Reading God's Mind

Reading God's mind is not only impossible to do, but irrelevant. God gave us each a mind: to think with, to change when new information makes that appropriate or even necessary, to instruct us to do the right thing. (I want to place heart in the background here; because weeping doesn't change the world, it just makes us feel righteous.) Sometimes, when a choice is complicated by national need or interests, we nonetheless have to be willing to respond appropriately to a moral imperative our MIND recognizes. Of COURSE responding appropriately can be scary--and leaders are not immune to being frightened about taking action: every important action is bound to have difficult consequences not only the desired one. Hell, we live in a time when fearful situation follows fearful situation like night follows day--every day. But isn't that a terrific cliche about courage: that courage is fear which has said its prayers? Earlier today, I made a joke on my Facebook page about President Obama being color blind. I was not referring to race. I was referring to the "red line" Syria passed when it began gassing opponents to his regime. Can we really not yet be sure? The effects are visible: rows of dead babies, are not likely to be "playing dead." And a leader--our leader--should not draw red lines unless he is prepared to follow through if the one he drew is crossed. There comes a time when a moral imperative overtakes political pros and cons. That time has come. One benefit of being a dictator is that you never have to torture or kill people yourself: you have plenty of underlings, eager or not, to do that for you. One concurrent deficit is that the dictator does not notice that, somehow, the blood of dead innocents is on his hands anyway. I recall being struck by the fact that, when Assad got serious about killing-to-ensure-progress, he attacked his wife's birthplace. Didn't we all think he wouldn't do that? This man has no intention of stopping until his opponents are all dead. And if some babies get killed, well, that's...what? Life? Mr. President, go back home. Perhaps get on your knees for a while. When you know what to do, get up and do it. If time on your knees isn't enough, try channeling Harry Truman.