Dear Peacemakers...
I was coming back from class, peeked into the lounge in my dorm, when i saw a crowd of Fannyites staring at the news report of a bombing in Oklahoma City, and it was even more shocking to learn that the fertilizer McVeigh used came from McPherson. We were on the map. National news. And i was just waking up, in Richmond, IN, planning a day with Kendra, when we heard, on the radio, of the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Funny, i can almost rehearse the smells, the tastes, the shock of all those memories. They are as fresh today as they were so many years ago, even now, as we reflect on the last ten years, i can pull the memory and relive it all over again.
The power of our memory, especially in regard to tragedy, is amazing. I know people who can tell you where they were when JFK was shot and killed. Tragedy, in all its forms, seers its place, forever, into the annals of our minds, always there, always ready to be pulled up, always a reminder of the pain caused by those horrific events. Our stories, our lives will always hinge, in one way or another, around those tragic events. Won't they?
For example: there are stricter regulations to the amount of fertilizer one can buy at one time, why? Because the government doesnt need another lunatic making a weapon of mass destruction from what farmers use daily. We have tighter security around our president when he, and i hope someday soon, or she is out. Why? Because the government doesn't need another embarrasing moment of the leader of our country getting shot from a random place in a book depository. And we all know that flying has become more challenging, because we don't want to have another wake up call of planes being used as death machines.
But with all the changes and government restrictions, i have to wonder many things. A. Are we any safer? Is the world safer? B. Can we stop terrorist attacks in any form? C. Will the inane wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both ripples from 9/11, ever find a conclusion and usher our sons and daughters home? These are worldly questions/responses to the evils that have happened, but i still struggle with, "What is the Christian response?"
Jesus called us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, are we doing that when we endorse further military action in Afghanistan? Is this the way of peace? Are we honoring Jesus by bombing, killing, and destroying lives? I realize that i am opening a can of worms by asking this question, but ten years later, it seems, we have learned nothing. We are no closer to bringing our troops home, Al Quaeda is still powerful, Iraq remains unstable, and violence remains a blind response. The thousands of lives lost stand as a testimony to our inability to be creative in the process of pursuing justice for those who lost their lives on 9/11.
What would have happened if we, like the Christian nation we claim to be, chosed the way of Jesus? What would have happened if we had sought diplomacy? International cooperation? Peace? Why is our answer, so quickly, revenge, when as Gandhi illuminated only leaves both parties blind? And why in so many churches across this great land of ours will the message of peace be ignored, when it is peacemaking that Jesus called us to do? If we are a Christian nation, why are we not being labeled a peaceful nation?
We will honor our memories and stories this Sunday, and i hope all of you will share your narratives, but if we remain where we are, doing only what we have been doing, how can things change? Perhaps it is time to give Jesus a chance. Diplomacy a chance. Maybe even peace a chance. What do we have to lose? Ten years of wars have caused us to lose so much already. Too many mothers and fathers, like our neighbors, have had to get a call or a visit from the military informing them that their son or daughter has been killed. And that doesn't account for the thousands of innocent victims in Iraq and Afghanistan who have been killed. I am not talking about the warring terrorists, i am talking about the sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers who, just like you and i, are trying to earn a life for themselves. They are the ones caught in the middle of an ongoing, neverending cycle of violence and death.
We have lost enough already. Why not try the path of peace? It might just work. Amen.
Shalom
Peace
Salaam Meliekum...
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