David McElroy

Someone I know has been preparing for a series of presentations to church congregations over the next few months, so this week we’re taking a look at the lighter side of church life, from varying points of view. This first one amused me mainly because I’ve been helping to work on a church organization’s website lately. I’ll have to make sure they don’t plan to sprinkle the computer when we’re finished.

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Bessie isn’t dead, but I think she came pretty close to dying in the last few days — right under my nose. Actually, right under my bed.

The sad and confused cat you see on the right isn’t some stray I just found. She’s one of my own cats. Here’s what she normally looks like. Thursday evening, she looked nothing like the beautiful young cat she is. She seemed like a dehydrated and emaciated little girl who was dying.

As many of you know, I’m a sucker for homeless animals, so I have a houseful of “fur people.” (I have another purring cat in my lap as I write this.) So there are enough of them running around as though they own the place — which they do — that I sometimes don’t pay attention if I haven’t noticed one of them for a couple of days.

Bessie was one of a couple of sisters who I took in about four years ago. Neither ended up being adoptable, so I kept them. (Here’s Bessie’s story from last year, and here’s the story of her sister, Molly.) They were feral, and they still have a lot of fear in them. They rarely even let me touch them, which is why it didn’t seem odd when I didn’t see Bessie for a couple of days.

I had realized vaguely that I hadn’t seen her for days, but I didn’t worry about it. By Wednesday night, I was concerned enough to at least search for her. When I saw her looking back at me from under the bed, though, I wasn’t concerned. I figured she was just hiding again.

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The United States is the only country in world history (so far) to use nuclear weapons. In bombing two Japanese cities, the U.S. government killed close to a quarter of a million people — the vast majority of them innocent civilians. At the time, almost all Americans were thrilled at the slaughter and heartily approved. Today, a lot of us believe that what happened was unjustified murder of innocents. Which view is best?

When I was growing up, I believed the atomic bombings were justified. I know all the standard arguments in favor of them, because I used to agree with them completely. (Here’s a sampling of arguments on both sides of the issue.) I came to see the bombings in a very different way, though, as I started questioning the legitimacy of coercive governments.

Before I started seeing the world in a different way, I saw every person living in a land as part of the organism of a nation-state, so they were collectively guilty for their government’s actions. Now, I see those people as individuals, most of whom couldn’t change “their” government’s actions if they wanted to. (And I realize now that many of them would have wanted to.)

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