it’s better than the average english-speaker, and sometimes it’s incoherent. do you obfuscate intentionally?
No Spork, I am naturally distorted.
Amphitryon, are you hot?
And excellent posts, Devil Dog.
Hot ?
No.
BTW, if you have not yet seen the sequence I have made with the pictures of one year in Iraq, you can see it here.
Very nice slide show, Amphitryon. Thank you for the link.
Very nice slide show, Amphitryon. Thank you for the link.
You must see this, especially listen what Abizaid says. He is scaring. Head command of the US army in Iraq… ? For a challenge as this one of Iraq, Bush should be better represented if he expects the people to continue to follow him.
Abizaid has waited until there had more than 200 troops killed in Fallujah plus 4 civilians. He has never moved before. A normal officer with normal aptitudes would have reacted when there had only 50 troops dead. Now there are 70 added to the 200 before. This is a real carnage mostly due to the inaptitude of a US officer.
Sanchez is not better. They are a shame to the US.
Amen