Ding dong, the Witch is dead.........

“Ding dong, the Witch is dead.” This innocent phrase, originally penned as part of a song for the movie version of a children’s fantasy story, seems to have become a catch phrase for the killing of Osama bin Ladin. Someone actually sang it to me in the gas station yesterday morning. By now, of course, there are stories, replays, photos, in-depth reports, columns, blogs and more world wide about the event. I turned off the news last night as it was showing film footage that panned to a pool of blood, I didn’t even wait to find out if it was his or someone else’s. I’ve seen pools of blood, thanks anyway. There are understandable ranges of emotions in our country: jubilation, relief, pride, and yes, concern. We are entitled to all of them. We have eliminated the symbol of a dark day in our country, our history. We have prevailed over that face of evil. We have won a battle. We have not, unfortunately, won the war, and those who feel we have should reexamine their thoughts. Osama was one man. His followers are many. As one friend put it, and I can’t improve on this: “The thing to appreciate here is not so much the fact that the man is dead, but something or someone as bad or worse will fill in the void of his passing.
His flavor of evil has been discontinued, but that was just him. Like something from Ben and Jerry, a different flavor will fill the shelf space.
Nature abhors a vacuum.” (Ken Walker 5/2/11)
We should not relax our vigilance, indeed we should strengthen it. As long as there are different people on earth, there will be different. My Facebook post yesterday: “While I join all Americans in celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden, I can't help but wonder what his fanatical followers might do now....................”
And in retrospect, celebrating is the wrong word to use here, and the wrong feeling to have. I did not ‘celebrate’. I felt pride that my country had found this one bad man, relief that this one particular threat has been eliminated. I also feel concern because I am convinced that his followers will retaliate and I am worried as to how. I watched the towers fall on television, saw the remains first hand and close up ( http://www.picturesandwordsbybarb.com/WTC.Story.pdf ).
We are now waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hope and pray in whatever manner and to whatever entity you do that it does not happen, but be prepared that it will..