FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2016
4 — THE BAKER COUNTY PRESS
Opinion
— Editorial —
Meeting loss
with love
It has been a week of death and sadness
for so many of us associated with both
the production of this newspaper and its
closest readers. From family members to
friends to beloved pets, the losses have
piled up in the past few days. We offer our
heartfelt condolences, for what they’re
worth, to all those who might take a bit of
comfort from them.
For us, these past days have served as a
wake-up call to treasure real love when it
is given to you and hold on to it while you
can. We’re only ever given a little bit of
time here anyway.
It seems counter-intuitive to actively
choose death, to create pain and loss. Two
nonsensical deaths affected us and those
around us this week—one a tragic suicide,
the other the spiritual and emotional
equivalent of it.
While actual deaths are usually out of
our hands, the death of a connection to a
loved one by choice takes more analysis
to grasp. People make life more compli-
cated than it is sometimes, and often stop
seeing what’s true even when it’s right in
front of them.
We are all so very flawed, and in the
latter circumstance, the imperfect actions
and inactions of someone dear to us led to
ever-increasing problems, and when these
problems escalated, the pain became too
great to face. To remove himself, he chose
to kill himself emotionally rather than
physically, sacrificing one of the very few
things in his life that had ever been real
for him or brought him joy.
He cited Christianity as the reason for
his choices, based upon the argument
that because problems had been created,
that Satan must be attacking. This man’s
family members had piled guilt and anger
onto him in the name of religion, along
with this warped view and their own
desires for his life without understanding
him in any depth.
We all get so weary of religion being
twisted to manipulate and actually create
loss, when it should be used to comfort
and lead toward joy and forgiveness in
hard times, as Christ intended.
Our spiritual beliefs should be what we
depend upon, not what constantly pull the
rug out from under us, leaving us bruised
and battered. Fundamentalist extremists of
any kind tend to create that effect, though.
Perfection is unobtainable, and the expec-
tation of it can be soul-crushing.
It’s hard sometimes to remember that
just because a believer’s opinion is upside
down in the name of God, that the beauty
of the religion holds true in spite of it. Ac-
tions like what we’ve seen this week are
what chase people who want to believe,
people who are looking for their faith,
away from the church entirely.
In the Bible and in our experience, Satan
does not attack the bad. Satan attacks what
God sets up, what he knows to be good.
Things Satan does his best to prevent?
Love, growth, joy, truth, health ... Things
Satan thrives on? Indifference, apathy,
hate, stagnation, blame, misplaced guilt,
lies, sickness, anger ...
The voice of Satan is one of condemna-
tion, of breaking and crushing. The voice
of God, for us, is one of gentle direction,
of opening doors and affecting much-
needed growth and change.
If you’re deliberately hardening your
heart toward someone you deeply love,
it’s a good indicator not of God at work,
but of the other guy.
If you’re assigning blame and tossing
accusations at someone who never did
a thing to you, you might look toward
what planted those suspicions in the first
place—and what you’re being pushed
toward.
If you’re treating another person with
cruelty and contempt and coldness, that
ain’t God, folks. Don’t think it is.
If you believe life is to be led in suf-
fering and you’re adhering to one bit of
scripture, but you’re blind to the overarch-
ing themes of the Bible and all the rest of
the scripture it contains, you’re probably
not seeing the bigger picture.
And if you think God is petty and puni-
tive and sitting up in the heavens waiting
to cast misfortune upon you for your sins,
or for not properly glorifying Him, then
it’s a definite indicator you’ve missed the
point of Jesus Christ entirely.
If you’re on the receiving end of such
insanity, however, it’s tempting at first
to sink into the same level of blame and
hate. But upon deeper thought, we realize
that would be to sink into the same empty
place where the confused Christian has
sunk.
It’s far more difficult to continue to offer
up unconditional love even when the re-
cipient isn’t capable of recognizing it and
may not think they deserve it. We hope
this message gets across.
—The Baker County Press Editorial Board
No guns outside home?
Submitted by the
Oregon Firearms
Federation
To call last week’s 9th
Circuit Appeals Court rul-
ing "tortured" would be to
elevate it well above any
status it deserves.
The ruling in Edward
Peruta v. County of San
Diego concluded that
there is no Constitutional
right for a member of the
public to carry a firearm
concealed outside their
home. The Court did not
address the constitutional-
ity of carrying firearms
outside the home openly,
but in California where
this case originated, open
carry is outlawed as well,
so this decision could well
eliminate the rights of
Californians to "bear arms"
outside their homes at all.
Imagine this reasoning
extended to other rights
articulated in the Bill of
Rights.
Amendment 1. Congress
shall make no law respect-
ing an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press ... as
long as they do not leave
their homes.
Amendment IV. The right
of the people to be secure
in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants
shall issue, but upon prob-
able cause ... provided the
people do not leave their
homes.
Amendment V. No
person shall be held to
answer for a capital, or
otherwise infamous crime,
unless on a presentment or
indictment of a grand jury,
except in cases arising in
the land or naval forces,
or in the militia, when in
actual service in time of
war or public danger; nor
shall any person be subject
for the same offense to be
twice put in jeopardy of
life or limb; nor shall be
compelled in any criminal
case to be a witness against
himself, nor be deprived
of life, liberty, or property,
without due process ...
provided that the person
in question remain in his
home at all times.
Of course it sounds
absurd. The notion that
one gives up a fundamen-
tal right when one steps
through his front door is
so non-sensical as to be
the stuff of parody and
farce, but it is actually not
a surprise coming from the
most liberal and overturned
court in the nation.
How will this affect the
states unlucky enough
to be within the Circuit?
Time will tell. Three of
those states; Idaho, Alaska,
and Arizona already rec-
ognize a person's right to
carry a concealed firearm
with no requirement to ask
permission from the state.
Montana allows persons to
carry concealed firearms
with no state issued per-
mission if they are outside
cities or towns. But Ne-
vada, Oregon, and Wash-
ington, like California,
already do not recognize
a person's right to carry a
firearm concealed without
requesting permission from
the state.
Unlike California how-
ever, none of those states
allow the issuing authority
to arbitrarily decide if your
life is worthy of protection.
If you meet the qualifica-
tions, you get a license to
exercise your "right."
That's what this case was
actually about. Whether a
state agency or actor has
the authority to determine
who is worthy of self
defense.
The 9th Circuit agreed
with the state and said that
the value of your life could
be determined by a govern-
ment bureaucrat who could
simply decide that person
A's life was worth protect-
ing and person B's was not.
What this ruling means
for Oregonians is that the
far left, anti-gun axis that
controls our legislature
and the executive branch,
will feel emboldened to
continue its assault on
license holders. While
there is nothing new
about this (Prozanski and
Burdick have been trying,
unsuccessfully, for years
to attack license holders)
what it all but guarantees
is a tidal wave of new
proposed restrictions on all
gun owners.
For the first time we have
a candidate who has built
almost her entire campaign
around destroying what is
left of the Second Amend-
ment, and while almost
all candidates are ques-
tion marks, Clinton is a
drop-dead sure thing who
simply must be stopped.
So I was
thinking ...
A letter to a
friend
By Jimmy Ingram
Special to The Baker County Press
I still remember when I picked you
up sight unseen. The unexpected
result of a friend’s golden retriever
hopping the fence to romance a black
lab.
You had a smooth black coat,
floppy ears, and feet that I swore you
could never grow into. You were a
happy dog and learned to obey far
faster than I probably deserved.
You slept comfortably at the foot of
my bed in my cold college apartment
and though I appreciated you keeping
my feet warm, the incessant squirm-
ing of your 80 pound body (you did
grow into those feet) made it hard to
sleep. I didn’t ever have the heart to
kick you out though.
You eventually moved back to
the family farm with me and made
yourself right at home. Daily dives
into the pond, hunting the pastures for
hours and getting as muddy as you
possibly could kept you occupied.
You made friends with the other
family dogs, even acting as a
“spokesman” for them when you
knew they wanted outside on an early
summer morning or inside on a cold
winter day. You loved a good scratch
on the back and lived to clean out the
last bit of a peanut butter jar or catch
a frisby. Then you would eat the fris-
bee as though it was a jar of peanut
butter.
You proudly delivered the wedding
ring in my sister’s wedding in the
front yard of the family farm. You sat
patiently watching from that same
spot years later as I got married. You
were there waiting when my wife
and I brought home our newborn son,
always remaining gentle and loving
with your curiosity.
You started getting gray and mov-
ing slower, which made me feel bad,
but at moments you’d gallop across a
field like you were still two years-old.
You were patient when the younger
dogs annoyed you to play, much like
a tired parent would do with their
energetic kids.
You wanted to spend more time
inside the garage as time went on and
I don’t blame you. It was comfortable
for you in there.
As time went on I could feel your
senses lacking. You wouldn’t always
come when called, not because you
were disobeying but because you
Submitted Photo
Jimmy Ingram is a local farmer and
father of two who enjoys people
watching within our wonderful
community and beyond.
Submitted Photo
Rudy.
couldn’t hear.
Occasionally you would wander
off and need to be brought home, not
because you meant to wander off but
because you couldn’t see. It was hard
for me to start facing the inevitable
but I had to.
So Rudy, my loving, dedicated dog
of 15 years— I feel a tremendous
sense of loss today. I know you were
just a dog but you were family.
You watched me grow from a naive
23-year-old “kid” into a 38-year-old
man with a family, a career and a
sense of purpose.
You greeted me with a wagging tail
on my best days and my worst days
and provided me with a tremendous
amount of joy and companionship for
the better part of my adult life.
I hope wherever you are now you
feel like the energetic puppy you
were when I picked you up that day.
I hope you feel right at home with
all the other wonderful companions
that people like me have lost over the
years.
It’s been said it’s unfair that our
time here is so long and those of dogs
is so short ... and it’s true.
I’m sure many of you have a story
similar to mine. And while it’s incred-
ibly hard to lose what many of us
consider part of our family, it teaches
us all a good lesson on the meaning
of what love, loyalty, and companion-
ship really is.
So thanks, Rudy. Your 15+ years
with me made my life a better place.
I’m going to miss you.
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