Archive for 2013
Poets of the Fall - War (Official Video)
This number, by Poets of the Fall, is titled "War". I first heard the song when I was playing a game that my roommate had introduced me to, Alan Wake. There was something very surreal about fighting off a horde of possessed psychopaths to this epic tune.
This music is actually a live-action cinematography showing off for the game itself, including major characters like Alan, Alice, and glimpses of Barbara Jagger and the Taken. Throughout the scenes we see Alan traversing through the woods surrounding Bright Falls with a flash flight and flares, stumbling across pages of the manifest that plays such an important roll in the story.
"War", "The Poet and the Muse", and "Children of the Elder God" were all composed specifically for the Alan Wake soundtrack.
Love Does No Harm
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| An innocent person is attacked, beaten, and then burned to death by an anti-gay mob in Nalukolongo. Photo source: Uganda Gay on Move |
It's been a long time since I've posted anything on this old, dusty blog. But only seconds have passed since I last dared to think. I was reminded of this little corner of cyberspace - my little corner - when I happened across a news article reporting that the Ugandan parliament had finally passed the dreaded "Kill the Gays" Anti-Homosexuality Bill. I felt my heart sink and my head swirl when my mind registered the headline.
I don't like pointing fingers. It merely adds to my own burdens; and like poison, accusations can bring just as much calamity to the accuser. Yet, I won't sidestep the blame either. We caused this to happen. Us Christians are just as much at fault as the shameless politicians that supported this legislation.
In 2009, American evangelist pastor Scott Lively visited Uganda under the pretense of spreading the Message of the Gospel. Instead, he spread a message of hate and ill-contempt for gays. Like wild fire, his rhetoric tore across the country and reached the ears of the nation's elite. Almost overnight, a bill that would set in motion a wave of intolerance towards an entire people was drafted and proposed on the floor of Uganda's parliament. And the mind-blowing part of it all... he doesn't deny any of it. He gladly takes credit for it, as well as taking credit for Russia's sudden aggression toward gays.
What in God's Good Name just happened...?
Were we not Commissioned to go forth and "make disciples of all nations" and to teach others to "obey all that I have commanded" (Matthew 28:16-20)? And what was it that we were commanded to do?
To love one another. To convey the message of eternal life. To honor our Father in Heaven.
The picture you see above at the top of this blog... is that an example of love? I see children standing around a burned corpse, that had fallen victim to hatred and disdain, intolerance. Is that an example of conveying the message of eternal life? I see a dreadful warning of death and ostracism. Finally, is that an example of honoring God? I see nothing but murder, and that is far from honoring anything.
In Paul's letter to the Romans, he said:
8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. - Romans 13:8-10 (NIV)Pope Francis I, a man of striking action and humble words, demonstrated this passage the best when he openly stated in an interview several months ago, "Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill that seeks the Lord?"
'Who am I?' 'Who am I?!' Your Excellency, you're the bloody Pope for Heaven's sake! The Holy See! The Supreme Pontiff! St. Peter Incarnate! God's Chosen Representative on Earth! If anyone is someone, it's you, dude!
But no... he simple and humbly says, "Who am I to judge?"
In this day and age, a person of such power lowering himself like that is unprecedented. The Old Man Club (the Vatican) is shocked! But where is that love in Africa? Where is that humility, that sanity, that compassion, and that virtuous piety (two words that sound like an oxymoron in regards to today's Christianity) in Uganda, where innocents are being run down in the streets because of their sexuality? Where is that same light in the Third World, where women are considered inferior to men, or even equated to property? In regions where education is scarce and the fear of the unknown clings to people like a viper's snare?
Do you see now why I say that we are the ones at fault here? Yes, "pastor" Lively basically spoke with venom seeping through his teeth, and other extremists of the Far Right are equally responsible for carrying out similar acts of hatred, but we of the Way and the Truth and the Life had - and have - the power to put an end to it, to stop it before the fire spread too far. But we stood by and bickered among ourselves about "political correctness" and "orientation vs. a lifestyle choice" and "God vs. the gays" and so on and so forth.
Meanwhile, 30% of gay youth take their lives near the time they turn 15. A conservative estimate reflects around 1,500 suicides per year among gays and lesbians. Add on murder, torture, and rape... the hatred for each other and ourselves is even more staggering.
Obviously, I'm fairly liberal. Half of my family is fairly conservative. We are not of the same minds... but I do not begrudge them theirs. Frankly, it shouldn't matter which side of the political, social, or religious spectrum you're on when it comes to the obvious, plain-as-day suffering of countless human beings. This much is clear: We are called to love the loveless, to feed the hungry, to shelter the homeless, to heal the sick...
The following words are my message to Uganda:
Knock this off. We messed up, and we messed up big time. We should have come to you with a message of peace. We should have taught you about Christ's Love, not Satan's Hate. We should have shown mercy and compassion, rather than contempt and rebuke. We have condoned murder and pride. We have sat idly by and argued among ourselves while letting your (and our) citizens suffer at the hands of cruel humans. Forgive us. Forgive yourselves.
I forgive you. I forgive you because you were wronged. I forgive you because you were led astray. I forgive you because you were blind by our selfishness and our pride. Most of all, I forgive you... because I love you.
Do not dare... to not dare.
Proper Gun Control
The issue of guns is one political topic I mostly avoid getting into a conversation over because I never really took up a side. But after seeing so many ignorant comments from people on both sides on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social streams - not to mention from the mouths of certain red necks I work with - I'm tired of keeping my mouth shut. You see, I've always avoided taking a side because neither is practical. One might say I'm a fence sitter, another might say I'm taking the road less traveled. I would like to think I'm doing the latter, or I'm just daring to think.
So what is my position on the issue of guns? To be frank, I believe we should retain our Second Amendment Right to bear them, but I also believe in having certain conditions that must be fulfilled in order for an individual to first attain the right, before they can retain it.
But what do I mean by this? For several years now I've listened to right-wing gun nuts losing their sense over the "pinko commies" trying to take away their guns. Similarly, I've dealt with aligning myself to a side that is projected as believing "guns kill people", to which the right responds - with what they call "whit" - "no, people kill people". But let's stop for a moment and think about this. If we threaten to take up arms in order to keep them, are we any better than the gun toting, hung-hoe, super patriots that the right-wingers are stereotyped as being? Nope. They would be realizing that stereotype to the extreme. On the other hand, if we abolish the Second Amendment entirely, then we've nullified all sense of personal security that should be afforded to U.S. citizens, fully realizing the big brother, big government stereotype plaguing the lefties.
Here's a fact. There are more car-related deaths in the U.S. today than gun-related. We give a sixteen year old high school student the key to a hunk of metal and fiber glass that can brutally kill someone at only 25 mph in a school zone. So the big hype made by the left about how dangerous guns are is grossly unwarranted and misdirected. However, after the Aurora shooting, Columbine and Sandy Hook, and other incidents dating all the way back in our history to the infamous Boston Massacre, Americans from all walks of life would be stupid to refuse the fact that guns are the only way to end certain evils.
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| Charles Whitman; the ex-marine active shooter that perched himself atop the University of Texas bell tower on August 1, 1966, to snipe and kill several innocents with multiple firearms before being shot by Austin police. |
But who should be the heroes that carry them? Only the police? The right would only, and justly, assert that the U.S. would become a police-state if only the lawmen were allowed to carry firearms. Not only that, but there are many good citizens out there that are willing to use a gun for good, and only in circumstances calling for their appropriate use. Situations like the Aurora movie theater shooting could have been ended swiftly if someone in the theater had been carrying a concealed weapon for personal defense. During the University of Texas shooting, before Austin Police Officer Houston McCoy shot and killed Charles Whitman (the active shooter), several brave Texans laid down suppressive fire with their own rifles in order to give Officer McCoy and his partner a chance to get in close.
So now we come around to the real issue behind the extreme left vs. right Facebook battle of the stupids: how can we allow our citizens to bear arms while preventing future gun-related crimes and killings. My proposal is simple; if new drivers are required to take a test in order to receive a license, gun owners should go through a proper weapons safety course in order to purchase and retain firearms. It is inherently our right to bear them, but a citizen forfeits that right when they show they cannot responsibly handle a weapon. Instead of taking someone's right away only after they prove they cannot handle it, why not screen them ahead of time before they break the law or place the lives of innocents in danger?
In the military, I constantly must recertify my training on the use of force as an officer of the peace as well as retrain on my use of several weapons. Those range from a pistol, to a rifle, to a grenade launcher. They are dangerous, highly deadly, but are also meant to ward off those that seek to harm innocents. Just as I, and my fellow lawmen, must constantly retrain ourselves on how to properly use firearms, and become knowledgeable on general rules of safety, so should any citizen wishing to retain such power.
Humans are social creatures, dependent upon the order of society, and bound by a constantly evolving and group-depending law of morality. No sane man is going to wake up one day and decide that they are going to buy a gun and go kill someone; only the criminally insane or mentally unstable do that. We don't afford the Second Amendment Right to them.
I understand the desire for peace and nonviolence from the left. I also understand the right's need for a sense of security and a right to defend what is theirs. But for heaven's sake, people, listen to and look at your ignorance. Gay-bashing, Bible-belt, redneck southerners making up the bulk of the NRA isn't helping the cause to keep your guns. And the far left's delusion of reaching a gun-free utopia isn't helping with the more realistic and humble idea of simply keeping firearms out of the hands of people that shouldn't have them in the first place.
Instead of, pardon the pun, sticking to your guns and party politics, why not harmonize the noble ideals behind each argument? As that, ladies and gentlemen, is daredevil thinking.