The Death of Osama Bin Laden

“Repay them according to their work,
and according to the evil of their deeds; repay them according to the work of their hands; render them their due reward (Psalm 28:4).”

and

“But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (Luke 6:35-36).”

I do have a joyful relief that a man who has planned, celebrated, and who was directly involved in the murder of almost three thousand of our citizens; Jews, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Agnostics, and anyone else; will no longer be a progenitor of evil. He had also been directly involved in the murders of hundreds upon hundreds of people before 9/11. The feelings that people are feeling about the event is more than simply the banal exclamation of knowing an enemy has been killed or beaten. However, am I happy? No. I am relieved and I think that most of the country is too. As a nation we are feeling a cathartic mixture of joy, relief, sadness, regret, anger, etc. the entire palette of human emotion-and wondering how guilty or ashamed we should feel for feeling such. The feelings are so visceral that it will take time for us as a nation and as individuals to sort out and reflect upon why we feel what we feel.

I would have been just as satisfied had he been arrested just as long as his capacity for evil was removed. However, I cannot shed a tear for this man. I am to forgive my enemy for what my enemy has done to me but I cannot forgive an enemy for what they have done to others. To forgive someone for what they have done to others may be convenient or even beneficial to me especially if such a one has a hold on my emotional landscape or upon my spiritual well-being but such may be more about comforting and serving ourselves. Of course, re-orienting ourselves towards peace is always a good but it must always be an orienting that does not confuse peaceful sentiment with being principled in the midst of violence or allow an orientation that allows others to be maimed and killed to the benefit of our own self-image and piety.Can I forgive Hitler for the mass extermination of Jews, Romani, homosexuals, and the mentally challenged? I can only forgive him for the effects those acts have had upon me personally. I can only work toward a world where such cannot happen to my neighbors during my lifetime.

This man found a home in the Sudan and with his millions supported Arab Islamic aggression and horrendous violence against the African Christians in the South. Here in the Diocese of Central New York we know their stories because they worship in my parish and in others throughout the diocese. Then he went to Afghanistan and funded the Taliban there and around the world so that in addition to the murders of over 3000 men, women, and children in New York City he also created a theocracy that allowed women and children to starve to death and brutalized and executed women for not following the Taliban’s moral codes. This man funded a regime that would take unarmed women into the soccer stadium of Kabul and in a carnival-like atmosphere shoot them through the head with automatic weapons. I mourn that we live in such a world where such things happen and I mourn that we live in a world that this man believed that he was following God’s will. I mourn that the Navy SEAL operators had to kill him. I pray for Jesus to come back. I pray that in the end that all will be as God wants it to be but I cannot shed a tear for this man. I don’t have it in me to do such. Maybe a better man would but I can’t. I can only shed a tear for the man he never became-The Reverend Adrian A. Amaya.