MONDAY MORNING REFLECTIONS: ISIS, FERGUSON, EBOLA

BY STEVE DUNN

Today I reach a personal milestone.  It is my 64th birthday.  I am beginning the day with a prayer of thanksgiving for the life God has given me, a bowl of cereal and an English muffin,, and the NCAA Basketball brackets.  Later I will go to work and push some paper that has been accumulating.  What appears to be a bronchial infection will limit my contact with people.  Tonight my wife Dianne will serve me a great dinner of her world class spaghetti and meat balls. Simple plans for one who has seen a whole lot of birthdays.

The world I live in has grown much less simple, however.  It has grown more complicated, more hateful, more dangerous.  I grieve for my world and the state it is in.

Last week some "punks" (to quote Attorney General Eric Holder) ambushed two policemen in the city of Ferguson, throwing more gasoline on a smoldering fire in that racially troubled community. We receive one more disturbing report of American young people who are heading to the Middle East to join ISIS, easily one of the most barbaric terrorist groups we have seen in centuries.  Several more workers attempting to stem the tide of Ebola in Africa were infected themselves with the disease.

The list -- sadly -- goes on and will have grown by more troubles  by the time this post is published.

This is what happens to a world that makes violence  part of the fabric of every day living.  It is what happens in a world where those who know the right thing to do, delay and defer until a tidal wave of hateful insanity is upon them.  It is what happens in a world that thinks we can live comfortably and callously behind our national barriers while others literally die from their life conditions for no other reason than the accident of the location of their birth.

It is what happens in a world that thinks it does not need a God because we prefer the unrestrained license of our personal desires.

Long ago Jesus told us that we should love God with our whole being--and then reminded us that loving God requires obedience to his healing will for the world.

And in the same breath he reminded us that if we really love God WE MUST LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS AS OURSELVES.

So today, I am praying that we will take these two commands seriously--starting with me.