Sheehan Gives Up, Losing Even More

This morning I read an article about Cindy Sheehan and her decision about giving up her anti-war protest. And I'm amazed at how blind she is.

One of her children decides to enlist in the military, Casey Sheehan, and ends up dying in Baghdad. She then decides to protest against the war.

I have no problem with people who protest against what this country does. I admire people who stand up peacefully and lead people with similar beliefs. And that is what Cindy did. However, I do have a problem with people who get caught up into a movement like this and forget about their more important responsibilities.

"She said her antiwar activism had cost her her marriage, that she had put the survivor's benefits paid for her son's death and all her speaking and book fees into the cause and that she now owed extensive medical bills." The article talks about how Cindy Sheehan finally goes home after devoting all of her time to this campaign.

So let me get this straight... she loses a son in the war, still has a husband and other children back home, but decides to go on a campaign for several years only to lose her husband, savings, and time investing into her kids that were still alive. This is so backwards! Because of this "cause" of campaigning against the war, she ends up losing even more of her family: not only her son in the war, but also her husband and very likely her other kids' respect as a mother.

So often do we do this in our own lives. We think too much about the bigger perspective. We think too much about the world "out there." We think too much about how other people should run their lives. Myself included.

How much better off would we be if we concentrated on our own lives? Wouldn't we benefit more from focusing on fixing our own problems instead of the problems of others?

Sure, by doing this we wouldn't have the publicity that Cindy got when she protested Bush and said that her son "did indeed die for nothing." And there's certainly nothing wrong with voicing your opinions in public. But how many people are going to respect what she has to say when she focused more on her (respectfully) dead son and her political agenda than she focused on her own family -- her husband and children, alive and well.

Where are our priorities?

Photo from CNN.com