Give For--For Give

Today's post is more of a hodge-podge I guess.

Getting ready for our anniversary tomorrow; gearing up for the holiday week ahead; paid $1.85 a gallon at the Safeway gasoline station today (woo-doubleD-hoo) and then there's the international news that caught my eye:

A Vatican newspaper has forgiven the late English singer John Lennon for saying four decades ago that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

In an article praising The Beatles, L'Osservatore Romano said Lennon had just been showing off.

Lennon told a British newspaper in 1966 - at the height of Beatlemania - that he did not know which would die out first, Christianity or rock and roll.

The semi-official Vatican newspaper marked the 40th anniversary of The Beatles' "White Album" with an article praising Lennon and the Fab Four from Liverpool.

The paper dismissed Lennon's much-criticised remark that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ as a youthful joke.

The paper described the remark as "showing off, bragging by a young English working-class musician who had grown up in the age of Elvis Presley and rock and roll and had enjoyed unexpected success".

Frankly, Lennon was right. Whether or not his comment was filled with a youthful braggadocio, The Beatles were commercially more popular at that point in time than the marketable concept of Jesus. But for anyone to say that was heresy--and long-haired, rock n' rolling heresy at that.
I remember as a youth being baffled by the adults' response to this. It made sense then and it makes sense now and..." Jesus is just all right with me"

This news helps me to soften regarding the concept of forgiveness. Perhaps grievances and "sins" really lie in the eye of the beholder. For example, tonight, on our evening walk, Don and I passed by one of our neighbors houses and I was stunned and appalled with what I saw on their driveway. At first glance I thought I must be seeing it incorrectly. A part of me didn't want to look a second time for confirmation of what I did not want to see. What I was seeing were about a half dozen dead ducks draped over a trailer hitch. Instantly, I knew that someone in that family had gone hunting and brought back what they got. My stomach clenched and I felt nauseous and dizzy. My inner dialogue about the horrors of hunting began screaming at me. How could anyone? Why would anyone? We no longer have to kill animals for food so why is this still a desirable sport to kill innocent creatures that cannot fight back or even protest?

Then that other voice in me that I often regard as Scout's father in "To Kill A Mockingbird" (Oh, and the irony of the title at this particular writing juncture does not elude me...) in teaching how to see things from more than one viewpoint. I have friends who hunt and I don't hate them. It is their right to hunt as much as it is my right to choose to not hunt. And since I am no longer a staunch vegan or vegetarian (although that is still a personal, moral issue with which I wrestle more than I am comfortable with) what right do I have to preach "no-kill"? I realize I am much more pro-animal rights than most folk but do I have a right to judge my neighbor for what they do?

Gee, sounds like a sermon opportunity to me....
and pass the tofurkey.