THE PARABLE OF CHARLIE EAGLE

 Vol. 1                                      Issue 11

               

He found him in a desert land,

and in a wasteland, a howling wilderness;

He encircled him, He instructed him,

He kept him in the apple of His eye.

As an eagle stirs up its nest,

Hovers over its young,

Spreading out its wings,

Taking them up,

Carrying them on its wings . . .

Deuteronomy 32:10-11

   

            

Eagles are such majestic creatures.  They soar with grace and beauty.  With a wingspan of seven feet or more, the American Bald Eagle is a most impressive sight.  Many years ago the Whirlpool Corporation aired a television commercial, featuring the actual footage of a Bald Eagle in the wild.  The commercial opened with the scene of a mountain lake. Into the scene a eagle flew low over the lake.  In an instant, the eagle reached out with his talon, and snatched a large trout from the lake.  With grace and power, the eagle soared out of sight.  The footage was breathtaking.  It was replayed in slow motion.   This eagle had spotted a trout swimming close to the surface of the water.  With skill that seasoned anglers would envy, the eagle snatched the fish from the water, and carried it to his nest .

In my mind’s eye, the eagle in the Whirlpool commercial had to be Charlie Eagle.  Charlie Eagle is the central character in a parable, I heard for the first time in the winter of 1977.  The Parable was derived from the mind of a young pastor, who observed some amazing Air Force flight tape, and recalled a verse in the Old Testament, he had never really understood. From the stage of a Campus Life gathering in Gatlinburg Tennessee, I was introduced to Charlie Eagle, and my life has never been quite the same. I have recounted this story many times over the last twenty years.  The last time I used the parable was in a speech to the graduating Fifth Grade Class of Moore Elementary School.  The parable never fails to bring smiles to the listeners as it imparts a most meaningful message about growing up Christian.  Though it is a story best heard, rather than read, perhaps you can let your imagination roam.  Think of someone you know who tells a good story.  Picture in your mind’s eye the scenes I describe.  Pretend that you are watching an old episode of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Feel the cold air, smell the spring flowers, contemplate the view from the top of a high mountain, and fly with Charlie Eagle!

High on a mountain in the state of Idaho, two eagles, having mated for life, construct their first nest. Branches from fir trees are carefully interwoven with vines, and corn stalks.  Three large jackrabbits soon become the unfortunate victims of two hungry eagles.  Carefully the eagles pull the meat and bones from the carcasses of the dead rabbits, leaving only the skins.  With the skins dangling from her talons, Momma Eagle flies to her newly constructed nest.  With care and precision, she places the skins in the nest, covering all the prickly vines and sharp sticks, making for her brood a warm and comfortable nest.

Some days later, as the sun rises in the east, Momma Eagle stands on the edge of the nest overlooking the valley and river below.  The view she enjoys must be breathtaking.  In her nest now lays three large white eggs.  Soon little eaglets will hatch.   Momma Eagle and Daddy Eagle take turns sitting on the nest, keeping the eggs warm.  While one parent tends the nest, the other hunts for food.  Eagles are wildlife’s perfect hunters. Eagles live for seventy years or more. They can fly as high as commercial jets.  Their eyes can spot objects the size of a dime in grass over a foot tall. Their talons are sharp and strong.  Eagles are agile birds, capable of in flight maneuvers that only top gun aviators perform in air shows.  Sitting atop the food chain of the wild, only man has proven to threaten the long life of an American Bald Eagle.

Eagles usually hatch no more than three eaglets per brood. After days of careful attention, Momma Eagle watches as her three eggs began to crack.  After much struggle an eaglet emerges from each egg.  Two girls and a boy.  The girls are named Mary and Sally. The boy is named Charlie.  From the moment the eaglets emerge from the egg, each demands the attention of Momma Eagle.  The eaglets are very fragile creatures, weak, featherless and unable to stand, much less fly.  They lay in the nest napping between feedings.  Momma Eagle is a most attentive mother. Either she, or Daddy Eagle, remains in the nest shielding the eaglets from wind and foul weather.  They alternate in the search for food. Now with three extra mouths to feed, their hunting is their only activity when they are away from the nest. 

For the first few weeks, the eaglets sleep and eat.  Occasionally, they try to stand up on their spindly legs.  Each has learned when Momma Eagle returns, it is time to eat.  Therefore, Momma eagle is greeted several times a day with the open mouths, and squeaks of her eaglet family.  In their first few weeks, she feeds each eaglet individually, making sure that each of her children receives the proper nourishment.  However, after the first few weeks, Momma Eagle stops the individual feedings, and simply places the meal in the center of the nest.  Charlie Eagle and his sisters are soon introduced to the concept of sibling rivalry.  In a contest known to us as “survival of the fittest”, the eaglets fight each other for each morsel of food.  Mary soon learns that the stubby thing on the side of her body that we call wings, work very well to poke and prod Charlie and Sally away from the food.  They learn that the hard things protruding from their head that we call beaks, are wonderful tools for tearing up their food as well as pecking each other on the head.

Then one day, Momma Eagle returns to the nest with portions of a newly caught mountain trout.  The eaglets jostle for the best position in the nest to receive the food.  As they fight to get to the middle of the nest, Charlie suddenly observes Momma Eagle doing something he had never seen her do before.  With the dead fish dangling from  her beak, Momma Eagle is fluttering her wings much like a small humming bird, causing her body to hover over the edge of the nest.  She flutters, and then stops, and flutters again.  While the eaglets enjoy watching Momma Eagle, they are very hungry, and soon squeak and squeal for their food.   Only when Sally begins to imitate Momma Eagle by flapping the stubs on the side of her body, do the eagles get fed.   Thus begins a new feeding routine for the eaglets. At each feeding, Momma Eagle will flutter her wings and hover over the edge of the nest.  She will give food to the eaglets, only when each of them in turn imitates her fluttering with their wings. Soon Charlie, Mary and Sally understand the routine.  When Momma Eagle returns, she finds her brood jumping up and down, fluttering their stubby wings, squealing at the top of their lungs.

As each day passes, the eaglets grow larger and larger.  They become more coordinated, and are able to hop around the nest with ease.  However, as each eaglet becomes larger, there is less and less room for the eaglets to move around.  They spend their days fighting each other for a place in the nest.  They awaken one morning to Momma Eagle stripping one half of the nest of its fur lining.  With the prickly vines and limbs exposed, Sally and Mary begin a new game, called, “Let’s throw Charlie in the pickers!”.  Soon Charlie finds himself knocked off the fur lined half of the nest.  As you would expect of any self-respecting brother, he quickly hops to the furry side, and with his stubby wings flailing about manages to shove both sisters into the pickers.  From that day forward, the eaglets seldom rest.  They struggle with each other, and fight for each morsel of food that Momma Eagle brings.  With each day, the eaglets get stronger. Soon the stubby wings began to develop to the point that they actually lift the eaglet off the nest when they flutter the wings at feeding time.

As the evening sun began to set, Charlie Eagle felt very special to receive extra attention from Momma Eagle.  For Momma Eagle had wrapped her wings around Charlie, and soon was nudging Charlie with her beak, forcing Charlie on her back.  As soon as Charlie was balanced on  Momma Eagle’s back, the large bird stretched out her wings, and soared from the nest.  Charlie Eagle, frightened by the sudden motion, gripped his mother’s back with his talons.  Slowly, Momma Eagle climbed in the warm air currents.  Charlie Eagle was airborne for the first time. What a spectacular world lay beneath Momma Eagle’s outstretched wings. In the distance was the Great Plains.  Looking the other way is the Bitterroot Mountain Range. Below him meandered a river through a mountain forest.  What a sight!  Charlie decided he could get used to flying, and relaxed his grip on Momma’s back.  At that instant, Momma Eagle performed what pilots describe as a wing over.  She banked her wings so they were perpendicular with the land below.  The result of this maneuver soon became most significant to Charlie.  With his loosened grip, and the suddenness of Momma’s movement, Charlie slipped off Momma Eagle’s  back, and found himself falling toward the valley below. At that instant, Charlie began to understand the purpose of the stubby wings on each side his body.  With all his might, he flapped the wings, and the rate of his fall slowed.   Soon, Charlie tired, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not flap his wings any longer.  He plunged toward the earth, fearing his first flight to be his last.  Then, in a spectacular show of airborne agility, Momma Eagle swoops below the falling eaglet. Timing her descent perfectly, she intercepts the falling eaglet. Charlie lands again on Momma’s back, and as she steadies her wings, Charlie grips her back with all his might.  Soon, Momma returns Charlie to the nest.   As Charlie staggers into the fur lined portion of the nest, he notices, Momma Eagle nudging Sally on her back.  “Hey, Sally, you are not going to believe what is going to happen to you!” exclaims Charlie.

Once each day, Momma Eagle takes each of the eaglets for flight training.  After each wing over, the eaglets are forced to flap their wings in a futile attempt to fly.  With each passing day, the eaglets flap their wings longer and longer.  Then one day, Mary and Sally watch as Momma Eagle returns to the nest without Charlie on her back.  They fear Momma may have been unable to catch their brother. Then in the distance, Mary notices another bird following their mother.  While there is little grace to this bird’s flight, the sister eaglets soon realize the bird to be a young eagle.  “It is Charlie, and he is flying!”, they both exclaim.  In the next several days, each of the eaglets follows Momma Eagle home.  Soon they are standing on the edge of the nest, stretching and flapping their wings. With a gentle breeze blowing from the east, Charlie, thinking himself to be finally ready, spreads his wings, and soars from the nest.

Wildlife experts have determined that within one week of this first flight from the nest, Charlie Eagle will leave his family in search of a mate, never to return again.  At that moment, God’s work will have been completed.  Charlie Eagle will be fully equipped to live, and hunt in the wild. He will soar high into the clouds.  He will sweep down on unsuspecting mountain trout.  At the moment, Charlie spreads his wings and flies alone, he became the very creature God intended him to be!

As I concluded this story to the graduating class of Fifth Graders at Moore Elementary School, their eyes were opened wide with excitement. I challenged them to remember how hard their teachers had worked to teach them some of the most important things in life.  They had been molded and shaped by their experience in elementary school. They were ready to move on to middle school, equipped with all the things necessary for them to succeed.  With a sound educational foundation, they were ready to grow into adults.  I asked them also to consider how much they were like Charlie Eagle.  It was very important for them to remember how God had a plan for them as well.  Just like their teachers, He would mold them, and shape them into the very creature He intended them to be.  I exclaimed: “I believe you can fly!   And so does God!”

In the final analysis, it is a lot easier for Charlie Eagle to learn to fly, than for us to grow up Christian.  Yet, just as God has endowed the American Bald Eagle with unique and special attributes, God intends for each of us to be a very special creature as well. We are a creature that is designed to enjoy a unique and personal relationship with our Creator. He will teach us to fly!  Attributes of love, forgiveness, faith, grace, servitude, submission, obedience and discipline, are essential to His work in our lives. As we grow closer to Him, these attributes will emerge in our lives, like the stubby wings of Charlie and his sisters.  As we trust and obey God’s direction in our lives, we will began to understand how important each attribute is.  They are the very keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Each attribute is available to us right now.  God is working within us to instill His thoughts and His attitudes.  It is a life long process.

 God is not finished with me yet, but, I believe that some day I will fly!

The Dance

Vol. 1                                                     Issue 10

The Dance*

A gentle wind gives rise to a melody unheard

Meeting the steps of the outstretched wings of a solitary hawk

Dancing an aerial waltz beneath a granite cliff

From whence eyes unseen bear witness to nature’s elegant dance.

Majesty unveiled-

Divinity revealed,

From a fleeting image painted upon a canvas

Framed within the horizons fading hue.

Oh to ride upon hawk's wings and

Hear a melody breathed into my soul;

To dance with the wind and

Delight unseen envious eyes.

Have I wings?

Can I not fly?

Must I remain in the shadows

And dream that which cannot be?

What has been sacrificed for my freedom lost?

What gain obtained from the exchange?

Or has some brigand stolen so precious a gift?

Could it be merely laid aside and forgotten?

Nay, I am bound with tethers of my own design,

Rusty chains looped over my soul and locked in place-

Bolted fast to the earth beneath my feet

Opened only with a key beyond my reach.

In the silence a faint familiar song

Mocks these chains that bind my wings

Loose them and I shall fly

And soar upon the melodious wind

                                                         Atticus (2006)

(*inspired during a hike up Moores Knob in Hanging Rock State Park. During a break sitting on a granite cliff overlooking the valley between the Park and Sauratown Mountain and  I observed a Hawk as he "danced an aerial waltz"....as to the meaning of the poem, I  leave it to the reader to interpret)

The Gift of Jimmy V

Vol. 1                                                                          Issue 9

                                    THE GIFT

“My father gave me the best gift of all.  He believed in me.”

                                                James Thomas Valvano

Captain Ricco Hunter stands about six foot four.  An American Warrior, resplendent in the dress blues of the United States Marine Corps, he garnered everyone’s attention as he walked into the banquet hall.  High school girls smiled their adoring admiration, parents nodded their appreciation and rough looking football players grudgingly conceded the presence of a man in their midst. 

Carver High School had just completed a successful football season winning the State Championship for the second time in the last five years.  It was a solid team. These fine looking young men were coached by Keith Wilkes.  Coach Wilkes is a bear of a man standing six foot five and weighing north of 350 lbs.  He is an imposing figure and a great football coach.  He possesses a heart as large as his girth.  Captain Ricco Hunter is one of Coach Wilkes’ boys.

Ricco Hunter was raised in a tough part of town.  He resided in a housing project with his mother and aunt.  Coach Wilkes became his surrogate father.  He was the perfect speaker to address the newly crowned state champions.  The message he gave that evening resonates with me still today. Captain Hunter recounted for the audience his childhood and his struggles.  He told of how athletics, especially football, was the way he could escape.  He worked hard on the field and gained notice of college recruiters.  More importantly he did well in the classroom.   As an African American athlete with grades equivalent to his athletic skill, he drew the attention of the United States Naval Academy.  With a little help from prep school, Ricco Hunter became a Midshipman at Annapolis.

His story of his time in prep school in Rhode Island is exceptionally poignant.  Given one free phone call each week, Ricco used it to call his mother.  After completing the call he made a second phone call.  This time the call was charged collect to Coach Keith Wilkes.  “Every time I called Coach Wilkes, I told him that I just was not cut out to be a Midshipman.  That the class work was hard, the distance from home made me lonely and I was not sure I was as good on the football field as I once thought I was.  I said; ‘Coach, I am gonna come home’”    Coach Wilkes would not cater to this nonsense.  “Ricco if you come home I am going to load you back up in my car and drive you back to school.  You are the best football player I have ever coached and more than that you are one of the finest young men that the Naval Academy has ever selected to serve our country.  I am not going to let you give this up. It is too important. I believe in you.  I know you can make it!”

As Captain Hunter completed the story, the audience became quiet as he called Coach Wilkes to the podium.   Reaching into his tunic, he pulled out a white envelope.  Embracing his coach, Captain Hunter presented the envelope and said:  “Coach, I know all those phone calls cost you a lot of money.  It is my turn to pay you back.”   The crowd erupted in a standing ovation.  Keith Wilkes, a mountain of a man, began to weep.   As he took the microphone, he simply said:  “To have such an effect on a young man placed in my charge, I among all men have been richly blessed by my Lord.”  Then Coach Wilkes pointed to a man in attendance and told his own story.

Keith Wilkes was an overweight and under-motivated high school junior when he walked disgustedly into the office of assistant principal Victor Johnson.  “Mr. Johnson, they cut me from the football team”, he complained. “They say I am too fat and too lazy to play.”  Mr. Johnson would give Keith Wilkes no pity. Like Keith, Victor Johnson, had come up hard as well. He was a product of inner city poverty and suffered under the discriminations of the Jim Crow South.  He  joined the Army out of high school and while there remembered the words of his football coach who encouraged him to go use his own athletic skills as a way to attend college.  After leaving the Army he enrolled at Winston Salem State Teachers College.  He played every down for four years on both sides of the ball.  He helped desegregate the lunch counters at the Woolworth downtown.  For decades he had been a teacher, coach and administrator in the local school system.  He knew the only ticket out of poverty for African American boys like Keith Wilkes was a college education.  Though he may be fat and lazy, Mr. Johnson knew the potential residing within the angry young man standing at his desk.  He challenged the young man saying:  “Keith you know you are fat and lazy but so am I.  I can’t do anything about the coach’s decision for you this year. However I can make sure he does not make the same decision next season.  What do you say that you and me start working out together?”

Keith Wilkes was not cut from the football team his senior year.  He became an all state lineman and a recipient of a scholarship.  His life was changed and because of this so was the life of Ricco Hunter.  Hardly a dry eye was left in the crowd.  A standing ovation ended the evening.  As I left for home I remembered something a coach once told me.

Jim Valvano, the late basketball coach of North Carolina State University, would describe the stories told that evening as evidence of The Gift.   The Gift is something that does not cost anyone anything to give.  Once given, The Gift can never be returned.  Instead, the only way The Gift can ever be repaid is by giving The Gift to someone else.

Coach Valvano always said that his father gave him the greatest gift any one person can give to another -- the gift of believing in yourself because the other person believes in you.  Jim Valvano claimed that whatever success he had, and for that matter whatever success anyone enjoys, can at some point be traced to a person who simply said, "I believe in you. I believe you can do this."

By the way James Thomas Valvano would have been 65 years old today.  Rest in peace.

E Pluribus Unum

Vol 1                                               Issue 8

           A NATION OF SETTLERS

Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.                           

              J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur

                                                                                                                                   

In 1654, a 29-year- old Englishman named Thomas Norman arrived in Stafford,Virginia. He was one of three indentured servants of Major John Anders. It is estimated that as many as two-thirds of the English colonists who came to America between 1610 and 1700 were indentured servants.  In exchange for passage to America, Thomas Norman agreed to work without wages for five years. He was a blacksmith by trade.  Little more is known of Thomas Norman except that at his death 1,000 acres of Virgina farmland was divided among his five children.  Thomas Norman was no immigrant.  He was an Englishman who was willing to give up a measure of his freedom in exchange for an opportunity for a better life in the English Colony in Virginia. His children were born in America.  His grandson took up arms, serving with General Nathaniel Greene in the American Revolution.  I am not descended from immigrants.  My forefathers are Americans.

The late Harvard professor, Samuel Huntington observes that Americans trace their ancestry not to immigrants but to settlers. "In its origins, America was not a nation of immigrants; it was a society, or societies of settlers, who came to the New World in the 17th and 18th centuries."  Our origins as "an Anglo-Protestant settler society have, more than anything else, profoundly and lastingly shape American culture, institutions, historical development and identity."

From this culture emerged distinctly American values.  Honesty, hard work, respect for others, sanctity of the home, self-sacrifice, commitment to community, human equality and freedom from government interference - are hallmarks of the American Society. At the core of the American soul is found fierce individualism tempered by an abiding faith in God that has produced a common sense of morality.  Similarly, there is the belief that ambition coupled with hard work is the formula for turning opportunity into success.  Collectively Americans believe that this nation has been set apart from other nations. We share a unique destiny and a corresponding responsibility within this world. 

The fabric of this distinctly American culture has been shaped by many immigrants, but such threads are tightly woven into an existing and clearly understood tapestry.  Throughout the history of our nation, the American culture has remained fundamentally unchanged. This shared identity formed the foundation upon which freedom and economic opportunity have flourished.  At no time in the history of the world have such ethnically diverse people been blessed with such material abundance and personal freedom.  As Professor Huntington observes: "The core of our identity is the culture that settlers created, which generations of immigrants have absorbed..."

Over the last thirty years, under the guise of racial and ethnic tolerance, a different view of America has emerged.  America is now seen through the lense of multiculturalism.  Rather than celebrating the richness of the diversity of the American people, proponents of this new vision of America often discard the common history of the nation.  A new hyphenated American has been created and accepted by many as their cultural identity.  The hyphen no longer defines a heritage of the past but proclaims a divided allegiance in the present.

The nation's motto is the Latin phrase - "E Pluribus Unum".  It is translated:  "Out of many - One".  It stands for the proposition that from many people, we have one united country.  Regardless of race or ethnic background each of us have renounced former allegiances and are first and foremost Americans.  In 1994, Vice President Albert Gore advanced an altered translation of the motto reflective of a different America.  While advancing the cause of diversity, he proclaimed the motto to mean:  "Out of one - many."

Unique among all people of the world, an Almighty God has allowed the creation of a nation from unusually diverse individuals. One such person is Hilbert Caesar.  He was born in Guyana.  "I left Guyana when I was 11 years old. My family wanted me to have better opportunities in the United States."  His heart was always American but for most of his life his passport told a different story.  That changed in August 2006.  Standing with the assistance of a cane in a sweltering Immigration Office in Arlington, Virginia, Hilbert Caesar took the oath of citizenship and became an American.  Sergeant Hilbert Caesar lost his leg in Iraq defending the country he adopted as a small boy.  He observed that day:  "I knew I was an American before this. I've always been an American."

All of us should from time to time pause to consider what it means to be an American.  As we pledge allegiance to one nation, under God, we must count the cost of freedom.  Dedicated to the promotion of liberty, and the advancement of justice for all people, citizens of this indivisible nation must reaffirm the principles that form the foundation of our Republic.  These are the very same principles the grandson of an indentured servant fought to establish and the Guyana born soldier has offered his blood to preserve.

The Common Sense God Gave a Goat

                                                                                                                                                       

  Vol. 1                                                    Issue 7

“What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court, that enables them to discern that a practice which the text of the Constitution does not clearly proscribe, and which our people have regarded as constitutional for two hundred years, is in fact unconstitutional? . . . Day by day, case by case, [the Court] is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.”     Antonin Scalia

 Originating in springs that flow from Mt. Herman, the Jordan River emerges from the Sea of Galilee and snakes for 135 miles over the sixty-five mile distance to the Dead Sea some 1200 feet below sea level.  The river is no more that 200 feet wide, but when the thaw of spring fills the river with melted snow, the river flows in a torrent.  Still, unlike the River Nile or the Great Mississippi, the Jordan River is not an imposing geographic barrier.  However, to Joshua, in his first spring as the newly anointed leader of the Israelites, the River Jordan must have seemed like a great ocean standing between the people of Israel and the Promised Land.

 The Lord commanded Joshua to have the Ark of the Covenant lead the procession of Israelites across the river. Obedient priests hoisted the Ark and marched to the river. As the feet of priests carrying the Ark stepped off the riverbank, inches above the torrent, the river parted.  Just as God had favored Moses, so also was He faithful to Joshua, and the children of Israel marched across the dry riverbed into the Promised Land.

“Each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder from the midst of the Jordan where the priests stood firm,” commanded Joshua.  Twelve stones were taken out of the Jordan, one for each tribe of Israel.  Joshua set the stones up at Gilgal and proclaimed that the stones be a sign among the people, a memorial to the children of Israel, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is upon Israel and that the God of Israel is mighty.

Ancient people erected standing stones to commemorate a variety of occasions.  The mysterious Stonehenge of England is a well known example.  Similar ancient standing stones can be found throughout the British Isles and the Middle East.  Modern day people have erected standing stones of our own.  Skyscrapers and expansive bridges speak to the entrepreneurial spirit and engineering innovativeness of our citizenry.  Monuments to heroes of the Republic adorn the mall in Washington and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Arenas, coliseums and great stadiums profess our love for sport and competition.  Great cathedrals and minarets proclaim our religious fervency. On a personal level, the crucifix, the menorah, the image of a dove or a fish and the Star of David are individual standing stones denoting our religious heritage. 

No matter how grand the architecture, all standing stones, modern and ancient alike need a witness.  One generation must proclaim to the next the story behind the stone lest the significance of the monument become as mysterious as the Stonehenge.  On a hill overlooking Washington D.C, in a field in Normandy, France, in the pastures of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania beneath the waters of Pearl Harbor,  white pillars stand in silent remembrance of the sacrifice young Americans, who laid the last measure of their devotion to our Republic upon the altar of freedom.

         Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder died while on active duty in Al Anbar province Iraq on March 3, 2006.  “He was a hero and he was the love of my life," was the way Albert Snyder described his son. Albert Snyder buried his son on March 11, 2006.   The family erected a stone to honor their son and placed it on his grave in the cemetary of St. John Catholic Church in Westminster, Maryland.

         On the day of Matthew Snyder's funeral, assembled on city property adjacent next to the St. John Catholic Church , members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas held signs, some bearing anti-gay slurs, that declared that war casualties are divine retribution - that God is allowing men and women to die in Iraq because of this country's tolerance of homosexuality. After the service the church posted on their website statements directed at Matthew’s parents accusing them of raising a child for the devil, ridiculing the Catholic Church and condemning Matthew to hell. The church - which has about 75 members, roughly 80 percent of whom are relatives by blood or marriage - protests at funerals without regard to the presumed sexual orientation of the late soldier.  The group claims to have led 22,000 demonstrations since 1991 at parades, funerals and other events. The funeral of Matthew Snyder was the first of such protests in the state of Maryland.  Their protest was a cruel publicity tactic calculated to gain media attention to promote their dysfunctional view of their Christian duty.

       Albert Snyder sued Westboro Baptist Church for intentional infliction of emotional distress, a civil action recognized at common law.  It was a private civil lawsuit. He did not ask the government to participate in any way to restrict the speech of members of Westboro Baptist Church.  He simply asked that a jury of his peers determine if he had been wronged. This case simply alleges that one does not have the right to conspire to use lies in order to inflict intentional harm upon persons who are grieving the death of their children.  Not surprisingly Mr. Snyder won his case and monetary damages were assessed against the church.  An appeal overturned the verdict and today, one day short of the fifth anniversary of the death of Matthew Snyder, eight members of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution denies him his right to sue Westboro Baptist Church.

       The First Amendment of the Constitution reads:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  It does not attempt to regulate speech between individuals.  Torts such as defamation are not protected by the First Amendment and it has been well established that speech alone could be the basis for suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress.   While the First Amendment may prevent the government from restricting the speech of the members of Westboro Baptist Church, nothing in the Constitution prevents a private right of action for a tort that has been recognized at common law for centuries. In the words of dissenting Justice Samuel Alito: “Allowing family members to have a few hours of peace without harassment does not undermine public debate. But the exploitation of a funeral for the purpose of attracting public attention intrudes upon their grief and may permanently stain their memories of the final moments before their loved one is laid to rest.  The First Amendment permits a private figure to recover for the intentional infliction of emotional distress caused by a speech on a matter of private concern.”

       Reacting to the Supreme Court decision, Albert Snyder sadly proclaimed: “I can't believe that the Supreme Court today has now told us that we have no rights to bury our dead in peace. It's a sad day for our military men and women, their families. It's a sad day for all Americans. My first thought was, what kind of society have we become?”     Me too.