Now that I’m slightly more rested…

One thing for which I’m grateful is that I have friends who help me keep perspective. Last night, I saw all the rejoicing and everything in New York and elsewhere and all I could feel was “ummm… someone just died.” I’m not in any way begrudging New Yorkers their right to rejoice and be happy because the 9/11 were a horrific event in their city from which many still bear physical, mental, and emotional scars. However, OBL was a human being, someone’s child, and someone’s friend — I cannot divorce those aspects of his life from the embodiment of evil that he became.

A passage that people shared today:

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? — Ezekiel 18:23

I read a piece about the response to his death in Saudi Arabia. One person who knew him and fought alongside him in Afghanistan against the Soviets talked about his sadness at losing his friend and also sadness at the person he became. (I’m trying to find the link and am failing.)

One thing that has been particularly interesting to me today is that they made the decision to bury him at sea so that they could be in accordance with the Islamic custom of burial within 24 hours. (CNN.Com has a pretty decent collection of opinions on this.) There were several reasons for this:

1.) No country wanted him. I don’t know if this was one of those things where they asked around ahead of time as a contingency plan but they didn’t have a spot on land to put him at the time he was killed. Usually, the rule is that you’re buried with your head facing Mecca.

2.) There was the risk of his grave being desecrated. This guy was responsible for the deaths of THOUSANDS of people and it’s fair to assert that there would have been someone who would have done something to his grave or his body if he had been buried on land. Even if the U.S. had buried him secretly in an out-of-the-way place, someone would eventually find him.

3.) There was the risk of his grave being made into a martyr’s shrine. Even though he had lost a great deal of popularity in the Muslim world, there are still the diehard followers who view his death as a martyrdom rather than an assassination. The last thing we (or Pakistan or Afghanistan or any country) need is for his grave to become a rallying place.

The way they actually carried out the burial was also very carefully done. His body was washed, wrapped in a white sheet, remarks were read in Arabic, and he was gently tipped off a board into the water. That it was done on a ship was also very intentional — there had been false reports that he was tossed out of a helicopter which would have been a disrespectful way to do it. I’m thankful that our government and its armed forces *DID* make the effort to give him a respectful burial for no other reason than it shows that he did deserve to be treated with dignity in the end.