Every law enforcement officer has experienced their on-duty “Haceldana”. What is a “Haceldana” you may ask? It is an Ancient Greek term meaning “a field of blood”.
The story attributed to the term, “Haceldana”, is the name of a potter’s field. This potter’s field was purchased with the thirty pieces of silver that Judas threw back at the temple high priest prior to Judas deciding to literally “hang around” and busting his gut over the god-forsaken landscape. No RSVP’s nor RIP’s in this Hell’s acre Gumshoe surmises.
Side Note: It has been said that these thirty pieces of silver were the first government grant given to a Catholic Bishop. Lesson learned perhaps?
A field of blood is definitely a gory and disgusting macabre picture my friends. Combat veterans as well as street cops can attest to these actual but surreal scenes of carnage.
Fevered dreams of never-put-away horrid memories visit the 911 first responder who is taken unaware and defenseless. These soul-killing memories arrive unannounced and uninvited through unexpected sights, sounds, and smells that trigger them.
What to do? Mask the symptoms with self-prescribed medications of drugs, alcohol, and other vices? Slow suicide is not painless. These only put a bandaid on a severe hemorrhage. You need a 911 call for the 911 responders, don’t cha know?
Gumshoe learned through the grace of God to seek out what is good; what is true and what is beautiful in order to effectively confront what is evil; what is false and what is ugly.
In the best-selling book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl, he states:
We have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.
Scripture states in John 14:6 that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Too bad poor Judas did not take that path to spiritual salvation, instead taking the deadman walk to his own personal “Haceldana”.
Well, folks, Gumshoe will now step down from his soapbox. Always remember to love the ones who love you and really try to love the ones who don’t.
Coram Deo!
PS: God bless and keep all combat veterans as well as first responders. Keep ‘em in your prayers. Back the blue.
Another thought provoking article. Vietnam was my first experience of the evils that man can inflict on man. Maybe it was the precursor of things to come in my life. Law Enforcement. Again the evil that man can inflict on man sometimes by their own hand. Working Homicides was part of the program. Having to go to the ME’s to watch a autopsy in hopes that he could give us a cause of death, did they die by drug overdose, how long the victim had been deceased.
It did make me wonder sometimes why would a loving god allow this to happen? What did the victim do to deserve this. Then you come to the realization that it isn’t god that allows this but the Prince of Darkness. We are human and as humans we get to make our own decisions god or bad. Although they will never nominate me for Saint Hood, I am happy that I took the right fork in the road to salvation.
Thanks again Gumshoe
Semper Fi
The longer I was a cop—the stronger was my faith grew in our Lord. He was my anchor during the ugliest of ugly times. Keep the faith Jarhead Tom. Semper Fi!
God created everything good. He did not create evil. Evil came into the world as a result of disobedience. As a police officer seeing both sides of good and evil, I could come to my own opinion that the evil did not have and faith base at all, and when I think of how they have taken God out of nearly everything, evil is growing like a fungus. Sad but true.
Agreed Nightingale. God desires no souls to perish. Folks damn themselves to Hell and God honors their free-willed choice.
Evil is real and it does exist. We all can choose the path we take. The old expression, “the devil is in the details”, tells me that the small compromises that one can make against our better natures are the baby steps taken onto the path of perdition until one blinds himself into a full gallop through Hell’s gate.
Free will comes with ultimate accountability for one’s actions. I believe there is a God who will judge us all and determine our place in eternity.
Thanks Ken for your comment my friend.
I have experienced blood and gore a few times as a hotel general manager. Mostly due to suicides and therefore on a much smaller scale than seen by military and first responder folks. But, my exposure was enough to give me serious thought as to evil, what goes on within the human mind, where is the line between strong and weak, and a number of other heavy topics. It is clear to me that every human carries the seeds of both good and evil. The million-dollar question is why and at what point does a human opt to use the evil seeds?