As I watched rescue workers sifting through giant heaps of rubble searching for victims in the Oklahoma City bombing, an equally disturbing collection of confusing images accumulated in my mind as I listened and read.
I thought at the time, "it could well be that contractors and officials will bring order back to the infrastructure of downtown Oklahoma City long before anything much is sorted out in our jumbled minds." Twenty years later, it's still not sorted our in our minds.
Most of us were shocked, not just by the bomb blast, but by the words of militiamen. When John Harrell, founder of an Oklahoma group, said, "We actually fear the government more than the drug cartels and the Mafia," we were all stunned to speechlessness.
We heard from people who refuse to pay taxes, wouldn't sign driver's licenses, or obey the hunting laws. We listened to people who could actually understand people who would shoot a government official in the process of delivering a warrant; in fact, one radio talk show host described how to do it.
We even heard a militia leader speaking to a group, saying that while he didn't support the bombing, the construction of the bomb was a "Rembrandt," as he put it. Militiaman Mark Koernke went so far as to suggest that the United States government itself blew up the Oklahoma City Federal building.
The Constitution and the "right to bear arms" seemed to be a central issue with the militiamen. While few of us are constitutional lawyers, most of us always assumed there would be some kind of a cut-off point. Would it be OK, for example, to collect up a squadron of helicopter gun-ships?
Actually, my fifth grade teacher explained the whole thing with one line: "Your right to swing your arms wildly stops where my nose begins." For most of us, the Constitution of the United States is not stagnant but living. Two hundred years ago it existed more as a "word to live up to," rather than a reality.
Let's face it, Thomas Jefferson himself owned 240 slaves. When my mother was born, she was born into a country where women did not yet have the right to vote. No, I must disagree with the militiamen; more people have more rights today than they did 200 years ago. I am concerned, though, about my right to freely travel from ocean to ocean, or to downtown Oklahoma City in safety. No, it's not the government that is taking away our rights.
I listened to Leslie Stahl interview a leader of Michigan militia who was also a preacher. He talked about arming ourselves against the federal government, which he suggested is likely to dig large trenches, mow us down with assault weapons, and bury us. He didn't sound like Jesus to me.
By way of contrast, I listened to a mother who had lost her child in the bombing. As she cried, she told the reporter, and the whole world, "I only pray that God will protect me from hatred; I don't want to hate."
On that very first day of her tragic loss she spoke words more powerful than any words the Michigan militia preacher had ever spoken. She was a woman of courage speaking words that could heal.
Over the years she helped me sort things out; "God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). She sounded a lot like Jesus to me; she was heartbroken, not afraid.