God Rules OK
Obviously, I'm glad he turned out to be something other than an Arab terrorist, but the Boca Raton guy who chose to spend his New Year's Day flying around in a little plane sky-writing "God is Great" and other such messages still seems to be a few beads short of a rosary.
"You can't imagine what it's like, when you're feeling low, wondering if God is listening to your prayers," he said. "And then you walk out of your house and up above in big letters right over you, there's 'God loves you.'"
Yes I can. It's like a variety of nausea, the kind you get when television personalities tell each other "I need a hug."
"God loves you" is simply cloying, but "God is Great" is, in fact, fairly worrying under the circumstances. I assume this guy just meant that God is "great" as in "whoa, you know what dude? God is really, like, totally *great*."
Good point, Cardinal Newman.
But that specific phrase is not normally used in Christian contexts. We all know the context it is normally used in. Could it really be that this guy had never heard of those Daschle/Brokaw letters or seen the bin Laden videos? Does he not realize that this phrase is the cry of the suicide bomber? It doesn't seem credible.
That said, I don't think I'd be alarmed enough to "panic," like some B. R. residents-- but you can't blame 'em for being a bit jumpy. The evil Islamist mastermind who chooses to expend his terrorism capital on sky-writing sounds like something out of the Simpsons, but absurdity abounds among these people.
Posted by Dr. Frank at January 2, 2002 04:55 AM | TrackBack