He May or May Not Have Been the Bomb-maker"

Via the God's Politics Blog

"He May or May Not Have Been the Bomb-maker by Marianne Kehoe

He may or may not have been the bomb-maker.

Did it matter, now that I stood in front of his body, still connected to tubes and vents and drips, but a body that had already breathed its last?

No, it didn't really matter. I stepped to the bed and laid a hand on his still-warm forehead and prayed. I had always wondered if I would know what to say. And as I opened my mouth, I realized I didn't need to know what to say. If ever the Holy Spirit interceded for me, it was then.

"Oh God, as first you gave this life to us, so now we give him back to you. You know the secrets of our hearts and we pray that this soul may find peace with you. Amen."

The med techs and nurses began to clean the body as I went to get the kaffan, the traditional Muslim burial cloth. We can't—and don't—perform the ritual Islamic washing here in the American hospital in Afghanistan, but we do try to prepare the body as best we can for the family. In some small way, the hospital staff tries to make a difference; though they could not save this man's life, they can at least return the body with some degree of respect and dignity. It is the right thing to do. It just might also save someone else's life down the line.

Because he may or may not have been the bomb-maker. Whether he was or not, the exploding bomb killed him. And as his brother hovered nearby in the ICU, I thought about our small part in the cycle of violence that just maybe had a chance to be broken right here, this very moment.

If he was the bomb-maker, would his brother go home and say, "Even though he planned to kill them, the Americans still tried to save his life …. They operated, they bandaged, and when he died, they washed and wrapped him and prayed over him." And if he wasn't the bomb-maker, would his brother go home and say, "There are people who tried to kill my brother and there are people who tried to save my brother and they are not the same people."

I don't have any answers to that question. I don't know what the brother did when he took him home to bury him. I cannot see into the hearts of people as God does. But I pray for them. And if I am honest, I know I do it for two reasons. Jesus commanded it. And if prayer is as powerful as I believe it is, the neck I save might just be my own.

U.S. Air Force Chaplain Captain Marianne Kehoe is an ordained elder in the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church. She is currently serving in a large U.S. military hospital in Afghanistan."

This is one of most Christian responses to a suicide bombing that I have heard of.