Let The Sunshine In

A little while ago Alex Kirk was blogging about trees.

He had a pretty interesting post about the difference between cutting down a tree and getting rid of its roots, the analogy being about sin – should we change our hearts or our behavior? This stuck with me for a bit so I was thinking through all sorts of questions and ideas about it. Which is more important? Which is more effective? What is the cause and effect relationship, if any? Alex wrote, “…clearly the Lord talks about the essential nature of the internal world and the need for a renovation of the heart…But on the other hand, sometimes I just need to stop sinning.” Obviously, changing our hearts is more important (and permanent), but, as Alex pointed out in his arboreal quandary, what if we can figure out what the problem in our hearts is?

All of this flowed into a conversation I recently had with a friend about habitual sin – those things we know we shouldn’t do, but keep on doing anyway. There is a correlation between sinful behavior and a sinful heart, but which do you focus on when you’re trying to grow and make a strong change in your life? Wouldn’t behavior modification be a quality remedy then? This question can only be answered efficiently on a case by case basis, but I think the solution can be found by looking at motivation for the behavior change.

If I stop sinning just for the sake of it or because my Biblia told me to, then I’m not getting closer to God, not really. My head is in it, but my heart isn’t. But at the same time, if I’m chipping away at my heart without knowing which chunk I need to chip, I could do some serious damage. There must be some sort of balance in the approach, perhaps even beyond our control, if we hope to maintain a successful fight against sin.

In some roundabout way or another, this leads me to the next movie in my little film analysis series: Schindler’s List. In case you’ve been living under a rock since 1993, it’s the true story of a Nazi factory owner named Oskar Schindler who employed Jews out of the ghettos and labor camps and was eventually able to save 1,100 of them from likely death at the hands of the Nazis in Auschwitz or elsewhere. I won’t waste time explaining how brilliant the film is, as many before me have already done that.

I want to talk about it because of the trees.

Initially, Schindler employed Jews because they cost him less money than Poles, and let’s not forget that the only reason he even wanted a factory was for the government contracts. Basically, he was a war profiteer exploiting Jewish labor. But very slowly he stopped seeing laborers and started seeing people – perhaps it was the one armed press operator who was so very grateful for his job. Or maybe the young boy who promised to learn everything he could about enamelware production. Eventually he grew a little protective. They were his Jews. He started working the system so that he could keep the ones he had, and get more. When the war was nearing an end, all of his laborers were going to be sent to Auschwitz, and he was able to open his own camp in Czechoslovakia, but the only way he could get his Jews was to pay for them. He bought them. He bought their lives because he cared for them.

I feel I haven’t been terribly clear in making my point about changing our hearts and changing our actions. Schindler went through a process. He started out by changing his behavior for the wrong reason. He saw the good in this new action, and as a result his heart changed a little. So he continued doing a good thing, but now for the right reason. And his heart became more invested. As his actions became more radically good, his heart was unable to turn away from this thing he was doing. He grew into a state where he was compelled to do the right thing because his conscience and heart would not allow him to do anything else. It was a state of righteousness.

I am not claiming that stopping the behavior is the solution to every sin. There is plenty of argument that after we change our hearts the behavior will change naturally. I agree with that, too, in certain situations. I am only saying that we can see more clearly without sin, and an environment in which we keep a steady fight against habitual sin makes it easier for us to truly change our hearts in the long run.

Roger Ebert wrote, “The power of Spielberg's film is not that it explains evil, but that it insists that men can be good in the face of it, and that good can prevail.” We have to stand in evil’s face and reject it. Whether our hearts are in it before or after ultimately doesn’t matter. As long as they get there eventually, we’ll keep standing. And in the meantime, God will hold us up.

Let me clarify that I do not intend to use Schindler to show him standing up against the Nazis or even as a savior to the Jews. I only wanted to bring this man and this story up as an example of a man faced with two choices: one potentially righteous, one potentially wicked. Which one did he pick? Which one do we?

So do we cut down the trunk of our sinful actions or pull up the roots in our sinful hearts? How much does it matter as long as nothing is blocking the sunlight?

If anyone has not seen this movie, please go out and rent it, or even better, read the book. I’d love to hear thoughts and questions from anyone reading this. As usual, I’m really asking more questions that giving answers. And when a topic is as case-specific as I believe this one is, there are bound to be plenty of valid approaches from which we can learn.

Treading Water

Over the next week or so, there are several movies I plan on watching and then writing about. I'm not sure why, but there are couple that have been on my mind lately, and I feel like there is a lot that can be said about and learned from their stories.

So I'm going to start out tonight with Titanic.

I recently watched Titanic for the first time in a long while. I first saw it sometime in high school, I think in 10th grade. I was not allowed to see it when it came out, unlike nearly everyone else in my 3rd grade class, because my parents are from an extremist over-protective sect of parents who irrationally believe it is not okay for an 8 year old to see breasts and floating human popsicles on a giant screen. What's up with that? It doesn't matter, though, because I have seen it now. And you know what? It's a really good movie. It bugs me that it has such a bad reputation nowadays. Of course, I understand why it does. I mean, not many people remember much other than the drawing scene and Leo screaming "I'm king of the world!" But that's a shame. I was recently talking to a friend about this movie, so I'm gonna relay some of my comments from that, but first I need to explain something else.

I have always been drawn to depressing movies. I think this is partly because I have a high tolerance for depressing events in cinema. Death does not scare me or bother me, and it never has. Violence on screen doesn't make me cringe because half of my mind is thinking about the make-up involved. I just don't get as uncomfortable during sad things as other people, and I certainly never cry during movies, with one exception, which some of you already know is The Fox and the Hound (and I challenge anyone and everyone right here and now to try watching that old woman leave the fox in the woods, saying, "Goodbye may seem forever, farewell is like the end. But in my heart's a memory, and there you'll always be," without crying just a little bit).

But I digress.

That's why I dont' have a problem with depressing movies. But that's not why I'm drawn to them. I believe that learning by example works best when the example is of how not to behave. In a sad/traumatic/depressing movie, usually there is a string of events leading to some tragic conclusion, except we (the audience) see the ignorance of those events and the human choices behind them. We see just how avoidable those tragic consequences are. And then it drives us crazy that such horrible things can grow from such simple mistakes. I believe it is fair to say that the greatest sin is Pride, or, because technically no sin is greater than another, it is at least accurate to say that nearly every other sin is rooted in Pride. Pride says that we can do things better than God, and it makes us want to try things on our own just to prove that we can do it better than God. It spurs competition among brothers, wars between nations, arrogance, greed, and condescending hatred. Pride leads us to reject God and his ways. And when you take Jack and Rose out of the picture, Titanic is a tremendous example of human pride leading to a devastating end.

The little hints of Pride are dropped all throughout the film, from Rose's comment about the male preoccupation with size, to the importance of making headlines with the speed of the ship, to the assumption that an iceberg will be noticeable enough to avoid. We see the pride growing as we see the fall coming. And then the fall comes, and you say, "You fools, you could have stopped that crash." And then the movie continues, and only at the end of the sinking do we see that even we were premature because those bodies are out there floating, most of them half-frozen. And we say to ourselves,"We fools, we thought we learned the lesson already, that pride leads to the fall. But even we couldn't see past that. We couldn't see the consequences." But there they are, the consequences, all 1,600 of them. And the toll that pride took is clear.

There is, I think, an image from a single shot that sums up my point. It comes when about 1/3 of the ship has dipped into the water, and for just a couple seconds, the camera steps completely away from the action. We see a wide shot not of the people, or the ship, but of the Atlantic Ocean. We see the black sky at the top of the screen, just below it the wide horizon, and in the middle of the screen, rather small, there's this thing that looks kind of like a rowboat. It's just sitting there, a little crooked, and some of the lights are on. Then it looks like a spark flew out, like an ember popping from a fire, and you realize that it's a flare. And for a few brief moments all we see is this boat surrounded by a blackness that stretches out in all directions. We see now that however titanic that ship Titanic looked when it was docked, out there it's barely a canoe.

You see? We think we build unsinkable ships all by ourselves, but as soon as we try to take that out on the water, the darkness takes over, the ship starts rocking like a catamaran in a thunderstorm, we're tossed out, and that water is so cold. We could swim for a lifeboat, except in our pride, we forgot to build enough, and now we have to use all of our energy to tread water for hours on end. And so we are alone, cold and growing weak in the dark.

That's what Pride does. I think that's what the story of this event has to teach us, and I think that's what truly makes the movie so heart-wrenching. Sure the love story is romantic and tragic, but we've seen the Lady fall for the Tramp before. What breaks our hearts is seeing all those Ladies leaving all those Tramps out in the water to die because they're afraid of getting their own boats rocked a little.

If you haven't watched this movie in a while, try checking it out again sometime. Try keeping a few of these things in mind, not as any sort of authority on the film's analysis, but as a different outlook, a new perspective. And remember, depressing movies aren't made only to make us cry, they can make us learn, too, but only if we can see through the tears and find out what's really causing them.

I'm gonna leave you with some of Jesus' words about who should be building our ship:

"They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." (Matthew 23:5-12, ESV)

Happy sailing.

Tomorrow

I got that job I was hoping for. I prayed on it, and God, with the help of some people working the phones, delivered for me.

I finished Mere Christianity. I actually had trouble putting it down. Several passages really stuck out to me, but I'm not going to put them up here - read it for yourself and find your own passages. I will say that his explanation of the Trinity by explaining the process of prayer is simple, elegant, and among the finest explanations of the Trinity I've heard or read. I am still going through American Pastoral, and started When God Whispers Your Name by Max Lucado (seriously, how do you pronounce that guy's name?). It's designed as more of an inspirational read, I would say, rather than a theological one, but that's totally fine with me, and he has been saying some good stuff - more like healthy reminders than some intense study. We never know how God is going to talk to us, our temporary life, things like that, and emphasizing the personal nature of our relationship with God and Christ, so that we don't get lost in with the crowd. It's worth picking up if you want something a little more low-maintenance.

I have now seen every episode of The West Wing, my favorite television show ever. Please do yourselves a favor and follow these instructions:

1) Find a copy of Season 1 at your local library or entertainment store
2) Watch.
3) Upon completion, find next season and repeat step 2.
4) After 7 seasons, repeat process in full.

I promise you won't regret it.

What's next?

Someone buy me a short plaid skirt and knee-high socks.

I have been giggling like a young schoolgirl periodically throughout the day.

Do you want to know why I've been giggling like a young schoolgirl?

Well, I'll tell you. It's because I got the 7th season of The West Wing from my community library today, and I've been watching it. Hee hee hee hee hee!

So the other day I overheard a conversation among some Christian high schoolers I know:

High Schooler #1: If you were a professional photographer and a gay couple asked you to photograph their wedding, would you do it?
High Schooler #2: Probably not.
High Schooler #4: Yeah. Because you don't wanna look like you're supporting gay marriage.
High Schooler #1: Well, but it's not really supporting it. I mean, supporting it would be like making the cake or something. You'd just be photographing it.
High Schooler #2: But still, we shouldn't support gay marriage.
High Schooler #1: I don't really understand how you could be showing God's love, though, if you said no.

(High Schooler #3 was silent on this issue.) I believe #1 redeemed herself for the ridiculous cake-making comment with her observation about God's love. I fought the urge to insert myself into the conversation, but from what I could tell, the deeper question (which I'm sure none of these students quite grasped immediately...except for maybe #3 in his silence) is whether/when/how we show God's love, and whether/when/how we show God's judgment.

For me, the answer is simply that God does not empower us to show his divine and perfect judgment and it is therefore only his to show. We would surely only muck it up. However, God does empower us - indeed, he commands us - to show his love. So though I may agree or disagree with the event itself, I would not run a straight-weddings-only photography studio.

I might even open up a bakery next door.

Much love.

Fruit flies like a banana.

Sadly, I have very little to say which is deeply profound tonight. Actually, probably nothing of that nature at all. Just a brief update, mostly about some movies and books.

Earlier today I watched a film from Senegal called Moolaadé. It is about a woman who refused to allow her daughter to go through the tribal "purification" ceremony. That is, female circumcision. As a result, a few years later 4 young girls come to her home seeking protection, or a sanctuary, invoking the right of moolaadé. The woman does not refuse the girls, and must stand up to the tribal leaders, both the men in charge and the women who perform the ceremony, in order to protect them.

Please understand that I generally hate using clichés (and seeing them used), but this really is a powerful and moving film. Yes, it goes a little turbo-feminist at the end, making it's point very (very) clear. And usually I hate it when movies or books get obvious (this is the reason I continue to put off reading Orwell's Animal Farm). But there are exceptions to every rule, and sometimes a point simply needs to be obvious, for although no counterpoint truly holds any validity, that counterpoint is so often the standard. For more information about female genital mutilation and the efforts to stop it, check out http://www.equalitynow.org/.

Also, I strongly recommend checking out The Triplets of Belleville (that's a link to the trailer), an insanely quirky French animated movie. Don't worry about the language barrier, though, because there's almost no dialoque in the entire 80 minutes. I can't really explain why it's so cool or appealing, only that it is. The only thing more I can do, I think, is refer you to Roger Ebert's review of it, which also recommends without explaining why, but does so more eloquently than I can.

I finished reading Pride and Prejudice, which was enjoyable in spite of my Y chromosome. I then backtracked to American Pastoral (I posted a passage from it here), and I'm going to finish it this time. It's kind of like Pride and Prejudice on a really bad acid trip - everyone's dysfunctional, no one listens to anyone else, and just for fun, there's a little bit of radical youth terrorism thrown in. I'm also into Mere Christianity, which is so far much easier than I expected it to be - I thank J.I. Packer and Knowing God for what I believe was a very good preparation for this and whatever other more dense works I read in the future.

By the way, at the moment it's looking like that job I was hoping for at my community theater isn't gonna work out, due to system errors I don't feel like getting into. There is still hope, but there's a good chance I could end up bagging groceries for tips this summer. Which, given my desire to do something actually productive with myself this summer, will be absolutely *insert sarcastically optimistic adjective here.*

That's it for now. Thank you Dack, Jon, Ian, and K-Barge for being online (and just for being cool).

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

I finished watching the TNT miniseries Into the West today. It's about the American conquest and colonization of the western territories from 1825-1890, focusing on two fictional families, one white and one Native American, over their generations.

And do you know what? We screwed the Native Americans...monumentally.
We never viewed them as people or human beings, only savages. I'm not entirely sure what I mean when I say "we." I'm fairly certain I don't mean "the white man," even though it was mostly white men doing the screwing. I mean, the whole situation was due in large part to the notion of manifest destiny and the expansionist campaigns of the government and military. But the problem was more deeply rooted than policy.

When arrogance and ignorance are combined as the driving force behind an entire nation's skewed sense of destiny, what hope can there possibly be for the ones who stand in the way?

Tonight I also watched Bobby, the movie about the people in and around the Ambassador Hotel the night Robert Kennedy was assassinated. At the end, over the images of people's immediate reactions to Kennedy being taken away in an ambulance, plays the recording of one of Kennedy's final speeches, delivered in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 5, 1968, the day after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. I've put the text below, or you can watch the scene from the movie here.
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On the Mindless Menace of Violence

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.
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I couldn't think of a better conclusion to this whole violence discussion I've been having on and off this slate than with these words, surely among the finest ever spoken. Although Kennedy does keep his message mildly restrained within the American borders, I believe his sentiments are universal nonetheless. I am sure this conversation is not done for good (indeed, I do not wish it to be), but I hope that if anyone wants to keep it going, they can perhaps look to this speech for a "broad and adequate outline" of what we should look like, a foundation of basic human dignity.

Now, moving on.

Today in church a woman introduced her husband and son, explaining they don't often join her because they "are a mixed religion family: Protestant and Catholic." I found this amusing. I won't explain why, just in case you don't get it. I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.

When we sang the Doxology, an ambulance drove by. It is very difficult to sing the lyrics "praise God from whom all blessings flow" as an ambulance is rushing someone to the ER. For my musically inclined readers, know also that it was made more awkward by the fact that German ambulance sirens are based on a tritone - they alternate the notes of an augmented 4th. Imagine that playing over the oh-so-consonant Doxology. It was difficult on my ears and my heart, but it was definitely an interesting way to put the lyrics and just what God's blessings are into perspective. My vocal muscle memory kicked in, so I was able to sing along and think a prayer for whoever was in that ambulance at the same time. It was an interesting conflict of interests thing, but I'm sort of glad it happened. Like I said, a little perspective is good. We don't have to put ourselves in danger in order to not be safe.

Then the chaplain gave his sermon. Which was awful. Seriously, it was terrible. His central message was that Jesus wants us to go out and witness to people. Really. That was about all he was trying to say. He took 30 minutes trying just trying to explain that, and in the process, I'm pretty sure he said that the people who followed Jesus were "caught up in the moment," which to me makes it sounds like Jesus was some sort of fad. He also made it seem as though Jesus did not have compassion for anyone until later in his minstry. Earlier on, you see, Jesus enjoyed his solitude, until one day he suddenly saw the multitudes and was overcome with compassion for the harrassed and helpless, so he sent his disciples out. And let's not forget he was able to mention both John 3:16 and the armor of God, which, despite their importance which I do not deny, are probably the two biggest cop-out preaching references in the Biblia. It just wasn't very good, and I'm not sure I can keep going on Sunday mornings. What's the point of going to church if you don't get anything out of it?

Anyway, that's been me lately. By the way, I finished Knowing God. It was an intense study, but I definitely want to go back to it sometime. I jotted down a few of its basic foundational ideas, but I don't have that paper on me. Just check it out if you get a chance, you won't regret it. Once I finish Pride and Prejudice (hopefully sometime tomorrow), I'll be back into American Pastoral so I can maybe finally finish it, and I'll start Mere Christianity. I also want to get a hold of some foreign films at the library I haven't seen. Moolaade, The Lives of Others, Nowhere in Africa, The Triplets of Belleville, Joyeux Noel, Pan's Labyrinth (which I have already seen, but want to see again), The 400 Blows, and maybe some Akira Kurosawa stuff that I really should get around to.

That's it for now. As always, send me your feedback if you have any.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Eternity in the hearts of men.

This is long, but I’m not apologizing for that this time. Please stick with it because I would love your help.

I have been reading through several Old Testament books over the past week or so, the short ones near the end, starting around Joel. For the most part, they offer similar messages about God’s frustration with Israel, who rejects him in favor of their own pleasure or idols (I’ll get to that very briefly in a bit). In these books there is a massive amount of violent imagery, nations conquering nations, God conquering nations (many times with the sword), etc. Much of this is presented in reference to a “day of the Lord” (variations could be the day of the Lord’s wrath, the great day of the Lord, or simply the day of Judgment). Now, it is about this “day” that I have been thinking about a lot lately. Which day does it refer to? Does it mean simply and solely the Rapture, the Judgment? The Finale Ultimo? Or could it mean other days? Before I elaborate, let me give you some background into my thoughts on this Godly violence, as briefly as I know how. (As you read, keep in mind that when I say violence, I am typically implying a fatal violence, or killing.)

A few weeks ago I started talking with Dack about his blog entry about redemptive violence – how societies often justify violence or war by explaining how it leads to a greater good. Societies today often respond to violence against them with violence against their offenders because that will ultimately prevent future violence. (After several millennia, the world still has violence, and this apparently isn’t a good enough indicator that this policy of redemptive violence probably doesn’t work.) Well, Dack also mentioned some things about why Christians should carefully consider military service because it may require them to kill, and Jesus tells us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. And how can we love people by killing them? I agree with this from the perspective of an individual Christian, but because my father serves in the military and I have grown up around it, I have a slightly different outlook on this particular subject than Dack does, so in response to his statement, “I would die for Jesus, but I wouldn’t kill for him,” I pointed out that service members join the armed forces to die for a cause, and not to kill for it, even though killing sometimes is involved, but the bigger issue is really how states use their militaries. Clearly, as America is officially a secular state, we cannot disassemble our military (particularly not on religious grounds), for it does provide protective services for us, whether we believe in Jesus or not. So my opinion is that if our government uses our military as a predominantly defensive force, whose only outwardly directed actions were based in aid efforts of a largely non-violent manner (it is simply irrational to tell a soldier that if he is shot it, he should turn the other cheek, which I why I say largely non-violent), and if we did not put our troops in a position where they would have to be aggressors applying needless violence, then perhaps we would have less trouble grappling with this subject as Christians. And this is unfortunately the best point I could come to in terms of how a state should act in light of Jesus’ teachings.

Most of that discussion took place before I started reading through the end of the Old Testament. Now, these books all have essentially the same message: Israel rejected God, God threatened them with punishment/God punished them, Israel repented, God blessed them again. (I apologize for that very simplistic summary of pretty much the entire tail end of the Old Testament.) Now, God did use violent forces here, and he allowed Israel to use violence against their oppressors when they were again in God’s favor. But through all of this, God emphasizes the first person, constantly explaining that he is the one running the show, he is the one dishing out the punishment, and that man is only an instrument of his wrath (and even this is rare).

But whenever God threatens punishment, he does so in extremes, and in the context of what is called “the day of the Lord.” Here is an example of this day (God is speaking in quotation marks):

“The great day of the Lord is near – near and coming quickly. Listen! The cry on the day of the Lord will be bitter, the shouting of the warrior there. That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day or darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, a day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the corner towers. I will bring distress on the people and they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like filth. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth.”

Gather together, gather together, O shameful nation, before the appointed time arrives and that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s wrath comes upon you. Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility, perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger. (Zephaniah 1:14-2:3)

Pretty intense, right? And even if they do seek righteousness, there is still only a chance that perhaps they will be sheltered. But Zephaniah in particular really got me thinking about this stuff, trying to join all of my idea bubbles into a single thought. The most obvious thing this day could be is the day of Judgment, the Rapture, the Second Coming, etc. Except, well, that day hasn’t come yet. Plus, it’s a little weird for God to be talking about the final judgment around the time of the second coming, when there hadn’t even been a first coming yet. Then I started thinking about all the people who have already died – what is the “day of the Lord” for them? Have they already experienced it? (The idea that perhaps they had not is the first thing which has ever made me take the notion of purgatory and its existence seriously.) So my mind is going crazy with a bunch of winged keys flying around inside it, and I can’t find the one that’s gonna help me open the lock.

I thought more about Jesus, and what his life and death meant, and I put it in terms of what he brought the world that it had not had previously, and what came to me was that with Jesus we are offered eternal salvation, and without him we are condemned to eternal damnation. This sense of the eternal, the afterlife, judgment after death despite your life, rather than in death because of your life, is really amazing to me. I find it so wonderful to search my heart and know that I believe that God’s Kingdom is waiting for me, not because I think about it but because I can simply feel it; it is true that God has set eternity on our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). But I’m not sure that inner-knowledge was always naturally part of the human condition – at some point there was a human mindset of living for God’s blessing on your life, and then there was a mindset of living for God’s blessing on your death. And when was the day that this change occurred? Well, I think there are kind of three of them, all interconnected, and which one to put the most weight on, I am not sure.

First, there is the day Christ died for our sins. This is when the change actually happened, when the offer of salvation became present.

Second, the day when we realize that we have that offer and choose to accept – the day of our own conversion is surely the day of the Lord in our individual lives, right?

Third, the day of our death, when we as Christians are accepted into the God’s Kingdom, or we as shameless sinners are cast out of God’s presence forever. For those who do not live to see the final judgment, isn’t this judgment what takes its place?

This was all ringing strongly in heart. So where I’m kind of at in my thinking at the moment is here: Because we have an offer of salvation that the people of the Old Testament did not, we no longer need to look at our life on earth in terms of God’s blessings or curses, but instead look at our afterlife in those terms. (Note: I do not mean to diminish the importance of our deeds or God's blessings in this life.) Therefore, violence is no longer - or should no longer be - an issue. God does not need to take out his anger in violence, or at least not physical violence among men, for there is a great punishment awaiting those who reject him, whereas in the Old Testament, God’s people were a smaller population, and they were physically threatened from all sides, and God had to protect them in ways necessary for the times.

But faith after Jesus is no longer about states, it is about people, individuals, disciples, kings, peasants, brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, lovers, soldiers, men, women, children. It’s about sinners. And the shift in the focus of faith to be about people is what Jesus was all about - it was also part of the change he made. Love one another.

I know I haven’t been wonderfully clear in why or how I perceive a shift in violence between the Old and New Testaments, not as clear as I meant to be, anyway, but probably about as clear as I expected I would be. But let me be clear about this: I do not believe there was ever a day in which God was comfortable with humans exerting violence upon other humans. I believe there were times when he accepted it as a necessary function for the survival of his people in the world he created, but from the day Cain slew Abel, I believe God has hated murder. I think that this leads to at least part of the reason he sent us Jesus. This was the beginning of his effort to change the world he created so that violence on our part no longer would be necessary for survival in it. Jesus taught us about love and encouraged us to show it, so that the 6th Commandment would be merely a redundancy in our hearts and minds. If violence was ever an acceptable tool for the use of mankind, it ceased to be so, and I doubt very much that God would choose any more to use mankind as an instrument in his own forms of holy judgment, whatever those may be.

Please to not misunderstand me to be a total pacifist, as I am referring mostly to killing in this writing. There are, I believe, understandable examples of ‘”tough love.” For instance, if I discovered that a friend of mine enjoys recreationally smoking crack on the weekends, I would very likely punch him or her in the face if it would help him or her better see his or her stupidity. Please, also, do not take me to be against the military, its existence, its members, or its functions, as I am the complete opposite. I feel that when it is used responsibly and appropriately, good things come of it and the use of needless and impractical violence or killing would be diminished greatly. Sadly, I am not sure we have seen this done on a large scale since WWII (that is, the part of WWII before that whole nuclear bombing thing). I completely comprehend why many feel the desire or calling to join the armed services, Christians included, but I cannot help but find it unfortunate that they are subject to being used irresponsibly and inappropriately, and therefore become tools for needless violence, rather than against it, and it is this danger that I think that Christians must take into account in their consideration of military service. That for them, in some circumstances, sin would not be the result of a choice, but of following an order, and that their job itself requires the asking of God’s forgiveness. (I do not wish to put words in his mouth, but I believe this is essentially the point Dack was trying to make in his original statement about Christians joining the military. Is that fair, Dack?)

Mostly, I think we need to ask ourselves an important question. Do we truly believe that God has the authority over the world? Because if we do, we should also realize that he does not need our help in running it. We are only the caretakers, and our job therefore is to do what he tells us, to take care of the earth and its people, not destroy them.

Now, this has all come out with a far more liberal and overall political slant to it than I had intended, and I fear that readers may read incorrectly between the lines and end up making untrue inferences or assumptions about me and/or my other beliefs and/or opinions on matters. I encourage those of you who have gotten this far to please contact me with responses, questions, requests for clarification, comments, concerns, etc. I would seriously love and appreciate any and all input (especially from scripture!). I am working through all of this in my head still, and when I say something like, “I believe…,” please understand that that belief may change quickly and easily depending on the argument against it. If I ever sound as though I am trying to provide you with an answer to a question, I ask you to read that “answer” only as a new question. Pretty much all I’m trying to do here is ask questions, get feedback, start discussion, and maybe figure some stuff out down the road.

A lot of this is based in an argument between my head and my heart, between my views on the state and my views on the individual, between my views on America and my views on the rest of the world, between my views on Christians and my views on other religions. There are several layers going on here. It’s like an onion. Or a cake. Or a parfait. But mostly I think it’s like an onion, if for no other reason than the rotten smell.

The hills were alive

I got back today from a week travelling with my parents, an aunt, and an uncle. It was plenty of fun, and I love getting around Europe, but by the end of the week, I was definitely missing facebook, as I had no internet access all week. I want you to know what I was up to, so here is a day-by-day summary of what we did with a few pictures. I’ll strive to keep them brief.

Saturday

We started by driving down to Dachau, the first of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps. Now, this was not a death camp like Auschwitz, so people were not sent here specifically to be killed in the gas chambers or otherwise. It was a labor camp, so people were sent here to be separated from society and to work. There are furnaces for body disposal, but as I said, they were used in quite the extreme manner as at other camps.

Above Top: One of the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" gates - translates as "Work Makes Freedom" or more practically as "Work Will Set You Free"
Above Bottom: Stones laid on the marker of the location of one of the prisoner barracks and on an Israeli flag. The stones are a Jewish form of memorial - remember the end of Schindler's List? The stones on Schindler's grave are still there, as I'm sure these will be at Dachau for a long time as well.

Below: Some of the furnaces used to cremate dead bodies.

We then progressed to Munich, home of Oktoberfest and a very large, very old beer hall, the Munich Hofbrauhaus. The smallest beers they serve are 1 liter. I finished mine, a dunkelbier (dark beer – tends to be heavy and a tad bitter), and I was proud.

Above: Before, Below: After

The Hofbrauhaus was just a stop, and after finishing our drinks, we drove on to Berchtesgaden in old Bavaria, right near the Austrian border. For those of you who may not know, Berchtesgaden was a sort of domestic capital city for the Hitler and the Third Reich. I suppose Munich is the political capital, Nuremberg is the propaganda capital, and Berchtesgaden is where the Nazi Party’s upper echelon got together to talk Jewish problems, final solutions, and the crisp Alpine weather over drinks.

We got to the hotel, ate dinner, and called it a day.

Sunday

We started the day by walking around a bit in the center of Berchtesgaden, checking out the beautiful Bavarian buildings, and enjoying the view of the mountains. That’s thing about the German countryside. It’s not just like that in tourist towns. It’s like that everywhere. Be it the Alps, the Black Forest, or just any agricultural region with farms and fields as far as you can see, it’s not just like that for postcards. These people live in it every day. We also went through an old Catholic cemetery. There were memorials for soldiers from WWI. They treat their dead so much differently here. It's not like an American graveyard with flat stones, names and dates, and plastic flowers to keep it presentable since it's gonna be a while until we visit them again. These are beautiful, solemn places, with green grass, fresh flowers and candles. There is love and respect, a sense of history and family and bloodlines. There is peace.

Above: the cemetery, Below: a more recent burial

Then we went on a tour up the Obersalzberg, the mountain where Hitler and other top Nazi officials such as Hermann Göring and Martin Bormann all kept their homes and underground bunkers, and on top of which sits The Eagle’s Nest. The Eagle’s Nest was a sort of getaway for Hitler, except he only ever went there about a dozen times and only for meetings. Plus he was afraid of heights. We went to the Eagle’s Nest, which was definitely cool, but a little eerie. To know that you walked around the exact same floor as Hitler, rode in the exact same elevator (because it is the original elevator). It’s the same feeling I got when I went to the Nazi parade stadium in Nuremberg and stood exactly where Hitler did when he led rallies. It’s a little weird.

Above Top: The Eagle's Nest, Above Bottom: Hitler's Eagle's Nest dining room

Below: view from the top of the mountain

Monday

Went to Salzburg, Austria, where Mozart wrote a bunch of music, and where The Sound of Music took place. At my mother insistence, we went on The Sound of Music Tour, which shows you sites where they filmed, and fills you in on some of the actual history of the Trapp family. It was cheesy, yes, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Above: Shots from Salzberg's Mirabel gardens where the cast and crew shot the final scenes of "Do-Re-Mi"

Then we wandered around some, and looked at some old buildings, but nothing that really got me all that excited.

Tuesday

Woke up and drove to Venice.

In many major European cities, they have officers clubs/hotels where their military officers can stay when they’re in town. London, Paris, Rome, they all have them, and so does Venice. And because my dad is an officer in the U.S. Army, we stayed there. (Thank you, NATO agreements.)

We wandered around a bit that day and window-shopped a bit, but not much more. We were just taking it in. (Though I have been there once before, it’s still cool.)

That night, near the end of our wandering, I saw a gull kill and eat and pigeon.

It was cool.

Wednesday

This is when we actually checked out the churches (lovely, as always), did a bit of shopping for Murano glass, and got lost a bit (because that’s what’s fun to do in Venice, or anywhere in Europe, for that matter. Seriously, if you ever go to Europe, plan an extra day or half-day in a new place for the purpose of getting lost and finding your way again. It’s totally fun and totally worth the adventure.)

Above Top: some random canal, Above Bottom: some random alley

Below: San Marco Square

Now, Murano is an island near Venice, where they make pretty colored glass. They make it in figurines, chandeliers, and other stuff, but most importantly, jewelry. This is what most people focus on.

Also important to look at in near every Italian city or town is leather. Italian leather is really nice. I got a leather-bound notebook for me to journal in once I fill up my moleskine.

After dinner, I wanted to feed the pigeons, I suppose as a way to apologize for standing idly by, admiring the gull as it devoured one of the pigeons’ own. They liked me. They ate out of my hands and perched atop my head. I was the glorious pigeon-master. I giveth pastry crumbs, I taketh pastry crumbs away, and I was both feared and loved. These two American kids nearby were in awe of my skillz. And in an act of humility and kindness, I gave them the remainder of my pastry, so that they too may experience the wonder and power of feeding the pigeons.

And then I thought I'd dance with my mama a bit.

Thursday

Woke up and drove to Garmisch, home of the 1936 Winter Olympic games. Also home to some beautiful mountains, which we unfortunately could not see due to the weather.

Our hotel was a building that is 300 years old, and the hotel business has been in one family for over 100 years. Seriously, the buildings are older than our country. You can’t understand how cool it is to be sleeping in a place that is older than George Washington.

Friday

Would have caught the cable-car to the top of the Zugspitze (Germany's tallest mountain), but it was still cloudy, and would have been pointless. Instead we went to Oberammergau, where they put on a Passion play every ten years, and have a lot of highly trained wood-carving artisans.

Then we went to the Ettal monastery, where they have yet another breathtaking church and their own brewery. Oh, those monks, they’re such a happy folk.

Then we went back to Garmisch and did more window shopping. This was the time of the week when I really started to feel my lack of facebook and therefore lack of interaction with my friends. It was tough, but I stuck it out through…

…Saturday

When we came back home and I get to tell you all about my week.

It was a good week, and I saw some cool stuff. I also spent some time in the Biblia and read Micah. I read John Eldredge’s Epic, and made more progress in Pride and Prejudice. I mentioned that I would be looking through Deepak Chopra’s The Third Jesus, but I couldn’t keep reading it because the man is foolish and doesn’t understand Christianity. I expected him to be providing an interesting perspective on Jesus, when in fact he was only trying to support his own free-for-all sense of spirituality with Jesus. I won’t go in to details right now, but it was pretty silly.

So yeah, I’m doing well, and I’m glad to be back. I’ll be getting back into Knowing God, and hopefully Exodus, Nahum, and some other short Old Testament books within the next week, as well as getting back to the gym - beer and schnitzel and apple strudel are good things, but not when they take up practically half of your diet for a week.

I feel that my blog has been a bit weak on scripture and focusing on Christ lately, and I wish I could do something about that, but I'm not sure what right now. I can't just force it, and I'm not going to try. But I'll be in the Biblia more and looking around me more, and maybe something will move me to write something worthwhile.

I’ll be back soonish, but until then, enjoy the pictures, and there will hopefully be more complete albums on facebook.

Shalom.