An Old Show

There was a television show on long ago called "One Step Beyond". The show was sort of like "Unsolved Mysteries", it was about things that were documentable; but, made no sense. I offer you one of the shows. It begins at 1:17:00 or show on the linked video. It takes about 25 minutes to watch.

World War I was a horrifying war and this video is about a strange event that occurred during the war. It is not the only one, another occurred at Christmas when the war was stopped in a place for a time with no authority.

I have sympathy for anyone who has ever killed for whatever reason. It is a burden that has a price tag within eternity. The hardest thing in this world is to forgive ourselves. Forgiving others is easier than forgiving ourselves. To forgive others is to the see that everyone is imperfect. To forgive ourselves requires that we see that what we did was evil, that we knowingly did wrong. To forgive ourselves when there is no room for justification, when we know the truth is painful.

There is something worse than anger, there is apathy. There is something worse than revenge, there is righteousness. I do not mean worse in wrong, I mean worse in painful, just and effective. Heartless; but, full of justification. The point in time when morality is a rule to be used for revenge rather than morality being the shape of our heart which takes into consideration our human frailty. I was a very bad man. When I was young, I was apathetic and self-righteous. If people think I am scary now, they have no idea what I was capable of. Heck, people cannot understand me now.

People look at me one way when I paying to feed the poor. People look at me one way when I am preaching. People look at me one way when I am doing my job and one way when I resting and reading and writing for my lovely readers. I am who I am and I am not who I was and God blessed me by keeping hands free of blood.

I grew up at a time when cowards avoided military service and my intent was to join. I was ROTC while the Vietnam war was still going on, it ended before I graduated. I was never involved in the draft, my intent was to join. I wanted to be a pilot, I wanted to kill other pilots. I wasn't interested in dropping bombs. I was interested in air to air combat. The military wished to put me in intelligence or law. I would have ended up in intelligence, they had sought me for a decade the little ....... Most analysts read a lot, they have a subject or country or whatever and are supposed to know everything about it and write papers about it, it is all very boring.

There is a different type of analyst, he reads all the other summaries. That is the one to watch for, he is the planner. Do not trust a planner especially not a contingency planner. They are heartless, they are apathetic and amoral, just like I was.

I will tell the truth (I have nothing else to offer), I changed because I felt tenderness. I did not know that one could be tender. I thought the world had to learn "no". People I know read this; but, I shall tell the truth. I had five gang members confront me when I was younger and still of a mindset. I determined the best way to deal with the situation was to rip the eyes out of the one closest to me. I had hopes for dealing with the rest; but, it is irrelevant to the issue. The issue is not that I would have defended myself in a harsh way, the issue is that I would not have cared at all what happened to them.

To tell the truth, the day I stood 5 men down was something that only made me see what I was capable of. Today I look at such thoughts with shame. I am not ashamed that I would have protected others or my country, I am ashamed that the damage I caused would have meant nothing to me because I would have justified it and felt nothing, not remorse, nothing. I allowed righteousness (even though an agnostic) to outweigh my love. Love may have to harm (slapping a babies hand for going near fire); but, it should always care. I felt that from one.

In everyone's life there is someone who cares. I was able to be that for a psychic vampire, nobody else cared; but, he knows I do. One person cared for me and it changed my world, I had to think about people. The Lord God was kind enough to give me a chance to never explore that part of me, he always gave me a second chance and I always chose to to try and be better. God does not direct us, he restrains us so that we can grow and learn and love.

What I have discussed is what the video is about. Click the link and move the cursor forward to 1:17:00 into the video and watch it for 25 minutes or so. During World War I, over a thousand soldiers throughout Europe saw a vision and for one moment they just refused to kill each other.

Today is the 4th of July. It is Independence day. It is a day when we celebrate killing lots of Englishmen so that we didn't have to pay a tax on tea. We have such fine justifications for killing people; but, would we say taxing us one cent for tea was worthy of killing others for? If I don't piss off someone with this post then I suck as a writer.

We started a war over a tax on tea and we all drink is coffee now. Don't you find that funny? I don't know how man people died in the Revolutionary war over a tax on tea, it was too many, I can tell you that and I hate kings and queens. Canada paid the same tax and they didn't have to kill lots of people to be a pretty good country. I cannot tell a Canadian from an American. So who benefited, are you better off than the average Canadian? I cannot celebrate killing anyone for any reason anymore. Peace and here is the link.

YouTube - The Best of One Step Beyond Over 4 Hours of PD TV (NOT owned by APM Music and AdRev) Again, move the little slide bar to 1:17:00 and then wait for 25 minutes, it is an amazing story that you might not know; but, it is true.