After a tragedy, sometimes people ask “where was God in this?” Sometimes I want to ask “where is God in your response?” and, more importantly, “what kind of God is in your response?”
Can we agree to a verbal armistice? Let’s pretend that bad memes and misuse of statistics are like using nerve gas and Agent Orange. Be the bigger one and stop using it, demonstrating that not-using-it-ness to those who disagree with you. Come on, I know you can do it.
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“I have heard all this before.
What miserable comforters you are!
Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air?
What makes you keep on talking?
I could say the same things if you were in my place.
I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.
But if it were me, I would encourage you.
I would try to take away your grief.” (Job 16:2-5 | NLT)
I don’t have much to say that others have not said. What I would like to do is to direct you to some articles and blogs that I hope will help you, as they helped me, make sense of the tragedies at Sandy Hook and Chengpeng and remember what I should direct my mind and heart toward after it has passed.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.” – Fred Rogers
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Ron Paul’s farewell address to Congress is the best “State of the Union” address I have ever heard from an American politician. Some of the wisest words come from leaders as they step down from their positions, not as they acquire them. This is worth hearing every minute of.
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“When the war ended, I don’t know if I was more relieved that we’d won or that I didn’t have to go back. Passchendaele was a disastrous battle – thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry. Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Herr Kuentz, Germany’s only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional. He is 107. We’ve had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it’s a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn’t speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?”
-Harry Patch, the last surviving veteran of WWI, who passed away in 2009
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[back to part 9: Education]
“And other issues to consider”
or
“Issues I may not care less about, but am squeezing together for time’s sake”
or
“Ok, Caleb Coy, let’s hurry up and wrap this thing up—I gotta vote in like 3 days.”
So, remember how I’ve been going on about Ron Paul because I’m writing his name in even though he’s not running? In this post I will get into things I disagree with him on, or am unsure about. This post will also cover other issues I have yet to mention. After this, I plan on having a final post to reflect on the whole experience before we all go and jump in those booths. It may be that I have a post after that to reflect on the results, and I already know that no matter what I will be reminding us all not to panic, because Christ will still be King when it’s all over.
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[back to part 7: Healthcare]
“The War on Some Drugs”
or
“The War on Poor People Who Have Drugs”
or
“The War on Drugs Pharmaceutical Companies Aren’t Cashing In On”
or
“The War on Black People” (ok, that one’s harsh)
Take a brief look at what’s happening in America today:
Fully Armed Swat team shoots at ex-marine 71 Times in Marijuana raid—No Marijuana found
Marijuana raid kills father to be
And several other tragic drug war fatalities
In the simplest of terms, any substance that affects the body in a way that can impair a person is a drug, whether it be for medicine, recreation, or any other purpose. Thus, the term “drug” is a neutral term. However, we often hear about a so-called “war on drugs,” which is actually, if we apply it honestly, a war on particular drugs and for particular reasons, benefitting only particular people.
[back to part 4: Economy]
“Swords Into Ploughshares: The Golden Rule for Nations”
or
“Bring the Boys Back Home” (if you really want to honor them)
or
“Can Rambo turn the other cheek?”
Ron Paul has an appropriate understanding of U.S. foreign policy, U.S. defense, and involvement in the Middle-East—far more appropriate than either of the candidates.
“You can kill us, but you cannot hurt us.” -Justin Martyr
“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”-Tertullian
*Matthew 5:9; 5:38-45; 26:52; Luke 6:27-28; Romans 12:14; 12:17-21; 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Peter 3:9; and Revelation 12:11
Having finished the book A Faith Not Worth Fighting For, I have one wish, that it was instead called A Faith Worth Not Fighting For. I think that phrase is more positive and more accurately reflects the essays within. The Christian faith is something I will fight for in my heart and in the endeavors of my faith, not with weapons, but with the piercing sword of the spirit that gives new life. Here the authors explain why they chose the title they did, which I think is justified.
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Chapter 12 was on the alleged violent Jesus in the temple.
Chapter 13 is about the alleged violent Jesus in John’s Revelation. J. Nelson Kraybill asks “What About the Warrior Jesus in Revelation 19: ‘He has trampled out the vintage’?”
To start with, Kraybill reminds us that “we should read Revelation as reassurance that God has chosen to act and redeem in the midst of a messed up world.” That’s important, considering some of the weird interpretations of the book that have come up over the ages. Far too many people still believe that it’s something like the “Left Behind” books that themselves left wisdom and truth behind. What John writes is in essence a revealing. In all the troubles Christians were undergoing and about to undergo, we Jesus is revealed. That is the purpose of the book John wrote on Patmos.
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The last chapter dealt with the centurion. This chapter deals with the temple incident.
John Dear in Chapter 12 asks, “Didn’t Jesus overturn the tables and chase people out of the temple with a whip?”
Most of the paintings of this incident were done after versions of the Bible were disseminated that translated the word as “whip”. Like paintings of a white Jesus, sometimes these old images continue through a culture, regardless of what a text says.
However, Dear makes it clear that this incident reminds us that “the nonviolent Jesus was not passive. He did not sit under a tree and practice his breathing.” Jesus was very confrontational, and may have seemed angry enough to hit someone or more. It’s no wonder we may think his actions at the temple prove he wasn’t nonviolent because it was so…action-oriented. “His nonviolence was active, provocative, public, daring and dangerous.”
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CALEB COY 