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Month: February 2007

love and war

love and war

We were visited by a major winter storm in Iowa this weekend, and our Saturday and Sunday plans (which were many!) were cancelled. We enjoyed some good down time, a fire in the fireplace, and we watched two movies, two among the list of movies we have been wanting to preview. The two movies could not have been more different!

The one was about beauty: the beauty of love, of loyalty, of humility, of service, of human creativity, of the smallest details of the natural world. The other was about ugliness: the ugliness of war, the ugliness it does to people, the ugliness it makes people do. The one was lyrical in its storytelling; the other disturbing.

The Scent of Green Papaya cover imageThe first movie we watched was The Scent of Green Papaya. It was made in 1993 in France and is set in mid-twentieth-century Viet Nam. The film won the Camera d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

It tells the story of Miu, a girl perhaps ten years old when we first meet her. She comes to Saigon to live as a household servant with a family of six: a father and mother, three sons, and the father’s mother. Through Miu’s eyes we see the pain and grief and anger and longing of the members of the family, but we also see the beauties of the world they inhabit, beauties celebrated and appreciated in intimate detail: thin strips of fruit shaved from a papaya, an ant carrying off a kernel of rice, the milk dripping from the stem from which the papaya was cut, the crickets Miu keeps as her “pets,” fried meats and vegetables tenderly arranged on a bed of rice, frogs hopping through a rain-soaked garden. The photography — colors, textures, perspectives — is exquisite.

The last part of the film is set ten years later when Miu moves to a new household, to serve there a young musician from a wealthy family, a friend of the oldest son of the family she had been serving. Slowly, quietly, tenderly, there unfolds a new story, the story of one who comes to recognize the beauties in her …

The Ground Truth cover imageThe second film we saw was The Ground Truth. It is a documentary made in 2006, chronicling the psychological wounds of returning veterans of the war in Iraq. It provides them a stage to tell of the horrors they have witnessed and the horrors they have done and the horrors of what the war has done to them, in their own words. It is disturbing to see the war through their eyes, to understand what it takes to make a man or a woman into an effective soldier, an effective killing machine, and to feel their shame and their loss and their struggle to live anything like a normal life on their return home.

no war with iran!

no war with iran!

From a statement signed by more than one hundred Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious leaders urging a diplomatic, rather than a military, strategy to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions:

As Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders, we are deeply concerned about the nuclear weapons danger in Iran, in the Middle East, and around the world. The teachings of the Abrahamic tradition command us to keep human life sacred and to act as stewards of creation. We consider all weapons of mass destruction – whether nuclear, biological or chemical – immoral and unacceptable for use in any circumstances. In pursuit of that principle, we strongly support international diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Our nation and the international community must pursue this goal without using military force for at least two reasons:

  • First, short of full scale war and complete occupation of Iran, military actions will not remove Iran’s potential nuclear threat ; indeed, it would likely intensify Iran’s goal of acquiring nuclear weapons.
  • Second, another American-led war or military attacks in the Middle East would likely prove disastrous. To initiate another war in an area of the world already engulfed in turmoil and human tragedy would intensify political extremism throughout the Middle East and beyond. It would add fuel to the fires of violence already consuming the region. It would exacerbate anti-American hatred and produce new recruits for terror attacks against the United States and Israel. Significant military opinion says it would not work. Responsible theological evaluation suggests it would not be morally or strategically justified.

Go to the Words Not War website to read the full statement and to add your signature.

“warring for control of the american soul”

“warring for control of the american soul”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., quoted from an interview with Mark Jacobson:

There is an ancient struggle between two separate philosophies, warring for control of the American soul. The first was set forth by John Winthrop in 1630, when he made the most important speech in American history, ‘A Model of Christian Charity,’ on the deck of the sloop Arbella, as the Puritans approached the New World. He said this land is being given to us by God not to satisfy carnal opportunities, or expand self-interest, but rather to create a shining city on a hill. This is the American ideal, working together, maintaining a spiritual mission, and creating communities for the future.

The competing vision of America comes from the conquistador side of the national character and took hold with the gold rush of 1849. That’s when people began to regard the land as the source of private wealth, a place where you can get rich quick—the sort of game where whomever dies with the biggest pile wins.

What is the American Dream? We will hear the American Dream extolled and re-promised many times over during this presidential campaign season. So what is it?

  • Is the American Dream an equal opportunity for every one of us for unlimited personal advancement?
  • Or is the American Dream a unique opportunity for all of us to make something together for the benefit of the rest of humanity?

And will the candidates, any candidate, be able to discern — and articulate — the difference?

a new look

a new look

You may have noticed. My blog has a new look!

Actually the blog has several new looks, and you may choose which look you like the best. Find the heading “Themes” in the sidebar and click on any one of the theme names — “Falling Leaves” or “Island After Sunset” or Misty Look” to change the appearance of the blog. My current favorite is “Island After Sunset.”

ehren watada: true patriot or dangerous subversive?

ehren watada: true patriot or dangerous subversive?

Ehren Watada is a lieutentant in the United States Army. He refused to deploy to Iraq with his unit, claiming that the war in Iraq is illegal. He is currently being tried by a military court on charges of abandoning his unit and of conduct unbecoming an officer.

Is he a good man, a brave man, a conscientious citizen for refusing to “go along” with an action that he considers illegal and immoral, even when such a refusal subjects him to censure and dismissal from his job?

Or is he a disgrace, an opportunist, a dangerous threat to the chain of command necessary to permit the effective functioning of “the guardians of American freedoms?”

Read these two divergent assessments of the man and his actions … and let me know what you think!

Watada took talk too far … an opinion piece by Danny Westneat in The Seattle Times

What Watada did is military disobedience. And no matter how opposed you may be to this war, you’ve got to stop and think: Do we really want officers who run the most powerful fighting machine in the history of the world deciding what rules to follow as they go along? Even if this time you might agree with this particular officer?

Conduct Unbecoming … a blog post by Jayne Lyn Stahl

While making public disparaging remarks about a war in progress is deemed to be an actionable offense, Watada argues that “under military law those in the military are allowed to refuse, in fact, have a right to refuse unlawful orders.” It is his belief that the U.S. is in Iraq under false pretexts, and illegally; he thinks it is his duty to refuse those orders.

not crusaders for jesus, but followers of jesus

not crusaders for jesus, but followers of jesus

From an editorial by John Buchanan in the February 6, 2007 edition of The Christian Century …

I was representing my denomination on a visit to Croatia, not long after the shooting between Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians had stopped. The Croats are mostly Roman Catholic; the Serbs, Orthodox; and the Bosnians, Muslim. The conflict was about more than religion, but religion added fuel to the fire …

We … met Peter Kuzmic, an American who calls himself a Calvinist Pentecostal and who presides over the Evangelical Theological Seminary is Osijek and also holds a chair in world missions at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Kuzmic has pleaded with American evangelicals to stop using terms like “evangelical crusade” and “Balkan harvest” when they come to the region …

Kuzmic told me about a Serbian businessman named Antol who quit his job to go to work for the Agape Project, a refugee resettlement initiative. Antol’s new job was to bring together money, materials and labor to rebuild Muslim villages that had been destroyed in the war. While reviewing rebuilding plans submitted by a Muslim village chief, Antol noticed that the plans did not include rebuilding the mosques that had been leveled. ‘”Why no mosques?” Antol asked. The chief explained that he knew Antol was a Christian, so he assumed that there would be no help in rebuilding mosques. Antol answered: “We will help you rebuild your mosque because we follow Jesus, who told us to love our neighbors. And he told a story once about a man who stopped beside the road to help a victim whose religion was different from his own.”

Because we follow Jesus!