Just Thinking: A Bad Guy's Life is Temporary and Fleeting
February 4, 2015By V. Knowles

An open letter to all hell-raisers, blowhards and everyone who seeks to demean his fellow man.

 

People seem to relish throwing darts and stones at one another. They derive some insane sense of joy putting each other down.

 

I shudder when a frail mortal man under the influence of a mean spirit amuses himself at the expense of another human being. I am struck with a profound sadness when you show how nasty you can be and demonstrate contempt for a creation of God.

 

Ted Nugent, the musical rocker, who is no fan of President Barack Obama, has called him a “sub-human mongrel.”

 

The Boston Globe, which has since apologized, printed a cartoon depicting a white man bathing in a tub in the White House while the President is brushing his teeth with the caption, “have you tried the watermelon-flavored toothpaste?”

 

North Korea last month referred to Mr. Obama as a monkey.

 

Whenever a man sees life slipping out of his control, whenever he sees his influence waning, whenever he sees his cherished beliefs and thoughts threatened, he is going to lash out and kick back. He starts out with words like nigger, spic, kike, shylock and continues on to persecution, oppression, segregation, discrimination and murder. In his twisted mind, there is a plan that life should go a particular way and, if not, like a petulant child he is going to take his marbles out of the game or snatch his ball and bat and go home.

 

So consumed with hatred and anger, instead of elevating his reasoning, he descends into name-calling and worse because people are not following the map or agenda that he has laid out for their lives.

 

He allows his dislike and disdain for something or someone to cause him to descend to unseasonable words and deeds. He acts in ways that do not commend him while sowing his seeds of discord.

 

He makes irrational claims and statements, which at the end of the day do not add one whit to his stature or improve his life. Futhermore, the intended victim of his wrath and bile is not diminished, ignores him and continues on his merry way undeterred without regard for the chagrined perpetrator.

 

 This is folly and madness.

 

This has been a failure and flaw with all men from the beginning of time. He wants to be in charge of everything, manage his own destiny and control everyone around him. He will scream, shout, criticize, bark and strike back, making no difference whatsoever and delaying only the inevitable.

 

 As Gamaliel, the teacher of Paul, warned the Pharisees in those times, “Be careful, lest haply you fight against the living God.”

 

Man is not all powerful, and despite his best efforts, he cannot stop the winds of change because he foolishly continues running into this brick wall of a verse:

 

“And he made from every man, one nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined ALLOTTED PERIODS and the BOUNDARIES of their dwelling place." - Acts 17:26

 

You can fuss and fume and breathe fire and damnation, but there is a limit of time and space to what you can do and will do.

 

His will be done.

You must come to grips and realize your limitations.

 

Nevertheless, to your profound disappointment and regret, you persist like Pharaoh in killing the sons of Israel, thereby resulting in the death of all your first-born of Egypt and you still had to let the people go.

 

In addition, when they departed, you not only lost their free labor. They took most of your wealth with them.

 

Nebuchadnezzar dispatched the three Hebrew boys into the seven-times-hotter-than-it ought-to-be, fiery furnace, to no avail. He boasted before the act, “Who is that God that will deliver you out of my hands?” At the end of the day, seeing his will thwarted, he had to humbly declare that there is no God like the God of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and Daniel.

 

And what of the men who plagued others?

 

Herod killed all the male children two years and younger.  Yet, he could not extinguish the light of the world. Alexander the Great wept that he had no more worlds to conquer, but death claimed him at 32. Adolph Hitler, with his final solution unfulfilled and unaccomplished, committed suicide in 1945 in a bunker in Berlin. George Wallace, standing defiantly in the front door of the University of Alabama, shouted, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.”  During his last days, the victim of a failed assassination attempt, he was crippled, confined to a wheelchair, and disavowed his former stance.

 

Even our dear Paul the Apostle found it hard to “kick against the pricks” and had to turn around and rebuild everything he had torn down in his dark past. Moreover, he had to do it always under the shadow of death while enduring untold suffering.

 

So to Mr. Nugent, I caution you. You can rant and rave but, in the final analysis, your actions will not make one bit of difference.

 

You will discover like all the others before who thought they could interrupt the flow of life who sincerely believed that the world needed their knowledge, wisdom and presence. They all should have,

 

                                           “Take a bucket and fill it with water,

                                            Put your hand in it up to the wrist,

                                            Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining

                                           Is a measure of how you will be missed.

                                          You can splash all you wish when you enter,

                                         You may store up the water galore,

                                          but stop and you’ll find in no time

                                        It looks quite the same as before.”

                                                                                        (Excerpted from the poem,  “The indispensable man”)

 

Whatever joy you derive from your perverse sense of humor, it will be temporary, brief and fleeting.

 

V. Knowles is a husband and father with an interest in penning issues that serve to uplift mankind. He melds his love for Classic literature, The Bible and pop culture - as sordid as it may be - into highly relatable columns of truth, faith and justice. Hence the name: Just Thinking. If he's not buried in a book or penning his next column, you may find him pinned to his sectional watching a good old Country and Western flick.

 

                                    


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