consequences of our choices (2014)

The Wrong we have Done, Thought, or Intended, will wreak its Vengeance on
Our SOULS.”
C.G Jung

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest.
That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are
of such infinite importance.
The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which,
a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you
never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger
today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which
the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”
C.S. Lewis,

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
Nelson Mandela

(one of my peaches / Julie Cook / 2014)

The third law of physics, as stated by Sir Isaac Newton,
proclaims that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
I would say that this “law” is not only true for the physical actions in our lives,
but is equally true when it comes to our “mental actions”
better known as the choices we make in our lives—
For every choice made, there is a resulting consequence–be it good or bad.

Some of our choices not only bring ill effects to ourselves
but may have sweeping negative ramifications for others.
Therefore one may, in turn, conclude that our choices are accompanied
by grave responsibility.
Yet who really ponders the decision to change a lane while driving
as having potential grave consequence?
Who really ponders the decision of taking a flight for a business trip
as having possible lasting effects for our loved ones…
as our plane is blown from the sky?

I would imagine President Harry Truman understood the concept of
choices and consequences as he kept a small plaque on his desk
“The Buck Stops Here.”
Meaning the ultimate end of all decisions and choices regarding
the best interest of all the American people and that of those in
the free world, rested with him. It was ultimately President Truman’s
decision to go with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
A choice to bomb or not to bomb—either way would have had consequences—
consequences effecting millions which would (and still) continue
reverberating far into our future.

Let’s look at this concept of choices and consequences within
the frame of a little scenario—

A man walks into a convenient store with a loaded gun pointed at the head
of the cashier, demanding all the money in the register.
Suddenly, for whatever reason, the robber chooses to pull the trigger.

Lives are immediately changed forever.

For the sake of our little story let’s say the cashier is killed.
The robber, now turned murderous gunman, runs.

In that single selfish instant, the cashier’s family is changed forever.
The gunman, let’s say, is eventually apprehended.

His family is forever changed.

There is lengthy legal haggling.
In and out before a judge and the Courts.

Suddenly a bunch of other people are now consumed with the
gunman’s selfish choice.
Years pass before there is a trial.
Now all of us as taxpayers are responsible for the
gunman’s upkeep.
More lives are effected.
Eventually the gunman is found guilty and is sentenced to death.

There are appeals.

Years continue to pass as he lives in prison on Death Row,
paid by taxpayers.
As other lives continue to be consumed with his own.
At some point, he turns to God.
He asks for forgiveness.
He is indeed forgiven.

God says to our gunman, “I forgive you and I love you,
but your actions have consequence in the life of your world as well
as in My World.
As I have forgiven you, you will now be welcomed Home,
but you must answer for your poor choices there in your world and
undergo the punishment given.
You must know that you will be with Me in and for Eternity
but you will have to first undergo the consequences of your actions.”

Depending on the courts, the state of the crime, and the lengthy appeals,
there will either be a sentence of death or life in prison.
Either way, the gunman clings to God’s Grace—
he accepts his earthly fate as a result of his initial choice of
walking in the convenient store, all those many years prior with
a gun in his hand, yet now instead of hate, greed, malice,
there is a Peace in his being as He knows he is now forever God’s child come home.
And there is a resolved acceptance to the punishment of his crime
as our gunman now knows that his punishment will not be a permanent ending.

Let’s say for the sake of our little scenario that our gunman
does not find God and does not seek forgiveness.
He chooses to live bitterly stewing over the one hiccup in his plan,
that he was caught.
If he had to do it over again, he’d make certain he was never caught.
There is no remorse—
just a seething internal hate and disdain for all creation.

Depending on your belief system, be that in a Heaven or Hell,
in a God of Grace and Justice or if you prefer to believe
in nothing at all–
either way, our gunman’s lack of remorse and choice of a selfish act
now sends him either to eternal damnation or into oblivion.
End of story.
And isn’t that all quite empty and sad?

It is obviously not always for us to see justice.
Which can be terribly frustrating as well as painfully maddening.
Imagine the hearts of the parents of children who’s young lives have
been savagely taken from their parents arms by malice or illness…
which must lead us all eventually to the Cross for some semblance
of direction—but that is for another post.
However, the one thing we must take from this little story of ours
is that we are to be mindful of our own choices.

For the one thing we can and do have some manner of control over
is indeed our choices.

And granted not all of our choices are going to be as drastic or extreme
as an armed gunman’s…as that is but a mere example.
But it is an example which sums up the ripple effect of poor and
selfish choices.
The tentacles stretch outward casting a wide net that often stretches out
through the ages.
One’s negative choices can effect children, grandchildren–
oftentimes altering the entire dynamics of a family for generations.

Many of us today continue to pick up the pieces of our parent’s
or grandparent’s poor choices which have impacted our own lives
in ways that leave us bitter and resentful.

May we then be the cycle breakers.
May we be blessed with the vision to see the unhealthy and negative web
which may be consuming our lives.
May we rest in the knowledge that the cycle can be broken,
which is after all, a mere matter of a choice.

You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth,
And called from its remotest parts And said to you,
‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you.
Isaiah 41:9

culpability

“Alas, human vices, however horrible one might imagine them to be,
contain the proof (were it only in their infinite expansion) of man’s longing for the infinite;
but it is a longing that often takes the wrong route.
It is my belief that the reason behind all culpable excesses lies in this
depravation of the sense of the infinite.”
Charles Baudelaire

(Truman Library)

Any one of a certain age is no doubt familiar with the images of President Harry Truman and of his famous sign, kept on his desk in his office, within the Oval Office.

The Buck Stops Here

President Truman came into office wearing a very heavy mantle weighted down by grave responsibility.

The Nation was wading through the throws of WWII, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest serving US president, had died suddenly in office, resulting in Harry Truman, who was the current vice president, being sworn into the highest office in the land.

It was Harry Truman who had the final word in the decision to bomb Japan…
A decision which decisively ended the war…
Yet it was to be a haunting decision laced with grave and costly repercussions for generations to come…

However it is not to nuclear weaponry or WWII that I wish to cast today’s thoughts but rather to that solitary desk plaque.

The Buck Stops Here.

We all know what it means.
We all expect our leaders, as well as anyone charged with the responsibility of overseeing others, to know what it means.

On more than one occasion President Truman referred to the desk sign in public statements. For example, in an address at the National War College on December 19, 1952 Mr. Truman said, “You know, it’s easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you — and on my desk I have a motto which says The Buck Stops Here’ — the decision has to be made.”
In his farewell address to the American people given in January 1953, President Truman referred to this concept very specifically in asserting that,
“The President–whoever he is–has to decide.
He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him.
That’s his job.”
(Excerpt taken from the Truman Library)

Meaning that a leader, a person in charge of other people, a person who is to cast definitive decisions and choices which effect others is to be the last and final word…
and that in turn, he or she must live with that final word…as in own that final word.

People who where the buck stops can either be lauded for their decisions or held culpable when those decisions run amuck.

Wikipedia states that the word Culpability means…

A person is culpable if they cause a negative event and
(1) the act was intentional;
(2) the act and its consequences could have been controlled (i.e., the agent knew the likely consequences, the agent was not coerced, and the agent overcame hurdles to make the event happen); and
(3) the person provided no excuse or justification for the actions.[1]

Culpability descends from the Latin concept of fault (culpa). The concept of culpability is intimately tied up with notions of agency, freedom, and free will. All are commonly held to be necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for culpability.

Today’s news has been rife with the latest findings from the various “powers that be” committees, those of men and women tasked with the Congressional reports, which are being issued regarding the Benghazi Embassy attack.

In that fateful 2012 attack, in which four Americans–the US Ambassador, an informations officer and two CIA operatives, were maliciously and brutally killed, the Obama Administration has been found guilty of being “lax” in providing the necessary security for the Embassy. The Administration was also cited for being slow to send in military response to defend the deadly attack.
An attack which Americans were helpless to prevent and stave off.

Culpability….

The deaths of these four Americans were brutal to say the least.
When the Embassy was overtaken, Ambassador Stevens was seized by the militants and was sexually assaulted, his body mutilated, cattle prodded and burned before being paraded through the streets where he was left for dead.

In announcing the conclusion of the committee’s investigation, chairman Trey Gowdy, a Republican from South Carolina, said: “Nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost eight hours after the attacks began.”
US help was too slow because of “an obsession with hurting the Libyans’ feelings,” he said.
(BBC)

Americans were brutally tortured and murdered…their bodies were savagely desecrated because…
an Administration didn’t want to hurt feelings….

Culpability.

Secretary of State Clinton has been cleared in the latest report of any wrong doing although the administration of which she was a pivotal member has been found to be negligent concerning the attack and subsequent deaths of these four Americans by its overtly slow response to the intel concerning the growing animosity toward the Americans in Libya at that time, especially regarding Benghazi’s unrest…in particular, that of the Embassy, as well as being too slow to send in military reinforcements once the attack was under way.

This is a story that has left me deeply troubled since first being reported.
However my troubled mind and heart pales in comparison to that of the families of these victims….
The wives, the children, the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters….

And now that time has passed, and millions of dollars have been spent “investigating,” while leaders and people who, where the buck should have stopped, have instead gone on with their lives, their campaigns, their jobs, trying to forget…seemingly trying to ignore this awful attack that was and remains so bad and so heinous…pretending that it never took place… we’re all left wondering….

Maybe President Truman’s sign needs to be returned to the Oval Office….