Ever since Cain killed Abel, we’ve not been able to shake this tragic trait from human experience: Men killing men.
Sometimes the killing happens between two men. One walks out while the other never sees the light of day again.
Other times, the killing is in organized battalions. We have graveyards where brave soldiers are laid to eternal rest and memorialized with in a gravestone identity. At Gettysburg, President Lincoln lauded the fallen soldiers who had given their “last full measure of devotion” for the cause of freedom.
In war—especially in modern, mechanized warfare, the Tragedy is most often a friggin’ mess. In Edward Dvorak’s book, Elite Bastards, the Combat Missioms of Company F LRP Teams in Vietnam, Ed describes the battleground tragedy that took the life of his platoon buddy Dickie Gross:
“ The willie peter (grenade) had hit him square hit him square in the face and his face looked like someone had taken a torch and melted it! Where his eyes, nose and mouth should have been were nothing but holes partially covered by burned and melted skin.”
It sho’nuff ain’t pretty when men blast the life breath out of other men.
But it has been going on for a long time, since Cain killed Abel.
Other times, the killling is just random, as when some rabid murderer decides to open up with his lethal tool, for no good reason, as happened at Sandy Hook, or Joliet, or Austin, or Lewiston, or Philadelphia, or Allen, Henryetta, Nashville, Half Moon Bay, Monterey, Enoch, or Chesapeake, Colorado Springs, Charlottesville, Raleigh, Uvalde, Buffalo, San Jose, Indianapolis, Boulder, Atlanta, Muskogee, Chicago, El Paso, Virginia Beach, or Parkland Florida.
In 2017, I wrote and published a novel, King of Soul, about what happened to our nation during the war in Vietnam. The story I tell is concluded when the main character, Donnie, and his friend take a road trip in early May of 1970. While night-driving through Ohio, approaching their destination of Kent, the car radio in the lamenting voice of Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues when radio airwaves bring in the wafts in the musical lament of Moody Blues’ , Ray Thomas, singing:
“When all the stars are falling down
into the sea and on the ground
and angry voices carry on the wind. . .”
Hear the lamenting voice of Ray Thomas as he sings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0SFTA24M-M
The next day, when they reach Kent, what they find is: (Jeff)
In ancient times, there was one man whose death came when he was nailed to a cross. But He survived death three days later, by Resurrection.
My personal victory over death will come when He retrieves me from that that death event. Perhaps you’ll join us in that victory. See your local Bible for the key to that victory of Soul over Tragedy.
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