Luke 7: 44
"Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, 'Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.'"
I was clipping my toenails and pondering what it means to be an American.
I'm 64 years old, but my feet, if I say so myself, look decades younger. One toenail, however, gives away both my age and the abuse that my feet have endured. I'm an old distance runner, and most of my workouts over the many decades have involved purposefully wearing shoes a bit too small. Since my left foot, my power foot for both running and basketball, is bigger than my right, that means my left foot has the honor of being half a size too large for my workout shoes.
The consequence is that the toenail on my small left toe is routinely crushed and broken during workouts. My left small toenail has thickened, blackened, and is a real pain to trim. It ruins the look of my nine other youthful white-as-the-driven-snow toes.
If you've figured out by now that this is all a brutal, sarcastic, but completely truthful analogy, no kudos for you. It was too obvious. I give you a comment from Laura Hogue, defense attorney for Gregory McMichael in the trial for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery:
"Turning Ahmaud Arbery into a victim after the choices that he made does not reflect the reality of what brought Ahmaud Arbery to Satilla Shores in his khaki shorts with no socks to cover his long, dirty toenails."
The three assailants were all found guilty. I find no solace in that, as they were quite obviously guilty, and anything except guilty verdicts would have been nonsensical and accompanied by an astronomical property damage price tag. What I found most striking was that a defense attorney thought the lines she used to be both an appropriate and potentially effective lexicon. Talking heads took her to task for uttering these lines, but didn't question their possible utility.
So my question, dear reader, is what kind of a country allows such things to be said in its legal system, and what kind of populace comprises juries that might be swayed by "long, dirty toenails?"
I can only hope that if I'm shot dead one day that the prosecution is allowed to pull up a pic of my nine lovely pinkish toenails each time the defense attorney mentions my blackish misshapen small toenail, crushed and mangled by miles and general neglect.
John 13:14
"If I then, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet."
Bob Dietz
December 31, 2021
