Monday, March 12, 2007
Remembering
One of the hardest, and trickiest questions of all is how to live a Christian witness in the face of dealing with people who are there to kill you? When this goes on a geopolitical level, not just a one-on-one, it gets even trickier and nastier.
Every war brings this up. In WWII, huge numbers of bystanders were killed; in Iraq, large numbers of people have been killed because their fellow religionists are fighting a war within their religion that was allowed full bloom because of the disintegration our actions unleashed. The evilness of it is made worse because of the asymetrical nature and a philosophy that sees all folks as fair game and legitimate targets, with no non-combatants marked as exempt.
Each step of the way seems to release more and more anger, more and more willingness to say might makes right.
Yet each loss is precious in the sight of those who survive, in the possibility snuffed out by untimely death, in the fact that these are not counters, but real people.
This is the future of warfare, a democratization of combat in ways that should have never been released. And it is truly, horrendously evil.
And yet, knowing this, how does one walk through the rubble and make the right choice? Total pacifism is nothing more than asking to be the victim, denial of the reality on the ground, the anger, the hate that is rooted in more than any one government, but seems to be a culture clash, both east and west and parts of west vs. west and east vs. east makes all easy answers also false.
As we walk through the rubble, it is good to realize that we, as Christians, day by day, are there to break whatever chains of hate we can, and pray for the wisdom to act correctly, and plead for God's mercy to show the way out.
And to remember each death, each wounding, each family ripped apart by hate, each keening wail of grief is real, and never turn these people into statistics.
Every war brings this up. In WWII, huge numbers of bystanders were killed; in Iraq, large numbers of people have been killed because their fellow religionists are fighting a war within their religion that was allowed full bloom because of the disintegration our actions unleashed. The evilness of it is made worse because of the asymetrical nature and a philosophy that sees all folks as fair game and legitimate targets, with no non-combatants marked as exempt.
Each step of the way seems to release more and more anger, more and more willingness to say might makes right.
Yet each loss is precious in the sight of those who survive, in the possibility snuffed out by untimely death, in the fact that these are not counters, but real people.
This is the future of warfare, a democratization of combat in ways that should have never been released. And it is truly, horrendously evil.
And yet, knowing this, how does one walk through the rubble and make the right choice? Total pacifism is nothing more than asking to be the victim, denial of the reality on the ground, the anger, the hate that is rooted in more than any one government, but seems to be a culture clash, both east and west and parts of west vs. west and east vs. east makes all easy answers also false.
As we walk through the rubble, it is good to realize that we, as Christians, day by day, are there to break whatever chains of hate we can, and pray for the wisdom to act correctly, and plead for God's mercy to show the way out.
And to remember each death, each wounding, each family ripped apart by hate, each keening wail of grief is real, and never turn these people into statistics.
Labels: Dark Times
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