Tag Archives: love

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Flashback: What Would You Do if?

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It’s the age old question of pacifist, last January I gave my spin on it:

It’s the typical question that get’s asked of anyone who declares themselves a “pacifist.”

What would you do if someone was attacking your family (loved ones)?

It’s the magic card up someones sleeve to stump that said pacifist into agreeing that sometimes violence, and war, is okay and necessary. I’ll be honest this was a difficult question to handle when I first started thinking about pacifism. What made it difficult was the passage we talked about previously, “Love your enemies…” What suddenly happened was that now both the attacker and the victim are my loved ones. It’s like having to change the question to:

What would you do if your wife was attacking your father?
(or pick the two people closest to you)

Now I’m not so sure killing the attacker would be my pat answer. If I love that person I certainly wouldn’t want their death. I love the victim though as well and I don’t want them to die, so the situation is now far more complex then the original question presented.

For me, this question simply confirms to me that thinking as a pacifist, or rather, thinking about what to do with ‘killing’ not being one of the options.

So, What would you do if…

See the discussion that ensued here.

Being Dad

Love is Patient

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If nobody else noticed, this is the third Sunday in a row that I’ll be posting about baby, with no baby in sight. It’s been a good full two weeks since I had full expected the baby to arrive. I don’t know why we were so set on this idea that the baby would come a few days early (maybe cause all the women on her side were early…). Anyways, like many other first babies, ours is still hanging out and getting a few more days of peace before entering this crazy world.

If anything I’ve learned, or have tried in vain to learn, patience. Recently, though she isn’t even 0 days old yet, I’ve felt like scolding her. How do you explain to your in utero baby that she’s really hurting her mommy’s feeling by not coming out when she was expected (she’s hurting her back, ankles, and hips too, but will stick with the emotions). I guess that’s where this idea that patience is really all you’ve got to go on, or develop, or learn to desire. I can’t scold my baby, she doesn’t know any better, and it’s not like she’s really in charge of this whole labor and birth thing anyways. So, what do I do? I love her. I patiently wait for her.

Here’s the crazy thing though. This little love is patient lesson is going to disappear pretty quick, if I’m not careful. Cause pretty soon she’ll be two and I’ll be waiting for her to put her shoes on (which she’ll insist on doing herself) to go to the park, and patience will go right out the window, along with love, if I’m not careful. If’ I’m careful though, I’ll remember I don’t need to be in a big rush anyways. If we are going to the park, the swings will wait. If we are going to Grandma’s the food can be warmed up, and if we were heading to a board meeting, we’ll it’s about time we start loving our kids more then the corporate execs.

Love is patient. It’s easy to be patient with a baby who you don’t put any responsibility on and who isn’t capable or in control of her actions. It’s going to be hard when I can blame her, argue that she’s capable of respecting other people’s time, and insist that it’s her choice and her actions. Don’t throw love out the window then.

So, without baby around it’s time to actually start putting this into practice. I, and you, need to be practicing patient love with the people in our lives. Regardless of how independent and capable the adults around you are, they need to be loved. Be patient with them, gentle, kind. Remember that they too, were once a cute little baby (some of which were one and two weeks late entering the world) and they could use a little loving patience now, as much as they did then.

Blog

10/5 Material Possessions and the Love of God

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The daily podcast continues with some pretty harcore preaching on I John 3:

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

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Threads: Love

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LOVE: Acts 4:32-34 . John 13:35 . Mark 12:29-31

-love God, love others
-not easy, but real
-service, sacrifice, selfless, unwavering
-everyday, exist for other
-forbearance
-breaking down walls
-respect
-community (with a cause)
-unnatural/supernatural/unique
-bigger than us
-messy

“Love one Another” is probably one of the most repeated phrases in the New Testament (particularly by this John fellow). And then you got that Love God, Love others stuff Jesus talks about. I start to get the impression that when you boil it all down, if you had to summarize this whole gospel thing, God thing into one word it would have to be “Love.”
My friend gave me a sticker it says: “Love Wins.” Probably already my favorite sticker of all time. Because it seems that’s the truth. In the end, the end of ends, Love Wins. And Love is not a confusing concept, it can be much more clear then we sometimes make faith and action decisions out to be.
When Christ says, “Love your enemies,” I think it’s obvious he means with a deep love, the same love as “love your neighbor as yourself,” the same as loving your own child. It’s true love can be messy, but it’s also a powerful force beyond measure.
Love means loving your great grandchildren and loving creation. Love means loving your neighbors kids and not just your own. Love means loving the man on the corner and not just yourself. Love means loving the starving child and the AIDS stricken villages.
And that Love calls us to some sort of action. That love calls us to recycle and waste less gas and other resources. The love calls us to care about public schools and the education of children. That love calls us to buy less car, less entertainment, less material possessions.

Love is a verb.

Blog

Threads (It’s a “Mosaic” thing)

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My wife and I have been hanging around these folks from the Mosaic Community on Sundays since we’ve been in Nashville. Mostly, we’ve just been chillin’ with some cool people and talking about things that interest us (and listen to others talk about things too). Oh, and Mindy sings a bit.

A little bit ago they did a series of talks about “Threads.” This is how they introduced it:

threads: the values from the ancient scriptures that are at the core of God’s story and at the core of who Mosaic desires to be as a community of Jesus followers.
these are the essentials that are woven into all we are and all we are becoming ? both as individuals and as a whole. They shape us as followers of Jesus, defining our role in the movement of God. This is who we are. These are non-negotiables that we hold to, that we strive for. They become the rhythms that we live by.
Mission. Love. Design. Relevance. Surrender.

I found the piece of paper that listed out the different threads and gave some verses concerning each thread. I figure I’d try and take one each day this week and just sort of think outloud about each of them. So, you’ve got the intro, now enjoy the individual posts…

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Movie Commentary on The Sentinel: Affairs are NOT okay

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I’m not a big movie reviewer, or theatre goer (unless it’s free), but I went to see this one with the fam this weekend. The Sentinel is your basic action-packed, high-intensity, plot-to-kill-the-president thriller. In general I liked it, except for this one thing: Affairs are NOT okay.

WARNING: You MIGHT consider this spoiling some of the movie for you, in which case please avoid reading this till after you’ve seen the movie. I personally don’t think it’ll really ruin much of it for you.The Sentinel

One of the main facets of the movie is that this top notch Secret Service officer is having an affair with the First Lady. Somebody finds out about it and he spends a good deal of effort trying to hide this fact. Basically, No Affair=No Movie. Yet, throughout the movie there is no hint of commentary showing that having the affair, or lying to cover it up, was a bad thing. At one point the Secret Service officer says something along the lines of, “I didn’t see it coming,” implying the affair just “happened.” If anything you leave the movie feeling nothing for the torn relationship between the president and first lady, and rather a desire for the first lady and SS officer to stay together. Which, by the way, this might be considered a sub-plot (or just Ariah’s conspiracy), because the actual movie is about an assassination attempt on the president.

What’s the point of me sharing all this and ruining the movie for you? Just to say that I think we need to be more critical thinkers, and realize what values we are upholding and teaching ourselves. The movie seems to uphold the value that love (the affair) is more important then commitment (the marriage), and that risking everything to protect the person you love (as in keeping your affair a secret) is admirable. Personally this is what I think you should learn: If you sleep with another person’s spouse and then lie to cover it up, you will be shot at, chased down, yelled at, forced to hide, blackmailed, and you’ll live your life in fear.

Affairs are NOT okay.

P.S. Treating women like objects is NOT okay either. (A couple comments in this movie just annoyed me)