"Any man's death diminishes me," writes John Donne.
With the death of Dr. George Tiller, we are all diminished.
Like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus of Nazareth, Harvey Milk, Benazir Bhutto, Tiller was a courageous human living out his compassion for others, well aware that he was risking his life.
Like Thomas Beckett in 1170, Tiller was murdered in his church by someone who disagreed with his moral choices. In 2009 as in the 12th C., politics was behind the assassination, and then as now humans stood aghast at this ultimate violation of human values. T.S. Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral is an attempt to grapple with the horror of the event.
The most confounding aspect of Tiller's murder is that religion is so mixed up in it.
On Pentecost Sunday at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, a day when Christians around the world were celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit, a middle-aged man fired at Tiller and threatened others.
"Hail thee, festival day, blest day that are hallowed forever," we sang in church today, but evil stained this particular Pentecost.
Known as Shauvot, fifty days after Passover, the day started as a Jewish holiday celebrating God's gift of the Torah to Moses.
With one bullet this killer ended a human life and desecrated a day holy to both Judaism and Christianity.
To Dr. Tiller, a man serving God according to his conscience, requiem in pace.
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