My Lonely City

You know how you have random thoughts, disconnected from pretty much everything, and then one thing leads to another and the next thing you know you’re thinking about being executed by beheading?

No?

Well, anyway, I was thinking about immigration. (I can see you scowling already; calm down.) And about how trying to keep the other kids from playing with our toys may not be the best solution. Maybe we should forget about citizenship and just have … being-here-ships. Where, you know, where you are determines how you’re expected to behave. And when you’re here, no matter who or where you were before, you play nice. And if you don’t, no matter who you are, we’ll shoot ya. (DISCLAIMER This post does not express my views on capital punishment.)

And then I was thinking about (it’s early, give me a break) the environmental impact of shooting as a form of execution. The one in the head method, versus the firing squad method. It doesn’t seem to me that guns produce a lot of litter (unless you count wrongful deaths, but even for someone who believes in an afterlife, bodies aren’t just waste). But there are of course the bullets. And whatever materials are wasted and pollution is produced in making them, not to mention the guns that shoot them. And so I was wondering about recycleable (does that have an ‘e’ in it?) execution methods, and I relized that the French were the greenest when they did away with folk on their guillotine. (I saw a wrestling commercial when Jared & I went to dinner the other night, and it had a guillotine in it; maybe that’s where this came from.) And then, as my mind does, I saw myself into the situation, wrongfully accused or perhaps being persecuted for religious reasons, led quite literally to the slaughter. Ack.

And on that happy note I was wondering what I would say if I were given the chance, knowing that it was my last opportunity to say anything. So here, for your reading pleasure, are my last words:

To God be the glory for ever. And to his son, Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save and change it, and who reigns on high as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And to his Spirit, whose divine presence gives us the assurance of our hope, that the God of love and grace, the God of wrath and mercy, the God of holiness and power will recieve us as his own, and grant us eternal life. To this God, whose grace is sufficient for our insufficiencies, whose perfect love is enough to drive out our fear, and whose might is great enough to save, be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.