The Monday morning after: What would Jackie Robinson do?

By Curtis Dahlgren

"Massacre in Las Vegas" – news item

WILL NFL PLAYERS SIT NOW? For Monday night football? Thursday? Next weekend? You think you have problems? What good has your "sitting" for the anthem done for the victims of the Vegas shooting? For Puerto Rico? For other hurricane victims? For black-on-black killings? For "inequality"? So many questions, so little time.

Think: why a country music concert? Was the shooter just another hater of Trump voters? [Or just demon-influenced to do his deviltry?] On Meet the Press Sunday I heard a lot of snark from several "pundits" without any fairness or balance. The media are encouraging the bad news, not just reporting it. We ought to be protesting this: media bias. If every NFL player doesn't stand for the anthem this week, something's rotten in Denmark, to coin a phrase.

WWJRD? Jackie Robinson stood for the national anthem. And no one up to that era had more to be "bitter" about. Without Jackie's serene reaction to "bullying," Dr. King's peaceful victories would have been nearly impossible, or delayed.

Let's talk about "motives." Are NFL players protesting the men in blue. Human beings in blue? And I don't mean umpires or officials. Do they hate America because humans aren't perfect? Have they been stopped by police for driving fancy cars while black. Big deal. You don't have to be black. I was once put in hand cuffs because I had forgotten my driver's license at home. The officer said he could have legally taken me straight to jail for not having my "papers." And he said he would shoot my dog if it got out of the car. But I don't wish any harm on police officers. Not even that one.

They have to deal with the scum of the earth every day, especially in the Big City. Milwaukee didn't just lose out on the MLB playoffs last week. It is the eighth most dangerous city in America, and there were two shootings on the freeway last week. This isn't road rage; this is insanity. And the inmates are running the asylum (the courts and "supervised probation).

TOO MUCH "TOLERANCE." In machining, a tolerance is an error from specifications. Etymologically, "tolerance" is literally putting up with something. Like your brother-in-law, or poisonous snakes in the wild. America was once a wild place and is becoming a wild place again. Things are coming to a head like a boil.

If your anger is boiling over with bitterness, think about the victims of hurricane Maria. Think about the victims of Las Vegas. It's a bitter-sweet Monday. I attended a beautiful wedding on Sunday and heard some great country music. This morning I saw a clover blossom and looked for the sweet stuff. It wasn't ripe, but I saw two other blossoms that had the sweet stuff to chew on.

Let's pray that from now on people will change their attitudes so the good news can out-number the bad news 2 to 1.

P.S. I wrote out this rough draft in a few minutes exactly as I typed it here. Thank God for America. THANK GOD FOR GOD.

PPS: Ironically, the day before the shooting – the Day of Atonement – I gave the following benediction:

"Father, Abba Father who art in heaven, as we leave this service, may your Holy Spirit's angel wings be over us to protect us; under us to lift us up out of the dirt; behind us to give us a little shove; before us to show us the way; beside us to keep us from falling; and within us so that we might have Your Mind in us!"

Armored vests can't save you. It's time to put on the armor of God.

© Curtis Dahlgren