With Limestone County December temperatures in the 70s at the beginning of the month, even with recent colder weather it is hard to imagine what life is like when you can’t help but freeze. We Owls even find it hard to watch over people’s shoulders when it is really cold, as they close the windows! But with our warm weather here, we watch televised news stories from freezing lands. Russia commits targeted atrocities when they bombard Ukrainian utilities. Missile shrapnel pierces flesh and bursts apart power stations. This forces desperate staff in hospitals to try to operate without electricity. Ukrainian schools are closed. Devastated houses filled with mothers, little kids, and the elderly freeze. When water ceases flowing, because city pumps are shot to pieces, every toilet becomes a health hazard after half a day. This provides a cynical laugh for the Russian bombardiers who force Ukrainians to flee or fight desperately to reconnect power lines. A power outage here where we live causes panic if it lasts only a couple hours. Imagine months without electricity, or none at all.

Some local American terrorists decided to try this stunt. They secretly shot out the utilities in Moore County, North Carolina. Know what? This Owl could care less what the shooters’ causes might be. We’re supposed to be a land where the rule of law alone is king. Sometimes the law does not reflect what you want, sport. Sometimes your candidate doesn’t win. You’d think any school age kid would know that’s how a democratic republic works. Junior in school knows this because he might have stumbled into a civics class where they learned about such things. We were the envy of the world because we always followed the law and didn’t turn violent over lost elections. Now, it seems, we secretly decide that whatever makes me mad means I need to pull out a weapon to get my way. Like a petulant, spoiled kid. Seems we have made ourselves our own, private gods. I will harm the innocent because I want what I want, not what society has decided. I hope they catch the shooters, the criminals.

We see hostage-taking today, when the Russians charge an American with violating their drug laws with cannabis oil. That got her nine years in a penal colony that is essentially a slave camp. Putin’s boys thought they could show their power over the hated West by trading this hostage for their criminal who sold weapons to al Qaeda and the Taliban. Power plays like this come with their own lies, like this one: Russians claim that the arms dealer was really only a businessman showing up the West on behalf of Russian sovereignty. Of course, the merchant of death was just another millionaire crony of the gang that runs Russia, selling lies as their primary product.

Power is the highest item grasped, once you have everything else you can even imagine. Palaces, yachts, stunningly beautiful wives, and vast food and beverage cornucopias characterize the incredibly wealthy. There’s no appeal to them if they believe they got where they are, not because of others, but rather because they are special. They consider themselves to be like gods. And gods must have power.

What does a god care if creatures suffer, so long as the god gets what he wants? Who cares if my artillery shells blow apart child care centers, schoolchildren, babies in hospitals, so long as I get what I want? Further, even if caught, I should never pay a price for my crimes. Gods commit no crimes like lesser beings.

What did the tiny god think about in Moore County? ‘If I want revenge, who cares who gets their power cut off and freezes to death, can’t breathe because their machines no longer work, or their surgery fails without electricity that I shot up?’

Because we’ve forgotten we belong to each other, forgotten even the lost and the cold, we fall deeper into the trap of believing we are always right. Humility be damned, the pure of heart will forever be cursed at by those who see themselves as godlike beings.

We here in our little county aren’t immune to this. We see endless appeals from social help organizations. Those without power of any kind are among us hurting, cold, and needing. There are no homeless shelters here. Why? We have no readily available mental health services to speak of. Those who are desperate in cold weather are a long way from help, if they have no heated home to go to. And nobody shot up their utilities. We Owls wonder, who has the power to change all this?