I, geekrevThe closest you want to get to looking inside the mind of Shawn Coons.

Flying makes me mad.  I’ve ranted before about the security theatre that we are forced to go through if we fly.  The war on moisture, showing your papers, dress codes, and all that other stuff that doesn’t actually make us safer, but gets us use to operating out of fear, giving up our civil liberties, and authorizing the government to kill people “over there” so they don’t get us here.  How does that last one work anyway?  Don’t we have to perpetually kill them over there?  No matter when we stop as long as we leave one of the bad people alive they can come get us, right?

Anyway.  We currently live in Houston, TX which is a plane ride away from any family or conference we would go to, so we fly several times a year.  So our three year old son is familiar with airports, planes, and now - airport security.  We were waiting in line to run our carry-ons through the x-ray and as we got towards the front Ben looks up and asks, “Should I take my shoes off?”

This may be an overreaction, but I was heartbroken.  It upsets me greatly that Ben is going to grow up thinking it is normal and acceptable to partially disrobe just to travel from one area of our free land to another.  Thanks, George, for making living in fear seem acceptable to a new generation.

Last year I loaned $25 to a 23 year old Kenyan man named David Njogu Ngugi.  David is using my money to help him build, license and stock a simple roadside stand to sell simple household goods that you and I take for granted.  My $25 was part of a $700 micro-loan through Kiva, which is an organization that has given almost twenty million dollars in micro-loans to people all across the globe.  These loans are used to give people the means to improve their lives and livelihood in situations and areas where this kind of help is absent.  Over 99% of the loans have been repayed to date.

You have probably seen Kenya in the news lately as a country undergoing terrible unrest and violence.  As a result of this unrest, repayments from Kenyan Kiva recipients is understandably unstable at the moment.  So I, along with many other lenders, received detailing the unrest and asking for patience with the repayment schedule.  When this blog update was posted hundreds of comments came in from lenders and the message was near unanimous, “Please forgive my loan to…”

It was amazing to scroll down this list of hundred of people using the word “forgive.”  What a blessed moment it was seeing forgiveness in action, over and over and over.   In a world and country that operates on vengeance, it gives me a moment’s hope to see this small light shine in the darkness.

It certainly is probable that many of these people viewed their loan to Kiva like I did.  It would be nice to get it back, but if not I’ll consider it a donation.  And there is discussion on the Kiva site about whether forgiveness is the best option, or whether patience, support and restructuring is better for the overall model and wellness of Kiva and the micro-loan concept.

Regardless, it was wonderful to see people forgive their debtors.

I just added this feed to my blog reader:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/rss/recent/

So alongside posts like (Let’s Not) Focus on the Family, LotRo Quest Inspired by Apple II Text Adventure, and Big Ben Throws for 5 TDs, I am now reading the names of people like Specialist Marisol Heredia, Staff Sergeant Courtney Hollinsworth, and First Lieutenant Thomas M. Martin. These three people are just a few of the 3,827 American soldiers who have died as part of the war in Iraq. I’ve decided that I need daily reminders of the cost that some Americans are being asked to pay for an UnGodly war. I need these daily reminders, because I’ve come to a humbling realization.

I have not been opposed to the war in Iraq.

Sure, I’ve spoken against it in a number of personal conversations, and people at the churches I’ve served could guess that I thought it was a bad and wrong course of action.  But, as much as it pains me to admit it,  I have not truly been opposed to the war in Iraq. The definition of oppose is “to resist, withstand or combat.”  And I can’t think of anything that I’ve done that is strong enough to really count as opposing the war.  All my actions have probably been as pointless as throwing a magnetic “Support the Troops” ribbon on your car.

I’m ashamed that I haven’t opposed the war. I’m ashamed as an American citizen, I’m ashamed as a Christian, but I am most ashamed as a Minister.

I’ve bought into the rule that paralyzes many (most?) churches and ministers today. We tell ourselves that we can’t take a stand on controversial issues because there are people in our congregations who wouldn’t agree.  Well, guess what? We aren’t called to be popular, we are called to be faithful. In the 1960s, ministers were run out of churches because they supported civil rights, and churches lost members when they raised their voice to say that segregation was a sin.

Are ministers willing to be run out of churches today, to oppose the mass loss of American and Iraqi life that is happening in the Middle East? Some are.  I have a good friend who was forced out of a church in part because he committed “pulpitcide” by speaking out against the Iraq war. We certainly shouldn’t make it our goal to anger people and get kicked out of our churches, but we can’t live in terror of offending people or saying something that they disagree with.

I don’t know what I will do from here. But I’m not content to remain silent any longer. I’m not content to sit idly by and let more people die because someone sitting in a pew on Sunday morning doesn’t agree with me. I need to proclaim God’s Word as best as I can and as best as God has revealed it to me. And if someone feels they have a different Word from God, then they need to proclaim it loudly and as best they can as well.

Let us all speak boldly about what God wants for our world, because it is a matter of life and death.

Racism is bad.

Violence is bad.

Joining a Facebook group to symbolically fight racism  while ignoring the racism in your own community is bad.

Hanging nooses to intimidate people of another race is bad.

Six guys beating up one guy is bad.

Racist over-prosecution is bad.

Proclaiming six boys heroes because they beat up a kid is bad.

The notion that racism is largely gone in our country is not only bad, but stupid.