Monday, May 2, 2011

Violence, Justice, Wrestling…

In the weeks that followed September 11th, 2001, many words escaped my lips that, even then, felt like they were being spoken by some anti-Brian. The words didn't feel like me. Other people told me as much back then.


I had been married for less than a year. Life was good for me. Planes crashing into buildings, that shook my world view, and I didn't like it. It opened my eyes to things I wanted to ignore. It opened up a reality I wanted to deny. I wasn't as safe as I had once thought. Fear, though certainly no stranger in life back then, seemed to grow legs in those days. I was sad too, but that wasn't as transformative.


Hitting that wall of reality made my tongue wag. I wanted justice. I wanted revenge. I wanted violence. I wanted blood. The words that escaped my tongue felt both wrong and right back then. They only feel wrong now. I feel too much shame to share them with you today.


The death of Osama Bin Laden should be something we all contemplate. This is a case where my faith butts heads with my patriotism. It's hard not to see the death of a violent person as a victory when he's caused you sadness and fear, but it's also hard to forget the lessons I've picked up on since then. Death removes the possibility of redemption as we know it.


Using violence to solve problems is easy, but I believe it costs us part of our souls. It's harder to avoid violence if it costs us our lives. So the question may be, what's more important our lives or our souls? Would we rather be a King Jr. or a Bin Laden?


My heart has changed. I feel now that my words were likely very similar to the words of those I sought to harm. I had become no different than my perceived enemy. They were killers, so I wanted them killed, making me a killer.


Justice is a tricky subject. It may sound cliche to say that only God knows the whole story, but I believe it. Even when someone is clearly committing acts of evil, we never know what every motivation might be. We think we do. Maybe there is no justification for evil, but maybe it's not right for us to judge anyway. Over and over again in scripture, God reminds us to be merciful.


I was a fairly new Christian back in 2011. I hadn't chased God much. There's been a lot of pursuit since then. Today, I can't see God being happy with further bloodshed. I can't imagine Jesus approving the outcome or methods. I don't think he wanted us to pray for enemies as we planned to shoot them in the head. It's hard to make a bullet loving.


I also became a father since 2001. My concept of love has grown in ways I can't put into words. If I love my kids so much that nothing they could ever do would take that love away, how much more does God love us? If God loves me, doesn't he love everyone, including terrorists?


If I find fault in a man because he caused so much death, how can I find comfort in even more death? To me, yesterday's death was just one more ugly event in a cycle of ugly events. I doubt the cycle has ended.


This world, this savage garden, it seems it will always leave me shaking my head in disgust, not just for the actions of others, but for the yearnings of my own heart. I thank God my heart is less stony today. I pray it's even less stony tomorrow.

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