Human Rights Violations in China

In the September 19, 2005 issue of Time Magazine there was an article concerning the forced abortions and mass sterilizations caried out by the Chinese government (mostly local) on women who already had one child, the limit the law allows. Though the Chinese federal government says that it is not their policy, people who have witnessed and experienced the events are now suffering from health related issues. The scars of carrying a child for 8.5 months only to have nurses strap her to a table while doctors drive a needle into the child to kill it and then take the child's body are unbearable.

The reason they say it occurs, however, is that population increase is a key statistic that could cost a local official any type of promotion. If the province is experiencing population growth due to too many babies being born local officials will not advance their careers.

It is heartbreaking to come to grips with the fact people will sacrafice babies and even the lives of adults for their own ambitions of power. Is it not a violation of human rights to abort babies against the mother's will?

Katrina

The violence of a storm has produced violence in its chaotic aftermath. It's understandable. But why does the media focus on the violent stories and the shortcomings of rescue workers who have never witnessed anything close to this magnitude? Why are we naturally pulled to the horrible violence of it all as we fail to tell the stories of heroes.

Are there less stories of heroes in this crisis? Does the bad outweigh the good--not in events that have taken place but in the behavior and reaction of people? I don't think so. I believe that there are far more stories of heroism in this crisis than what we have heard.

Its simply easier to find the villains or the victims. The squeaky wheel gets the oil and the louder people get the media. But I have to believe there are heroes who have risked their lives and would make us proud to call them our brothers and sisters.

These are the people who have responded to the violence of the storm with compassion and love and by doing so have calmed the storm for thousands taking the example of the God/Man that once did similar feats of wonder.

Transformation, Transformation, Transformation

That is what this is all about. We know biblically that we are all created in the image of God. We know that we are all fallen and are redeemed by the blood of Christ and are being prepared for the New Creation to come (Rev. 21).

The anithesis that has separated us from one another and from God runs through us all, including our enemies. We are all in the same boat. We are all in the need of transformation and must look to the transformation of one another through the love of Christ. That is what it means to be Christlike.

That is why I whole heartedly disagree with Robertson and so many others. We must look to the transformation of our enemies rather than their convenient disposal. When Jesus said love your enemies he meant every word of it.

To deny the opportunity for our enemies to change is to deny ourselves the same opportunity. For we are all capable of atrocity in one form or another. God does not allow his people to live under the law of "Kill or be Killed." In fact, Jesus proved that his way was far more excellent and effective.

Robertson: You're too Eager

When Pat Robertson, the Religious Right leader who sometimes makes me wince when he speaks for so many Christians, said on TV the other day that Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, should be assassinated because of his anti-American ideology, I winced to such an extent my face got stuck that way.

He basically justifies the assassination by saying it would be cheaper to assassinate him now before he becomes a US threat (and obviously he would be because he criticizes President Bush, in which case I am a potential threat to national security because I have also criticized the President) than to wait until Venezuela becomes a launching pad of communism and Muslim extremists and costing us another $200 billion in war costs.

There is the breaking point of the preemptive strike that led us into Iraq. According to the pre-emptive clause we could assassinate somebody else before they even come into power and we would feel ourselves justified. The idea is not only morally corrupt, but it is not freedom, merely paranoid schitzophrenia.

When Bonhoeffer was trying to figure out if God would endorse the assassination of Hitler, he had his own personal war within his heart. He always believed that violence would not be the answer, but the consequences of Hitler dying before his height of power are far from negative. Millions would be saved. But even then the decision was not obvious for Bonhoeffer. It really was personal distress to come to the realities of war.

I do not see the same struggle in Mr. Robertson. In fact, he is willing to take one life because of the financial burden it would become to do it later. What kind of unbiblical, un-Christlike comments are those? Please Mr. Robertson, What Would Jesus Do?

I still have to believe in transformation. Not only for the sake of this planet, but for my wincing face as well.

Uganda: Forgiveness or Violence

This post concerns Dateline NBC's Children of war in Uganda as seen on Aug.21, 2005. The link to Dateline's website is provided. Children of Northern Uganda flee in the late afternoons to Gulu to avoid being abducted by Kony's army. Up to 25,000 children sleep in Gulu every night and over 9,000 children have been abducted in the last 12 months. This photo was taken by Marcus Bleasdale.

There is a name of a charismatic leader who has committed atrocities beyond the comprehension of our American minds. His name is Joseph Kony. He claims to be the voice for God and he crushes the spirit of children to gain their allegiance. He and his cronies capture families and in a indescribably deprived ritual will kill the father before the eyes of the children. Then they will mutilate the mother but stop before she is dead. Turning to the children they demand that they kill there own mother or be killed themselves.

By the time the act is over the children, sometimes as young as 8 or maybe even younger have committed two atrocities that will wipe out hope from their lives as they are introduced to a new darkness in the civil war in Uganda as Kony's soldiers. Not only will the kids feel guilty...no, damned for the murder they will lose all hope of redemption in the life to come because they have offended their ancestors and according to the African worldview, ancestors are often the only hope they will ever have.

There are two major fighters in this war who are focused on saving the children. Rev. Sam Childer runs an orphanage in Uganda and is a born again, bible believing Christian who waits for the day to confront Kony face to face. When asked about the confrontation, Childer simply says he will win. He carries a pistol wherever he goes, a loaded rifle on his lap when driving through suspect territory and brags about when he was growing up he loved to fight. I have nothing but respect for him, for not turning a blind eye to the horrors of what Kony is doing and for saving the lives of countless children in a land devoid of hope after a 19 year long civil war.

But then there is Angelina Acheng Atyam. Her own daughter was abducted by Kony's Army. But she believes there is no way for Kony to ever make restitution for his atrocities, he has simply caused to much pain to make up for himself. All she asks is for him to stop, to ask for forgiveness and she will give it to him. She acknowledges she would be trading justice for peace, but then at least so many lives could be spared either from death or the pain of losing the people they love.

Kony's army even offered her her daughter back in exchange for her silence and she refused. Not because she did not love her daughter, but because she knew she was only one of thousands who had the same pain and so asked, "What about them?" Later her daughter would escape and they would be reunited.

In such brutality I begin to wonder if a nonviolent movement against the civil war would actually work against someone like Kony. I don't know. What I do know is that nonviolence would be the path that remained most faithful to God's call if, and only if, it was not mistaken as an excuse to do nothing. Courage and transformation can take place, and it can happen even when the revolution is nonviolent.

Please pray for Uganda and Rev. Childer and especially the message of peace that Angelina brings to a nation that has forgotten the word.

Penetrating the Abyss

My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan is a book that chronicles many of the horror stories that occurred in South Africa under the Apartheid regime. Though often disturbing, the book really chronicles how awful humanity can really be toward one another.

The purpose for this post, however, is about how brutal Africans were toward one another during the political unrest in South Africa in the mid to late 80's. Though no blame can be taken from the Apartheid regime for they created the system which divided African families, it was unnerving to find that Africans were directly responsible for triple the amount of deaths than Afrikaners during the unrest. The mutilations, torture and anger that seethed in the skin of all of South Africa should be a warning to all people of what we are capable of as human beings.

All over the continent of Africa there is civil war, violence, rape and a brutality unmatched in most places of the world today. But we would be mistaken to believe that that spirit of division and violence is "over there" on the Dark Continent. No, it is within us all.

When we fail to realize this single point or even fail to act upon the recognition, forgiveness is forgone, a mercy drought occurs and love is hindered by the blame we place on "the other" for our pain.

But to recognize that we are in need of the same grace our enemy needs, that we need forgiveness as much as "the other" and that "the other," no matter how appalling their crime, is our brother and/or sister we will begin to learn what it means to love like Christ and that love will penetrate the darkest abyss.

The Violence Within Us

Lately I have been reading Walter Wink's Jesus and nonviolence: A Third Way. As I was reading it Wink makes a wise decision in making the reader examine himself with the understanding that as much as we hope to fight violence with nonviolence we cannot forget that violence is within us all as a result of the fall and to fail to recognize our own darkness from within we will risk becoming self-righteous.

I suppose we would be like the Pharisees having abided by the written law but really being white washed tombs and dead.

Please, YHWH, keep us from becoming self righteous in our quest for your justice to reign in the hearts of all people. May we come to the cross, may we follow you through the fires but may we always do so not by our might or even our will but by your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, Amen.

Toys That Kill

We live in a free society where capitalism is praised for our wealth and consumerism is the opium of the masses. This will not be a plea to change the law of the land, to impose more rules that do little in actually shaping the character of a person or a country. No, this is for Christian parents out there and anyone else with some common sense of dignity. Please, do not buy your children toy guns.

It may be our right to bear arms as Americans. Every good American boy or girl should grow up playing cowboys and Indians. After all the United States began with a genocide of Native peoples; it's in our blood. But we are Christians first. Christians who are suppose to think others more highly than ourselves (even if that in and of itself might be anti-American) and who are suppose to love our enemies.

The problems with toy guns is that they help children pretend and fantasize about a violent world. It's fun and cool to be a marksman with a b.b. gun and to run in the woods pretending to shoot one another. Accept it is a fantasy that continues to indoctrinate our children into a world where we return evil for evil and that fails to love their enemies. I can imagine Jesus having a crisis as a kid pretending to kill a friend when he knowns himself to be the author of life.

Not until Columbine did the seriousness of guns really hit middle class suburban homes. Unfortunately I heard one student who had lived through the massacre and had friends among the 14 dead defending Grand Theft Auto, a game where you randomly shoot anyone you want and receive points for it. Because it is considered virtual reality it is OK because it isn't real.

Or is it? There is a difference in pretending to kill someone and actually killing them. I agree. But life is a process of spiritual formation, violence is a spiritual act, just how are we forming our spirit when we visit all these virtual worlds? As many instances in our recent history has proved, that line between reality and fantasy eventually gets blurred and another person is dead after a bar fight or over a pair of shoes. Maybe it won't be everybody, but isn't just one enough?

London Terrorists

In a sad and nearly predictable move, London police have become like the people they are chasing; terrorists. It is predictable because we live in cultures that continually seek retribution for violent crimes and they seek it using violence. It was predictable because The US and the UK are true believers in the myth that the only way to bring violent offenders to justice is through violence.

Like the terrorists, the police have killed an innocent man. How did he pose a threat if he was running away? How did he get shot 8 times though he posed little threat being unarmed and completely innocent. One report simply said the victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sounds like a police squad that I would fear. People should even think to themselves, "Should I go to the train today? No, if the terrorists won't get me the police might."

Forgive the sarcasm. But millennia of human history have tried to overcome violence with violence and the only reason the UK and US continue to do so is because we are good at it. It is our way of staying on top. Yet God constantly calls us as a "Christian" nation to overcome evil with good precisely because when we overcome evil with evil, innocent people die.

The caption for the picture: Matuzinho Otone holds a picture of his son Jean Charles de Menezes who was killed by UK police. Photo credit: Victor R. Caivano/AP

Forgiveness Forgone: Jeanette Sliwinski

This story is incredibly sad...for both families. I understand that the family of the victims are not only angry, but confused, shocked, grief stricken and in a dark place we can only hope to avoid ourselves. When lives are taken from us in this type of fashion, it is beyond devastating.

That is why I still have hope that one day the brothers and family of the victims who have condemned Jeanette Sliwinski will find it in their hearts to forgive her. For true healing from wounds this deep can only come through forgiveness.

Again, I completely understand that the victim's family are not at the point to forgive because of where they are at in the grief process. But I still hope. I am more concerned that the media aired the thoughts made from such a place because there will be no follow up story when or if forgiveness is granted someday, and yet again the media has perpetuated the righteousness of punitive justice without hope of restoration.

When I hear one family say they wish for her to sit and think about what she did, I wonder if this is a response from a place where they do not know how to respond. She tried to commit suicide and has found herself in a worse place than before. I am certain she is thinking about it and only wishes her selfish attempt would have been successful. But that is not what we should wish upon her. Nor do we wish her to be punished. As Christians we hope she will be restored and that all of the families involved will someday find healing from their grief.

It is that forgiveness that becomes so necessary in a world of violence. Because the words of the victim's family are not far from the words of many in Iraq or even the Middle East, who have forgone forgiveness for generations and for generations the killing has not ceased.

Spouse Abuse and Superbowl Linked?

Bill Wylie-Kellerman, in an article concerning the principality of sports, that is sport’s spirituality and power, responds to a statistic that Catholic theologian Michael Novak mentions as an answer to the question of whether violent sports like football sublimates and controls violence or socializes us to violence and legitimates it. Novak mentions the interesting fact that police officers around the country know that during Monday Night Football crime rates plummet. However, Wylie-Kellerman points out another fact that is far more telling. Super Bowl Sunday is regularly the day highest in incidents of spouse abuse. He follows, “All that testosterone saturated in adrenalin and alcohol. Then half the men in the world’s largest viewing audience come up losers for the day. I suppose they either buy something or beat somebody” (The Witness, Jan/Feb 1998).

Do sports control violence or legitimate it? Wylie-Kellerman also points out that inner-city gang colors are typically of football or sports teams.

Pete Seeger: Those Three Are On My Mind

In his song about Goodman, Schwerner & Chaney, the 3 civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964, Pete Seeger recalls singing in a black church when they announced that they had found the buried bodies. As he looked around he recalls, "I remember looking around the room seeing people's lips moving in prayer. I didn't hear anyone shouting for revenge; Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Philosophy of non-violence made an impact. All these years later, I am more convinced that non-violence is the way the world will be saved. We must learn toforget revenge."

In a world that perpetuates war on the justification of revenge and now living in a country that justifies preemptive strikes to protect America and prevent terrorism, I believe we have already lost. In our war on terror we should heed the name. War and Terror are siblings of the same
parents: Violence and Power. Therefore the genetic makeup of War and Terror's children, that is the results of a War on Terror, is at best, disfigurement and at worst, death. We cannot use violence to overcome violent people for they will never truly change, but remain bitter and violent ambassadors of hate, waiting to for the day they can pounce yet again. We cannot overcome evil with evil whether we are talking about our homes or our countries, size is not the issue. The true issue is our souls.

Why Non-violent Social Action?

The Crucifix

Evangelicals have long been an advocate for the empty cross as a Christian symbol stressing the Resurrection, that Christ is no longer on the cross because God has raised him from the dead. Unfortunately, Evangelicals have completely lost the beautiful artistry of the crucifix and often find it a symbol not of Orthodox Christianity but of the Roman Catholic Church. Though the wounds of division still bleed, I have seen more hope recently of both sides, Catholic and Protestants, seeing one another as brothers rather than enemies in a world increasingly hostile of truly Biblical worldviews. As an Evangelical/Reformed/Protestant Christian I am urging Protestants to take a fresh look at the Crucifix, though Catholics may benefit as well.

The Crucifix may not be so much a symbol to remind us of Christ's death or even of what Christ did for us but rather a symbol to remind us of how we should live for Christ and for one another. It is a reminder that we must constantly die to ourselves so that Christ may live in us. It is a reminder that we should place other people's interest before our own. It is a reminder that life as a Christian is sacrifice and not the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

The same can be said concerning our identity as heirs of Abraham, that all Christians are also included into the family of the Chosen Ones. This is not an exclusive club to horde blessings (sometimes we even think we earned the blessings through our personal righteousness...we cannot earn grace!) as we blame the heathens for their own distress. Rather Abraham and all who have become his heirs are to be a blessing to the nations. Not to look inward in arrogance but to look outward in mercy.

It is at the cross that we must learn it was love that drove Jesus to non-violent action, and that non-violent action overcame Hell and all its power for the sake of you and me.

They Know Not What They Do

Maybe the worst moment in church history was when the Pope around 1000 A.D. declared that the Crusades were just and heaven would be granted to all who fought and were killed during the wars. By justifying the Crusades, in one small declaration, the Church had bowed to the spirit of the age, that is the spirit of domination, and we still live under its shadow.

When Jesus died on the cross his words were "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He did not use violence to overcome evil for violence is evil. Instead, he used love and forgiveness to conquer death. We are instructed to do likewise.

Stephen, the first Martyr of the church, proved to us that it can be done. When being stoned he ask for the Father to forgive the stone throwers. This act of nonviolence is the call of the church and has been since the Crucifixion.

Yet in the name of security, we wage war against terrorist and Christians seem to be okay with this. But we cannot overcome evil with evil. If we use violence to dethrone the god of violence, even if we win, the god of violence still rules...only now he rules in us.

Jesus and Stephen were not passive in their resistance to the authorities. Instead they were overcoming evil with good, understanding a larger picture was at stake. That larger picture was the truth that the men who pinned Jesus to the cross or who threw the stones at Stephen really were victims of a greater and more evil power that they unwittingly succumbed to. To destroy them would not destroy the power that ruled them but would be to submit to that same power.

By forgiving them they were not overcome by evil, and through the Resurrection of Christ they defeated those powers with good.

Presumption

There is a sense in which violence always involves idolatry. Follow the
blood of the innocents to the foot of the idols. For what and for whom
are human beings willing to kill? Even against the "guilty," violence
involves an idolatrous and preemptive exploit of the divine prerogative.
This is more than merely "God on our side." Whether it is in the death
penalty or war, the exercise of official violence generally presumes to
know or to execute (which is to say, usurp) the judgment of God who
alone holds the power of life and death.
--Bill Wylie-Kellerman as found in The Witness.

Opening the Eyes of Blind Prejudice

The doctrine that they preached was a non-violent doctrine. It was not a doctrine that made their followers yearn for revenge but one that called upon them to champion change. It was not a doctrine that asked an eye for an eye but one that summoned men to seek to open the eyes of blind prejudice. The Negro turned his back on force not only because he knew he could not win his freedom through physical force but also because he believed that through physical force he could lose his soul.

--Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Why We Can't Wait

NPR Report on Space Weapons

According to Theresa Hitchens, Vice President of the Center for Defense Information (www.cdi.org) was interviewed on NPR's Worldview by Jerome McDonnell and had some very interesting information. First, the Bush Administration is in the middle of revamping our weapons in space program desiring to bring weapons to space before any other country.

There are international treaties that has laid the foundation to set space as common ground and a place for peace. There are also treaties where satellites are not aloud to interfere with any one else's satellites. Yet, according to Hitchens, space has been militarized even though it has not yet been weaponized. But Bush is seeking to weaponize the ultimate "high ground."

For the last 20 years the UN General Assembly has been voting on a treaty to prevent any weapons in space and to keep it for purely peaceful reasons including communications and economic development. In December 2004, 178 countries voted in favor of this treaty and 4 countries abstained. Those 4 countries were the United States, Israel, Palau and Haiti. Palau and Haiti really have no space program to begin with.

Why is the Bush Administration bent on world domination? I don't believe it is about security any longer. If 6,000 years of known history has proved anything, it is that war cannot bring peace.

I am concerned, Mr. Bush, about the amount of money you spend on the military in the name of security, and the amount of violence you have authorized. I am concerned that if we continue down this path, God's judgment will be fierce. I am concerned that America can ever identify with the Prince of Peace because we have known only war, economically, socially and spiritually.

I pray God calls us back, and we listen to his voice.

The City and Non-Violence

I guess the real question begins is that can a non-violent program of education and action work in the inner-city. In a place torn by gangs, structural and systemic racism and classism and a loss of respect for human life and a general spirit of disunity among people on the South Side of Chicago, is a revisiting of MLK's theology necessary and fruitful? I guess we will see. My hope is to begin looking at the question seriously within the next year with the youth group I am a part of as well as the church.

Hero, The Movie

In the realm of myth and legend, and in the artistry of Chinese Martial Arts films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon comes a brilliant movie, Hero that raises questions of violence throughout. For the film makers, a hero is a person who lays down his life for the greater good or for someone other than himself/herself.

What is interesting is the critique of the emperor in the end. Though the Chinese government has in the past censored some of director's Zhang Yimou movies, this one made it to the world stage because of its support of China's identity to its people as being "Our Land." Yet underneath, it was the hero who died for the greater good and who lived up to the highest ideal--that the sword would disappear and there would only be peace for the warrior.

There were three ideals expounded in the movie that are crucial for this part. 1. The warrior first learns his craft and becomes one with the sword (Zen like, you could say). Here even a blade of grass can be the warriors weapon. 2. The sword of the warrior now resides inside his heart and he needs no weapon to defeat his enemy but does so with his bare hands. 3. The warrior's sword disappears altogether and he no longer needs or uses violence to achieve peace. He is the real Hero.

In the movie, the emperor is at most at level 1. Where the heroes who were seeking to subvert the empire achieved this highest ideal of non-violence. Even the emperor's noble goal of unifying the land is not an excuse to use any means necessary. In the end, the emperor was not a Hero but would depict a government who continues to violently oppose dissenting views within its borders. Tiananmen Square is a modern example.

The irony of the film is its action and violence in a message that helps us remember, revenge is not justice nor is revenge ours to take. To counter violence with violence only leads to more violence. True heroes lay down their lives for others.

Nonviolence is Action

According to Ken Sehested, "Nonviolence is more than refusing to shoot someone. It is not to be confused with passivity or with sectarian withdrawal (in the name of moral purity). Rather it involves a commitment to willingly enter a situation of conflict, to absorb the assault (includes verbal and emotional) without resort to revenge, to listen with empathy to the "enemy," which involves the willingness to have your mind changed. In occasions like ours, no amount of voting will bring healing. Parliamentary procedure must give way to the discipline of reconciliation."

Our Crooked View of History

Nonviolent general strikes have overthrown at least seven Latin American
dictators: Carlos Ibanez del Campo of Chile (1931), Gerardo Machado y
Morales of Cuba (1933), Jorge Ubico of Guatemala (1944), Elie Lescot of
Haiti (1946), Arnulfo Arias of Panama (1951), Paul Magliore of Haiti
(1956), and Gustavo Rojas Pinilla of Columbia (1957).

In 1989-1990 alone, fourteen nations underwent nonviolent revolutions,
all of them successful except for China, and all of them nonviolent
except for Romania. These revolutions involved 1.7 billion people. If we
total all the nonviolent movements of the twentieth century, the figure
comes to 3.4 billion people, and again, most were successful.

And yet there are people who still insist that nonviolence doesn’t work.
Gene Sharp has itemized 198 different types of nonviolent actions that
are part of the historical record, yet out history books seldom mention
any of them, so preoccupied are they with the power politics and wars.

--Walter Wink, /Jesus and Nonviolence: //A Third Way/ Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2003.

Prayer for Red Lake

Our Lord and our God,
You created us...but not for this.
Though Red Lake walks in the shadow of death, may they know your presence and may they draw close to the Comforter so you too may draw close to them.

Though we as a nation walk with them in the shadow of death, teach us to be present with them in their suffering. Forgive us for trying to give trite and inconsiderate answers for the questions that these tragedies invoke. We are a people who too often live in fear of the questions that cannot be answered, teach us to better live under your sovereignty and not our own.

Though it is presently to near, as our grief wanes, give us this courage: that we will choose to look this evil in the eye, that we will choose to accept its admonishment, and that we choose to change our lives for your glory and the redemption of your people.

Be with the families who lost loved ones to this senseless violence. You are the only God who knows the cross intimately and so the only God who can comfort those who bear their own crosses today. May they know you are there.

Be with Jeff Weise and his family. We are angry with what he has done. But in our anger, Father God, keep us from sin. Keep us from finding scapegoats for our judgments, anger, and bitterness and may they not overcome us with rage. You are the only righteous judge, so teach us to leave the judgment to you alone.

Father...Jesus...Spirit
You have created us...but not for this.

For the Lord will not reject forever.
Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.
--Lamentations 3:31-33

Nelson Mandela: Against the System

I was asked as well about my fears of whites. I knew that people expected me to harbor anger towards whites [for 27 years of imprisonment]. But I had none. In prison, my anger toward whites decreased, but my hatred for the system grew. I wanted South Africa to see that I loved even my enemies while I hated the system that turned us against one another.

-Nelson Mandela in Long Walk to Freedom

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

-Luke 6:27-28

Nonviolence in Post 9-11 America

Originally this blog was for a personal diary of sorts. However, because I have decided to make a word play out of the title At Arms Length, I hope to be discussing issues of violence like the military, weapons, America, freedom, and all the other issues that surround America's thirst for violence.

This, however, is not necessarily to criticize America. That you can find on my other blog, Green Summer Lawn. This is more my trying to process through why my belief in non-violent social action has strengthened the last few years, how far I am willing to take it, and if it really is a viable option in a post 9/11 America under constant threat of nuclear warfare.

I have often heard nuclear weapons called weapons of mass suicide. I have to agree. Denzel Washington in the movie Crimson Tide was right when he said the real enemy in a nuclear war is the war itself. But it is not the nuclear aspect that makes these statements true. Any type of war, whether it is between countries or between families, or between individuals, any action of war is the real enemy.

War is dehumanizing. Not just because of the violence but because the systems that led to the state of war are often dehumanizing to begin with. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison after being incarcerated for 25 years for doing what was right he forgave the ones who held him captive and then pointed out his anger for the system that taught people to hate. I'm sure I will returning to Mandela on a number of these ponderings.

I pray this exercise is fruitful.

At Arms Length

What is it you need to know,
You don't already understand?
When you offer me a drink,
I just keep you at arms length.

--Bill Mallonee, Judas Skin from Slow Dark Train

I suppose that is the struggle and tension we live in. Is it our incessant need to survive on our own, to learn it ourselves, to be independently powerful, wealthy or secure? Is it that same independence that isolates us, allowing us to believe we are insulated from the chaos of this present darkness?

I'm thirsty.

When I see that the violence of the 60's between racial divides becoming the violence of the new century that exists within one's own communities, without discrimination of one's own people, I get thirsty.

When I see a war in Iraq that has diverted funds from our own social porgrams and has left the "underclass" and those struggling to keep their heads above water without a life preserver or a prayer, I get thirsty.

When I see America getting richer on the backs of nations beyond debt with little hope of escaping their corrupted leadership I get thirsty. Not because I am myself righteous or even over zealous, but because America more often chooses the side of money than of love and so often supports warlords and tyrants rather than fighting the genocide that occurs in so many parts of Africa today.

Sadaam needed to be dealt with but realize he was not the most urgent of the threats...except maybe to economic moguls in America.

If there is anything else you read today, please read Dr. King's Beyond Vietnam speech (www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html). Not only will you get an outstanding perspective of AMerican Foreign Policy but you will read a man who understands the gospel of love more intimately than any other I have read in recent history.

The more I hear the speech, the less I find myself keeping you at arms length.