In Abort73’s thought-provoking video “Opposites,” viewers are asked to consider, “What is the opposite of the greatest love?” If the greatest love is to lay down your life for another, the opposite of that is to lay down another’s life for your own.
In recent weeks, Canada’s prairie provinces have experienced two tragedies that embody these two principles. Incidentally, both involved two men and two children. We’ve all been bombarded with the horrifying news about 5-year-old Nathan O’Brien being murdered, and 54-year-old Douglas Garland being charged with that crime. Lesser-known news is that four days before those charges were laid, on July 11, a 39-year-old man and a 10-year-old boy were also at a crossroad.
Aaron Mooney couldn’t have known when he and his 10-year-old son hopped into their truck in Saskatchewan that the road they would soon drive down was covered with water from a nearby slough. As Aaron lost control of the vehicle and it began sinking, he made a heroic choice that would lead to his own demise: Aaron helped his son get out of the sinking truck but unfortunately didn’t succeed in getting himself out. The following day his body was recovered.
No one will question why Aaron Mooney did what he did, for we know intuitively that it was the right thing to do. And yet countless questions are raised about Douglas Garland’s murder charge—how could he have committed such an unspeakable act on a little boy? With what has been publicized so far, some will surmise that Nathan just got caught in the crossfire, that bad business history between Garland and Nathan’s grandfather along with a chance decision for Nathan to have a sleepover at his grandparents, were circumstances that made for a horrifying outcome.
Whatever the specifics, one man selfishly chose to lay down a little boy’s life for his own, while another selflessly chose to lay down his own life for a little boy. Each man’s decision ultimately comes down to one thing—to the same thing, in fact—to choice. Holocaust survivor Dr. Viktor Frankl wrote in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” that “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Choice. We all have it. And as these stories reveal, one can be blessed by a person’s choice and another can be a victim of it.
The issue is not that we choose. The issue is what we choose. Do we choose the greatest love? Or its opposite?
Reprinted with permission from CCBR.