conditions on peace???

what happened to placing conditions on war?

not peace...

surely we have got it wrong when we claim that conditions must be met before peace...

is not human life and the elimination of suffering and violence our first calling? why then does peace bear the cost of conditions. 'I will not stop hurting you until you stop hurting me...'

STOP! STOP! STOP

Stop the violence, stop the suffering, stop the rhetoric.

there must be another way...
there needs to be another way...
find another way...

and place the conditions back where they should be - on war.

like shakespeare?

reading this weeks epistle lectionary reading - from ephesians 3 - i can confidently say that i just struggle to understand paul...

i feel like a kid again in the early years of high school complaining to the teacher that shakespeare just doesn't make sense... its so much bloody work in my mind just to come to grips with the concept... but when i get there i'm all the better for it...

⁸although I am the very least of all the saints,
this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles
the news of the boundless riches of Christ,
⁹and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery
hidden for ages in God who created all things;
¹⁰so that through the church the wisdom of God
in its rich variety might now be made known
to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places...

ten canoes

sarah and i saw ten canoes tonight... its such a daring piece of film making as it goes against everything in modern, popular cinema (well at least as i understand it).

the film is about 2 stories... the story and the lesson... that is the story that takes place as the story is told, and the actual story, the parable...

sound familiar???

the power in this film is that it is within the telling of the ancient story that significance is found - a jouneying and relationship that in return gives greater meaning to the ancient story...

maybe tomorrow i'll add another ancient story.

amen

for a better world... a better solution... a better me...

god catch the bombs

that feeling that makes you sink deep within yourself...
spirit aching... heart sobbing... numb...

everytime i see another bomb fall something inside me is torn.

WHY?

i feel 'more connected' this time, yet i feel more helpless, hopeless. i can't just blame george, nor john.

is it because i am aware that it is humanity being bombed and that it is humanity doing the bombing...

if only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to seperate them from the rest of us and destroy them. but the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. and who is willing to destroy a piece of his [sic] own heart? - alexander solzhenitsyn

yet there must be another way... a way that sees bombs fall no more.... a way thats sees non-voilence as the hope for our shared humanity... there is another way... a way where your humanity demands peace of me and i of you...

other, let me know you... other, come know me...

catch the bombs o god, the ones they fire and the ones i create...