Perhaps the only thing more satisfying this week than traveling a familiar stretch of highway has been a visit with friends Kathee and Ben in their perfect place on the Oregon coast. These are people with whom I feel comfortable expressing exhilaration and joy at the way late afternoon sunlight hits a lighthouse or how the ocean meets the land at Yachats or puzzlement over something I’ve read in the newspaper. 

I needed someone to tell me again what the plan is for peace on earth, the promise of Christmas which I have been hearing at least once a year for what has now become my long life. My need to know was prompted by the associated press report of the Florida pastor of a Christian church who was arrested by police on his way in his pickup truck to a public park with nearly 3000 kerosene-soaked Korans and a barbeque grill where he planned to avenge the death of Americans killed in New York on 9/11 by burning the books.  

“Polk County sheriff’s deputies arrested Pastor Terry Jones, 61, on a felony charge of unlawful conveyance of fuel as he traveled in a pickup towing a large barbecue-style grill filled with kerosene-soaked Korans. Jones had said he was heading to a nearby park to burn 2,998 Korans — one for every Sept. 11 victim."  --Associated press

Probably some people are wondering how this fool could not know that you can’t go down the road in America with a barbeque grill full of kerosene-soaked books. We are a country of laws, and you just can’t do that.  It puts other Americans on the highway at risk. 

While “those people” are scratching their heads about why a man would take such a chance on the highway, I’m wondering if it’s possible that this preacher of the Gospel of Peace has missed the whole point of what he presumably reads to his congregation from the book he and they consider holy.  Is it possible that he doesn’t know what harm he is doing and what shame he is heaping on his country? Is it possible that he doesn’t know that there are seven billion other people on the planet besides Americans?  My question is not about what to do about fools whizzing down the highway with barbeque grills full of kerosene-soaked books, but what to do about the ones who claim to know all about how to achieve peace on earth but obviously don’t have clue.