BY STEVE DUNN
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
"I HAVEN'T ALWAYS BEEN THE COOL PERSON YOU SEE BEFORE YOU TODAY"
BY STEVE DUNN
"Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all."
The ultimate cool in the Kingdom of God is to be a
blessing to others, especially to “the least of these.”
Monday, October 5, 2015
ENOUGH !!!!!
Last week Chris Mercer walked onto the campus of Umpqua Community College in Oregon killing 10 persons and wounding at least nine others. At this point, he appeared to actually be targeting Christians--for what reason we are still trying to unwrap. It was the fourth mass shooting on a college campus in recent years. It was the 45th reported school shooting this year in the United States.
I am about to make some friends angry. They are persons who are avid sportsmen and passionate political conservatives. They own guns and are in fact, highly responsible gun owners. For this reason and others, they believe that their ownership of guns are an inalienable right tied fundamentally to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They believe that people kill people--guns don't kill people. Some of them are also convince that our government is fundamentally untrustworthy and that must retain their arms to keep from being victimized and tyrannized by that same government. Others believe that their police forces our inept and ultimately it is up to them to protect their property and the lives of loved ones.
See how complicated this has become personally?
Nonetheless, I have reached the point that I must declare ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!
I cannot listen one more self-serving declaration from the NRA that instead of proposing realistic solutions chooses to stonewall with arguments that have become less and less tenable. I am tired of politicians of both sides of the aisle politicizing this issue, including those on the left who utter no outcry when babies are killed in the name of reproductive rights.
What about the inalienable right to life?
My friends and neighbors, the collateral damage has become simply unacceptable. Reducing school children dead and terrorized at the hand of a gunman to the callous categorization of collateral damage is absolutely offensive to one who believes in the sanctity of life--and I suspect to God, who is Life. My anti-gun control friends--the destruction of a human life in a womb is no less offensive than shooting that life in a classroom.
The passionate opposition to gun control when at the same time stripping the providers of mental health care of resources to bring some form of life management or even healing those with mental illnesses is selfish and self-serving.
The time has come to provide realistic control to the spread of arms in this land. The time has come to identify those prone to violence in their mental illness and get them help that reduces the likelihood of their becoming mass murderers--and again institutionalizing those who cannot be helped.
The time has come to end our insane flirtation with violence in this society and the worship of the tools of that violence--video games, automatic weapons to name a few.
The time has come.
ENOUGH !!!!!!
Saturday, October 3, 2015
REPRISE: SEPTEMBER 11 2010
From time to time I find someone who remembers an earlier blog post of mine and shares a further expression of appreciation. This month I am beginning a feature called REPRISE, where once a month I will some of the most visited and reposted of my offerings to you. This one was written five years ago on the anniversary of September 11th. - STEVE
I
will never forget September 11, 2001. I had just begun a new life and a
new ministry at my church in Landisville, Pennsylvania. Just two days
before had been my first official Sunday as its pastor and my days were
fresh with the excitement of new beginnings and comfortable September
days. I was living in the home of my council president, Dr Jerry
Albright and his wife Val, and had walked early that morning the two
blocks to the church. Just a few minutes after my arrival at the
office, a new friend Doug Sutton called and invited me to experience a
Lancaster County treat, the Tuesday market at Roots. Thinking it was
too early in the job to blow off a morning to do some sight-seeing, I
declined.
Within a few minutes the phone began to ring. Patty Baker, my Administrative Assistant, was speaking to her husband. Something terrible was going on in Manhattan. "A plane has just hit the World Trade Center!" she announced, noting that rumors were already spreading. I quickly returned to the house, turning on the television just in time to see the second plane slam into the WTC. It was horrifying, surreal - like watching a science fiction movie - and yet it was not fiction. Then came the word that Islamic terrorists had hijacked planes in Boston and elsewhere and were carrying on suicide attacks in New York and Washington. The Pentagon was hit! A plane had crashed in western Pennsylvania when the passengers battled the terrorists for control of the aircraft--another plane destined for the nation's capital.
Returning
to the office, I found my phone ringing as shocked and frightened
parishioners began to call seeking to find comfort or some sense in the
senseless. We were glued to our sets, drawn by the unimagined horror of
it all, watching ugly clouds of smoke billowing across the Manhattan
skyline and then seeing desperate people leap from buildings. One
mother, homeschooling her children, called. "What do I do? My children
are seeing these horrible things on tv. They are frightened and
confused." "Turn off the set," I said. Later that day I would meet more
than 75 of my people (many for the first time) in the sanctuary of the
church as we gathered for prayer.
September 11, 2001 was the day America lost its innocence. The War on Terror had arrived on our shores in an undeniable and life-altering way. No longer were we the happy, carefree citizens consuming, crowding the malls, playing, working, studying, raising families, rooting for our favorite teams, traveling wherever we desired when we desired. Places of public gathering took on the stench of death. Air travel became a dangerous risk. Strangers became enemies, especially if they were of Middle Eastern descent. The bombings and everyday fears that defined life in so many other places in the world became a real possibility for people on this side of the Atlantic.
Stories of incredible sacrifice and heroism began to fill our front pages and nightly news reports. Having experienced a brutal sneak attack by persons bent on destroying our way of life, we saw the finest of spirits arise in everyday people. The decent side of our common humanity asserted itself and we pulled together working, praying, and caring. Determination to meet this challenge and visit justice upon the evil doers united Americans of many walks of life and political persuasions. The simple faith of our newly elected President, George W. Bush, was seen as a sign of hope.
For a time there was a reawakening of the spiritual hunger of our nation. As is often the case in times of great crisis, Americans drew close to God and filled its houses of worship. People seem unashamed to call upon
the Almighty for solace and for strength. But as many a pastor
can
tell you, that was only for a season. Soon we were looking again to
human strength and human solutions, at best seeking God's blessings on
the plans we had made and intended to follow. Persons went about their
daily business as if they didn't need God. The crisis was over. He was
on the shelf until the next crisis that seemed beyond our control. A
nation at war seemed to push God once again out of sight and out of mind
- except those persons in harm's way in places like Iraq and
Afghanistan who continued to seek God's protection and strength. They
knew daily as they walked through the valley of the shadow of death how
fragile their lives were and how dependent those lives were upon God's
providence.
Now, nine years later, I wonder what lessons we have learned as Americans. I wonder how much our plans and pretensions have accomplished. In particular I honor those men and women of the armed forces who have had their lives unalterably changed by going into battle to protect the freedom we so cherish and to push back against those who threaten us. But I wonder, as we use our freedom in America in ways so unchastened by events like September 11th, if those men and women are laboring in vain. The threats within from the shallow self-serving and narcissistic culture we persist in perpetuating may not threaten us with same violence as Al Quaida or the Taliban, but can as surely destroy a healthy, wholesome, God-honoring way of life as those enemies from without.
"Do not use your freedom for license," the apostle Paul declared in a time long before America's founding. Will we ever learn that lesson?
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REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11TH
Within a few minutes the phone began to ring. Patty Baker, my Administrative Assistant, was speaking to her husband. Something terrible was going on in Manhattan. "A plane has just hit the World Trade Center!" she announced, noting that rumors were already spreading. I quickly returned to the house, turning on the television just in time to see the second plane slam into the WTC. It was horrifying, surreal - like watching a science fiction movie - and yet it was not fiction. Then came the word that Islamic terrorists had hijacked planes in Boston and elsewhere and were carrying on suicide attacks in New York and Washington. The Pentagon was hit! A plane had crashed in western Pennsylvania when the passengers battled the terrorists for control of the aircraft--another plane destined for the nation's capital.
September 11, 2001 was the day America lost its innocence. The War on Terror had arrived on our shores in an undeniable and life-altering way. No longer were we the happy, carefree citizens consuming, crowding the malls, playing, working, studying, raising families, rooting for our favorite teams, traveling wherever we desired when we desired. Places of public gathering took on the stench of death. Air travel became a dangerous risk. Strangers became enemies, especially if they were of Middle Eastern descent. The bombings and everyday fears that defined life in so many other places in the world became a real possibility for people on this side of the Atlantic.
Stories of incredible sacrifice and heroism began to fill our front pages and nightly news reports. Having experienced a brutal sneak attack by persons bent on destroying our way of life, we saw the finest of spirits arise in everyday people. The decent side of our common humanity asserted itself and we pulled together working, praying, and caring. Determination to meet this challenge and visit justice upon the evil doers united Americans of many walks of life and political persuasions. The simple faith of our newly elected President, George W. Bush, was seen as a sign of hope.
For a time there was a reawakening of the spiritual hunger of our nation. As is often the case in times of great crisis, Americans drew close to God and filled its houses of worship. People seem unashamed to call upon
the Almighty for solace and for strength. But as many a pastor
Now, nine years later, I wonder what lessons we have learned as Americans. I wonder how much our plans and pretensions have accomplished. In particular I honor those men and women of the armed forces who have had their lives unalterably changed by going into battle to protect the freedom we so cherish and to push back against those who threaten us. But I wonder, as we use our freedom in America in ways so unchastened by events like September 11th, if those men and women are laboring in vain. The threats within from the shallow self-serving and narcissistic culture we persist in perpetuating may not threaten us with same violence as Al Quaida or the Taliban, but can as surely destroy a healthy, wholesome, God-honoring way of life as those enemies from without.
"Do not use your freedom for license," the apostle Paul declared in a time long before America's founding. Will we ever learn that lesson?
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