a road in the wilderness

a road in the wilderness

Comments 0 Comment

Prepare in the wilderness a road for the Lord!
Clear the way in the desert for our God!

The Lord comes from the wilderness. God comes to us out of the desert … not from the midst of our cities and towns. God is not domesticated, but wild! The Lord is not confined to or defined by our religious edifices and symbols.

We would do well to get ourselves into the desert, to follow a road into the wilderness, to meet the Lord there. It is not that God is not present in our cities, in our houses, in our schools, in our offices, in our theaters, in our churches. It is just that surrounded by everything that we have fashioned with our own hands, our imaginations may fail to recognize the God whom we did not make.

It is a good thing to make retreat from familiar and comfortable places, to clarify our vision, to clear our minds, to open our hearts to the God who comes to us!

Post Views: 721
a shameful milestone

a shameful milestone

Comments 0 Comment

The execution by lethal injection of Kenneth Lee Boyd in North Carolina marked the 1000th execution in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. A report by Amnesty International reveals that in 2004, the United States executed more human beings than any other nation with the exception of China, Iran, and Vietnam. For more on today’s execution and the reaction to it, click on the following link:

World News Article | Reuters.co.uk

Post Views: 720
redemption

redemption

Comments 0 Comment

Is redemption possible?

Yes.

Should the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams be stayed because his life has been redeemed, because his life now has some redeeming value?

No.

If Mr. Williams should not be executed because he has succeeded in turning his life around, it follows that if he had not done so, he should be executed. But he should not. There is no good reason, no justification, to execute anyone.

It is we who need redemption — redemption from our need for retribution, redemption from our reliance on violence to address our fears (even if it has the blessing of the state), redemption from our care-less treatment of a precious human life, redemption from our lack of faith in God’s power to redeem … anyone.

Post Views: 717
point of no return?

point of no return?

Comments 0 Comment

I remember pulling hard and fast on the paddle, propelling my whitewater canoe forward with the accelerating current toward the brink of Wonder Falls, an eighteen-foot falls on the Big Sandy River. I remember the point of no return, when I knew there was no turning back, no turning around, when I knew that I was committed, that one way or another I was going over the falls!

I made the choice to be there. I made the choice to run the falls. But once I passed that point of no return, I had no more choice … We make countless choices every day that commit us, countless choices we cannot undo. We cannot stop and say “Ooops. I want a ‘do-over.'” or “Wait a minute. I changed my mind.”

Maturity is about taking responsibility for our commitments, about understanding the consequences — and the gravity — of our choices … about thinking carefully, choosing decisively, acting boldly, and accepting whatever befalls us. We can learn from our mistakes; we just cannot undo them. The choices I make in this one moment inexorably alter the options I have available in the next.

And yet … And yet …

It seems to me that the gospel of Jesus Christ changes the rules about points of no return. Not absolving us of our responsibilities, not denying the very real consequences of our choices, but somehow reaching us, holding us, saving us when we have passed what we thought was the point of no return. There is no point beyond which the love of God cannot reach us! There is no point beyond which the grace of God cannot bring us back! I am never — never! — committed to a failed life, never — never! — doomed to hell. There is always for us — for any of us — the possibility of forgiveness, of justice, of mercy, of grace.

Now that is something for which to be thankful!

Post Views: 809
actions speak louder than words

actions speak louder than words

Comments 0 Comment

When the government of the United States speaks, we speak, and when it acts, we act, because our government is, as President Lincoln put it, “a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.” It is our duty to take full responsibility for what our government says and does on our behalf …

We must take responsibility for our nation’s advocacy of human rights. We champion the equality of all human beings; equal entitlement to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and equal protection from any violation of these entitlements. But what do we do? We are slow to respond to allegations of prisoner abuse by US military and intelligence personnel in Iraq and Cuba and Afghanistan and eastern Europe, we are reluctant to examine fully the broader leadership environment that permits or tolerates or fails to put a stop to such abuse, and we are opposed to signing on to a declaration banning cruel or inhuman or degrading treatment by any agent of the United States government against any person anywhere in the world.

We must take responsibility for our nation’s stand against the proliferation and use of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons. We ask for international censure of other nations who are suspected of developing and stockpiling such weapons. But what do we do? We use a chemical weapon, white phosphorus, in the war in Iraq. We refuse to eliminate our own stockpile of nuclear armaments and we continue to do biological weapons research. And we are the only nation in history to have used a nuclear weapon against a civilian population.

We must take responsibility for our nation’s commitment to the rule of law. We believe that right makes might, not the contrary, and we demand that nations and heads of state abide by the tenets of international law. But what do we do? We invade a sovereign nation without provocation, justifying the unilateral action as a “preemptive strike.”

We must take responsibility … The problem is not with what we say and not with the results we seek to achieve. The isolation and containment of international terrorism is a worthy end. But a worthy end does not justify the use of any means available. If we will do anything to achieve that goal, if we make expections to the code of human rights to protect our own human rights, if we use chemical weapons to take out people we fear may one day use chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against us, if we unilaterally decide for ourselves who are the “bad guys” and which nations require “regime change,” then we will have by our actions betrayed everything we stand for.

We will have proved that some people are entitled to basic human rights and some are not, that weapons of mass destruction do have a place in this world, and that the only law that matters is the law that says the biggest and strongest gets to make the rules.

Post Views: 737
it’s the little things that matter

it’s the little things that matter

Comments 0 Comment

Love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable …

It’s not in the grand gestures that love leaves its mark … the unexpected gift, the display of sympathy, the kind words. It is in the little things, like stopping what you are doing to listen, pulling your mind from wherever it is to give this one moment to the person in front of you.

I’ve been thinking about that this week. I’ve been thinking about my children and the ways I show them my love. I have loved them — by providing for them, by rooting for them, by guiding them, by correcting them, by telling them I love them. But I wonder if the true success — or failure — of my love for them will be measured in those fleeting moments, like when a daughter comes home and says “Hi” and I give her my time or I go back to doing whatever it is I am doing. Or like when a son calls on the phone and I make it short or pass the phone to my wife or I find a way to communicate to him how excited I am to hear from him.

It’s the little things that matter, because it is in the little things that we reveal our heart … not what we have intentionally chosen to show of ourselves to the rest of the world, but what we really are.

Post Views: 831
why the death penalty is wrong

why the death penalty is wrong

Comments 0 Comment

The death penalty is wrong because it serves no moral or practical purpose.

1) The death penalty is not an effective deterrent. Jeffrey Fagan, Columbia Law School professor, offers this testimony:

Recent studies claiming that executions reduce murders have fueled the revival of deterrence as a rationale to expand the use of capital punishment. Such strong claims are not unusual in either the social or natural sciences, but like nearly all claims of strong causal effects from any social or legal intervention, the claims of deterrence fall apart under close scrutiny. These new studies are fraught with technical and conceptual errors … These studies fail to reach the demanding standards of social science to make such strong claims, standards such as replication and basic comparisons with other scenarios. Some simple examples and contrasts, including a careful analysis of the experience in New York State compared to others, lead to a rejection of the idea that either death sentences or executions deter murder.

2) The death penalty does not do justice, if justice is understood as upholding and encouraging lawfulness and as improving the moral and civic character of a society as a whole. The death penalty debases a society, encourages the belief in violence as an appropriate tool for solving social problems, and appeals to the perhaps understandable, but abhorrent and indefensible, desire for revenge.

3) The use of the death penalty in the “best” of circumstances is subject to the horrifying risk of executing innocent people and the unconscionable reality of unequal application. And in the “worst” of circumstances? In the hands of unethical and self-serving political leadership, the death penalty is a tool of oppression and outright injustice.

I am saddened — and angry — that Iowa legislators are once more trying to reintroduce the death penalty into the Iowa criminal code after an absence of forty years. They exploit our feelings of anger and horror and helplessness at a very public and heinous act of violence to advance their political agenda, while careful analysis and moral leadership go out the window. Again and again, Iowa’s lawmakers have said “No!” to the reintroduction of the death penalty, even in the face of other terrible acts of violence. I do hope and pray that a comparable commitment to real justice will once more prevail.

Post Views: 849
a time and a place for torture?

a time and a place for torture?

Comments 0 Comment

The debate over the McCain amendment continues. The amendment, attached to a defense appropriations bill, bans the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by any agent of the United States government against any person anywhere in the world. The White House, led by vice-president Dick Cheney, continues to lobby against the amendment, asking that its language be changed to exempt the CIA from its provisions.

I cannot in any way fathom how making allowances for torture — used by covert agents against suspected terrorists “if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack” — helps us win the war on terror or insure our safety or make the world a better place. It is a classic instance of “winning the battle” and “losing the war!”

The White House insists that they “do not condone torture, nor would [the president] ever authorize the use of torture,” and yet they clearly want to make allowance for the use of “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treament” when they deem it necessary. I fail to to see how this is not condoning torture!

Our nation is founded on the principles of the innate equality of all human beings and the universal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Any use of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment for any purpose absolutely violates those principles. Such behavior can only be justified by judging a person “less than human” and therefore not entitled to basic “human” rights. We protect ourselves at the cost of sacrificing our national soul and make ludicrous any claim to be an exemplary champion of human rights.

When the end justifies the means, eventually anything goes. And when the test is a subjective judgment of a few folks in positions of power, the risks of the abuse of power are enormous. Our system of government was expressly designed to mitigate such abuses of power.

I am hopeful that saner, wiser, and more humane hearts and minds will prevail. I am hopeful that we will uphold the principles that have made our nation a beacon of light and truth among nations. I am hopeful that evil will not win … the evil that lies too in our own hearts.

Post Views: 692