" I don't understand why you are so pro-military. It doesn't seem to mesh with the other things you hold dear. "
You can view my answer on the side board where I have added a tribute to the volunteer army that at least one of my sons hope to join one day.
I know I have a number of readers who are Quaker and pacifists. My eldest daughter is a Quaker. It is because there are young men and women who are willing to fight for our freedom that we are able to be:
Christian, whether Catholic or Protestant
Muslim,
Jewish,
Quaker,
Atheist...
I think, even if we disagree with war, these young people deserve our support. I don't think that I need say more as these pictures say it all.
God Bless America and may she continue to love God!
Saturday, September 08, 2007
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2 comments:
Dear Dear Dear Friend:
Thee knows deeply, I honor your beliefs and thy choices, and the sacrifices made by armies. But, as it takes two side to make a fight with the kids, it takes two leaders, both who believe in a single system solution to make a war... The real power in some forms of defense is to allow the other to expend the anger and force, such as in judo. If one stands and takes the blow one is injured, if one falls back with the blow, the force is lost. Jesus taught us to go one step beyond that, not only bend with the blow, but respond with more than love, feed the other literally and spiritually, as he did at the well.
I've been to war with a camera, lost a number of dear, very dear friends in war, in wars, and one thing I found, much more profoundly than the pain of loss, is that no country fights a war for the reason soldiers believe wars are fought. Perhaps it is because we are human. Our leaders might even fool themselves, to give them my best hope for their intention. But, in the end, all our wars have cost us honesty as well as blood.
The dear ones we loose in wars could so better serve life than death. I worked for a time, for a lawyer who was an ex-Marine. He fought in Vietnam, and bore the scars of Agent Orange ever since. One day he took me to an event where an American who lost his leg in Vietnam met a Russian who lost a leg in Afghanistan. The American stepped on a Russian made mine, and the Russian on an American mine. They just hugged and wept. No words were needed.
Oh, was Aquinas who said, there is no force of evil, only a void, an absence? I think he was right. In the face of hatred and violence, more hatred and violence deepens the void and does not produce good.
It is not about the politics of war. It is about choice to be God's arms to fill the void with love. Jesus did not raise an army against Rome ... rather he taught Romans to feed each other.
I am not saying thee is wrong, or that I am right. But having seen war face to face, I pray thy son finds it in his heart to serve that hand of God which is love. It is harder to change hearts with love then to stop them with hate, but in the end of the day, if perhaps we are following false prophets to war ... we do so much less damage if we serve love with love in his name, and bear that cross of love instead of arms.
But, I close, with love, follow thy heart and go where God speaks to thee the loudest.
lor
Dear Christi,
We are also big supporters of the military and honor those who sacrifice for this great country. Never greater love hath this than that a man would lay down his life for another. When I travelled to Saudi Arabia and England I was struck by the police presence everywhere. Men walk around with submachine guns at the airport, the subways, the highways, there are security checkpoints and searches. It is because of our brave military that we do not need to live that way in this country.
God bless America and God bless our brave military. We are forever in their debt.
Mary
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