Adding to the "Shouldn't's"...
...More items to add to my ongoing list of Things That Just "SHOULDN'T BE".
1.) The US Post Office should not be able to legally charge $12.40 for Priority Mail service, which boasts expedited delivery within 3 business days, only to NOT deliver said package until the eighth business day, and then refuse a refund because they do not "guarantee" their Priority Mail delivery times. I see. So what exactly did I pay the $12.40 for? Ransom? Legalized bribery? Or a gratuity, rewarding the mere possibility that the package MAY arrive as promised?
2.) Credit card companies should not be able to unilaterally alter the original terms of our consumer credit card agreements at will without a compelling reason, such as the default of the borrower. When we enter into a contractual agreement to borrow and repay money that affects OUR credit ratings, it is a seriously sober matter. When we keep our commitment in good faith, the other party to the contract should not be able to alter terms of our agreement at will in order to create more favorable terms for their sole benefit.
3.) The focus on weddings shouldn't emphasize the bride, the dress, the food, the tiara, the photos, the colors and china, the dinner menu, the ring ~ any of that peripheral distractory. Planners should not be employed to plan a wedding, but a marriage. The focus should not be upon the planning, process, perfunctions, primping, and party that happens the day the bride and groom say "I do"... but rather, the lifetime that comes after.
4.) War should not exist. But as war does exist, ALL human beings who share this planet should be avidly circumspect in voicing their opinions about its existence, plan, execution, and duration while other human beings are dying ~ either for a cause they believe in, or as casualties of a conflict they are entirely innocent of. After all, it is unchecked and increasingly polarized differences of opinions and ideologies that foster the inability to coexist peaceably, and inevitably form the root cause of war in the first place.
5.) American cities, counties, and governments shouldn't be so arrogant as to expect to pay their police officers wages that are easily eclipsed by most employees of Taco Bell, offer limited or no benefits, require 14-hour days or longer ~ and then wring their hands in puzzled confusion as to why they cannot attract quality recruits for their dwindling police force. I'm sorry, guys, but any job that requires its' employee to don 30 pounds of body armor, a bulletproof vest and kevlar, pepper spray, riot batons and shields, and over a dozen guns on their person or cars should not be something we expect to fill at a discounted compensation rate. This vastly arrogant disrespect for people who stand in the gap - literally - with their lives everyday explains why we are suffering from a stark shortage of police officers nationwide. Including Copper's local department in a city where over 20% of the police officer positions remain indefinitely, chronically vacant.
6.) Perfection should not be expected or claimed by anyone. After Jesus, we are all just pale reflections of the possibility.
posted by lachen at 10:18 PM
12 Comments:
And I say "Amen!" to all of the above. But mostly the marriage one.
I second that Amen!
I agree with everything you said except for the bit about speaking out against war during wartime. It is absolutely necessary for the public to remain informed and verbal and opinionated during wartime because there are people dying and if the public does not voice concern over the war, how can the government be held accountable to the citizens that they are supposed to represent?
The Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust Survivor Elie Weisel said it best. “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Thank you for your AMENS. Mo, I KNEW you were going to have a comment about the marriage "shouldn't". I just knew it. :)
Tracy:
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation."
This Iraq war represents our current inter/national act of being unsilenced as human beings are being annihilated, are suffering, and are humiliated.
We are not silenced. We are at war.
Thus, breaking the silence is not the solution - it is merely part of the process toward a solution. Thus, I support neither neutrality nor remaining silent in the face of suffering. It is rather with individual choices we make about the expression of those opinions I take hearty issue.
Opinions are fine, unavoidable, and healthy, but there is a proper and respectful time and a place to express them. Elie Weisel expressed his well-earned opinions with respect and grace. There is precious little of either of those qualities shading the banter swirling around currently.
Rather, I see egos clashing and ideologies jockeying for dominance as we strive to pursue the best course in saving humanity from the increasing elements that are hellbent on destruction for its own sake. Amidst our ample, thundering opinions, God is steadily whispering. My prayer is that we collectively quiet down our opinionated screaming long enough to heed His word and pray for His will to be done. *~*Peace on earth will not come about because of what we say, but how we pray.*~*
"To everything there is a season and a purpose for all things under heaven."
(thank you for posting, by the way! I do not mean to discourage conversation or lambast you. We just, as two women with hearts seeking alignment with Christ, could not be more different on some of these matters and it bears fleshing out. Once in awhile when we are both in a safe and abundant place. like now.)
But I do feel that speaking out against the current terrors and attrocities in Iraq are relevant, needed, and important now. We were lead into this war under false pretenses.
1. Now we are there to establish democracy and for Iraq to reestablish sovereignty. But we are there without a plan or without adequate support to finish either job. The military has been quite vocal in saying that they do not have enough manpower or equipment to achieve these goal. They are being asked to do too much with too little.
2. And the very task of democracy building in that country is not our governments job, either.
3. It is our governments job to protect, defend, and care for our citizens. So while we are spending billions of dollars weekly in the futile effort in Irq, we have children going without adequate meals here, we have millions of americans going without healthcare, we have children attending failing public schools, and we have a national treasure (New Orleans) being left in shambles along with its residents and businesses.
4. And to achieve all of this, our government is spending our country into a deficit that has rarely been witnessed in history. It is wrong, sinful, for a family to spend money that it doesn't have. It is wrong, sinful, for a government to do the same. There is no financial responsibility being modeled by our president, its administration, or Congress.
All of this is unacceptable. It is wrong. It is leaving a legacy of unnecessary bloodshed in two countries, all at the hands of our government, and our President who so publicly professes his faith in Christ.
I find all of this embarassing. I can no longer apologize for it. I feel it is my obligation as a Christian, as a voter for President Bush to speak out against these atrocities against humanity and to not do so is only giving him permission to continue.
That's my wife. Man, I love her.
Thanks for voicing your opinion, Tracy (and Scott for supporting her!). I love you guys, but man - I could not disagree with you more here.
The false pretense argument is tired and incorrect.
There is no false pretense when thousands of people are gassed to death in the streets of their own nation. There is no false pretense when biochemical weapons of mass destruction are used to annihilate people. There is no false pretense other than the liberal agenda to make right, wrong, and wrong - right. Weapons of mass destruction were being actively used and developed. People were dying. Money and relationships with terrorism were thriving and being outsourced like a virus to infect other areas of the earth.
There were and continue to be compelling reasons for the path we've taken into Iraq. Whether or not to believe that is an individual decision, and is something I am done arguing, frankly. People believe what they want to believe.
There remains only the decision of whether or not we wish to get involved in being part of a solution outside our geographical borders. We've chosen to in Irag, Afghanistan, Sudan, Rwanda, South Africa, and countless other arenas. This is RIGHT and it is good - to answer the call of the suffering, dying, and oppressed is noble. Granted, our reactionay efforts have almost universally been imperfect and it is clumsy. But this is to be expected. We are imperfect and clumsy people. Should our lack of perfection prevent us from obedience? (Note #6 in the original post: none can claim perfection. We are all just endeavoring towards the goal and giving it our utmost for His highest.)
As Christians, people who want God's Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, we are OBLIGATED to not only care for ourselves, our nation, our children, within our litte finite boxes, but to answer the cry of the suffering and the dying across the globe.
OBLIGATED.
Now, granted, that does not mean entering into a war. I so struggle against the very concept of war and am in conversation lately with God about its very existence and whether or not it is every righteous. I find ample Biblical evidence that it is, at times. Certainly our Old Testament is a witness to some of those times. Some of our most amazing Biblical stories arise from war: Joshua, David, Gideon. Is the modern age we travel a witness to others? And if not, what makes modern wars different from Biblical conflicts? The cost? The politics? The lack of clear Godly direction?
The argument that we need to care for our own nation, our own people, our own "stuff" first - here at home - is hypcritical. And I would even offer, egocentric. I find no trace of the Jesus I know in the assertion that we should serve ourselves first.
Yes, we must be good stewards of what we have been given. And I agree that putting ourselves in massive debt for no reason is not good stewardship. But there IS a reason. Whether or not we believe that reason compelling enough to pay the costs associated with answering the call is, again, indivudal and something I am done arguing. For me, that answer is yes. For you, no. OK.
But no amount of rowing on about it changes the fact that we are now there. That human beings are dying in this endeavor that holds meaning for them and represents their answer to their obligation. And that callous discussions about the purpose of a call, the flaws of our government, and the supposed false pretenses of a journey into a country to answer a call that is DEEPLY meaningful to those serving in our military and holds the very real possibility of costing their LIVES, is disrespectful, unkind, and unloving. I find we should not be so quick to fire off our opinions when people are dying for a cause that he world is meant to benefit from.
And it is interesting that I hear so often from my liberal friends that America should lower our borders, allow total amnesty for illegal immigrants and serve their interests of freedom and a better life, "make no distinction" across our geographical borders to serve and care for people beyond ourselves, no matter the cost to our infrastructure... YET, as this is EXACTLY what we are doing in Iraq - serving the interests of freedom and caring and reliving oppression and suffering outside of our geographical boxes no matter the cost - I find it hard to fathom that one action is wrong when the other is somehow right. But that is what some would have me believe. Nonsense.
No matter the cost, I am obligated to come to the aid of the weak, oppressed, dying, lost, hopeless - to the extent of myself.
I say: God loves all people with equal vigor. I say: we are individually obligated to the people of Iraq as citizens in the Kingdom of GOD, not citizens in the United States of America - though we are obligated under that umbrella too. I say: It IS our governments' business to help in any way we can, because WE are our government. And I say: it is my personal obligation to extend myself to the ends of the earth if it means ministering peace, liberty, freedom, life, and hope to others. To preach the gospel without using words. That is the calling of Christ, is it not?
I say: New Orleans is not more important that Fallujah.
I say: God makes no distinction between an Iraqui child and my own child.
I say: we are there to do a job, and it is a righteous one.
I say too much.
And so does everyone else.
I love you guys. Thanks for being a part of my blog.
Lachen, we are just going at this from two totally different points of view and I don't want to hijack your blog. I'll quietly walk away.
And still call you my friend. ;)
I don't want to argue the war with you, either. Although I firmly believe we are there for the wrong reasons.
However, you cannot say that we chose to go into Rwanda. Our inaction there was absolutely pathetic. We did not help and our refusal to call what was going on genocide was a low point in our history.
The rest of the stuff I'll just ignore. You can always get my viewpoint on these things on my blog.
Hi T and S,
Checking in after a rather long day to find you both have visited is a treat. :)
Tracy, please feel free to hijack away. I would not be so devoted to maintaining this blog if I didn't openly invite commentary - as verbose or succint as you like - from my friends. You and I are so fascinating - we are either VERY close in agreement on topics, or VERY far apart. At least we can always count on our relationship being anything but milquetoast.
Scott, did I say we chose to go into Rwanda? I hope I didn't. I think I said we went into Rwanda to help, and we did - extremely, painfully, inexcusably late and, it seemed to me, with unsure footing. But we did finally go, and I am proud of us for that, while deeply disturbed that it took us so long to finally take the action I personally believed was the obvious action. The desperate cry of an oppressed, preyed upon, dying people should always compel us to action, even when it is distant or muddled, or politically unpopular.
Personally, I am sad it took the events of September 11 for us as a collective people to begin paying more acute attention to the sufferings of others beyond our borders. If I ruled the world, we would have heeded the cries of the murdered Kurds when they were so horrifically uttered on March 15, 1988 in Halabja. Our focus on the 3300 dead Americans is clarion. Far less important to us seems the over 400,000 Iraqui's that perished under Saddam's nonexistent chemical weapons program. http://mondediplo.com/1998/03/04iraqkn
And the plight of countless others across this planet whose cries are falling on hardened hearts because we are so inwardly focused on our own problems and are almost paralyzed with inertia as we argue amongst ourselves.
Hence my "shouldn't" concerning the war and our opinions. there is a time and a place. While people are dying, we should not be talking. We should be supporting those who are taking actions to end the suffering.
Yes, we are tragically slow to act across the earth. To improve our response to the calls of global human suffering and be able to provide effective, meaningful responses is a noble cause even you and I can agree on.
May we strive to be better than we are.
I hear you and I understand why you think we should be silent during times when others are facing death.
But in the history of the world there has only been a handful of years when there wasn't war. When can we speak out?
For those of us who are firmly and unswervingly convinced that this war is wrong, it would go against our conscience to keep silent.
I hear you, too! The way you just succinctly expressed your position - I come away with a neat, total understanding of what you're saying.
When I read your last comment, I likened the war protests to the abortion protests. YES, abortion is the murder of an innocent fully formed soul, it is wrong and MUST end, and we MUST stand up and protect those children and voice our conscience and Christian obligation.
BUT... screaming mantras or shoving plackard signs in the face of a pregnant and scared 14-year old being escorted into a Planned Parenthood Clinic is not the ideal means of delivering this message. Indeed, choosing those moments to speak our conscience and choosing these painful methods of communicating our message not only fails to save the baby at risk within that mother's womb, but also turns her heart against the message of life altogether. We've lost the battle because we chose to fight it on the wrong front.
Make no mistake: war should not be. I abhor that Satan is tirelessly working to devour us and turn us against one another to the extent that war has been a constant phenomenon somewhere on the planet for generations. I hate that people are dying without hearing that Jesus loves them. I hate that I am hated by people I do not know - and not for the name of Jesus - but for the fact that I am geographically and otherwise rooted to this nation. Which they have generationally been taught seeks their destruction.
Your question - when can we speak out? -gets to the heart of this section of my original post. I believe that we should be utterly circumspect during wartime when lives are being lost. For me, it is as inappropriately painful and callous to hear zealous anti-war/Bush/whatever speech during this wartime when my own FAMILY is across the earth protecting and defending international troops and the Iraqui people from very real potential of death, daily, as it would be to have protestors hold a boisterous rally during a slain soliders funeral.
Anti-war speech during a wartime that is costing LIVES, like anti-abortion screaming at a pregnant girl in crisis, fails to deliver the message of love and hope it so desires to. Instead, it hardens hearts because it is delivered in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Psalmist teaches us that to everything, there is a season. The season of war is upon us again. Until that season passes, my mouth will be silenced with my grudges against this war and war in general.
At all times, but particularly during conflict, a divided and fractured nation is not effective at accomplishing anything well. If we want to end this war, we need to commit to that - first. We do not end it by protest speech. We end it through prayer, and through committment to meeting finite goals and getting the heck out of Dodge. We have made a promise to the entire world with our venture into Iraq. We have pledged to leave it better than we found it, to free an oppressed people from a murderer, and to break up rampant terror networks that are a clear and present danger to the planet. So let's do that. Let us support our soliders with prayer and solidarity, define our goals, equip those we have sent with the tools they need to get the job done and come home.
Once the "job of war and peace" is done to the utmost of our abilities, let us then earnestly endeavor to create SOLUTIONS, humble approaches to the human condition and our goal to peaceably coexist on this earth together - with the goal of eradicating the bloody arena of war altogether and making it the exception to the rule of conflict rather than the option of first resort.
Again, my thanks for so often coming here and sharing so openly. I VALUE your thoughts.
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