I watch as much as I can about the unimaginable catastrophe happening as we speak in Haiti. As all other people watching I can't grasp the suffering and the despair among the survivors, nor can I understand the lack of organisation to get the water, food, and medicine that arrive daily, out to the needy.
The outpouring generosity among the worlds wealthy countries has been nothing but outstanding so far, and on a individual level people are doing what ever they can to help out by texting, by giving the red cross money and selling hot chocolate in the street corners as I saw two little girls doing.
But the airport in Port-a-Prince is plugged up, as the American forces has taken it under control and up till yesterday prioritised military aircraft over humanitarian aid. US military are coming in with 1000's of troops every day, troops armed with guns, and that puzzles me some..
I'm not usually someone that smack the bible in the head on people but I think I remember something in the Old Testament about turning swords into plowshares... wait... well here we have it: Mikah 4:3 and Isaiah 2:4 (isn't Google the best?).
"They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."
"And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war."
Let's play with the thought of sending our troops equipped with shovels instead of guns??
They get off the C-130's and C-5's with a backpack and a shovel attached to the side. They would line up by the supply air crafts, stuffing their backpacks full of water and MREs and then they take off, as soon as their backpacks were empty they'd start using their shovel and help find bodies in the rubble. What a wonderful way of using the military!
But on the other hand I'm not a officer in any of the military branches, I never went to war college to learn how to preform a successful war...
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
My Own Religion
I'm tired of being angry.
I'm tired of knowing all the loop holes, all excuses for why God do this and that and why He thinks this is a sin but not that. Tired of living in an Old Testament with a vague promise of a New Testament, but just if you first do this this and this...
Hereby I will attempt to forget everything I "know" about religion, and about God, and make my own...
I know what you're thinking... you can't make your own religion, there's just one way to God and so forth, I know, I know, and I'm not really going to make a new religion ( there's plenty of people out there making new ones as we speak).
I was more thinking about the Sunday school, religion free faith that most of us had when we were kids. The faith in Jesus healing the sick, walking on water, finding the lost lamb, and the father waiting to put a ring on the long lost son's finger.
Faith that don't give a damn if you're gay, black or white, poor or better off. Faith that understands that the least among us are the most important in the Kingdom.
It's going to be a lot of cutting and pasting in my mind and heart. 42 years in sometime more, sometime less "GOD influenced" environments.
So for my own sanity, let everyone have their beliefs, try not to get upset when people tell me what I have to belive, and try to do good to all.
If this helps me pass the pearly gates, that's fine, if not, hopefully I'm at least at peace with myself and with my very own I AM!
I'm tired of knowing all the loop holes, all excuses for why God do this and that and why He thinks this is a sin but not that. Tired of living in an Old Testament with a vague promise of a New Testament, but just if you first do this this and this...
Hereby I will attempt to forget everything I "know" about religion, and about God, and make my own...
I know what you're thinking... you can't make your own religion, there's just one way to God and so forth, I know, I know, and I'm not really going to make a new religion ( there's plenty of people out there making new ones as we speak).
I was more thinking about the Sunday school, religion free faith that most of us had when we were kids. The faith in Jesus healing the sick, walking on water, finding the lost lamb, and the father waiting to put a ring on the long lost son's finger.
Faith that don't give a damn if you're gay, black or white, poor or better off. Faith that understands that the least among us are the most important in the Kingdom.
It's going to be a lot of cutting and pasting in my mind and heart. 42 years in sometime more, sometime less "GOD influenced" environments.
So for my own sanity, let everyone have their beliefs, try not to get upset when people tell me what I have to belive, and try to do good to all.
If this helps me pass the pearly gates, that's fine, if not, hopefully I'm at least at peace with myself and with my very own I AM!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
I miss the Swedish God...
Today we learned about the catastrophe earth quake hitting Haiti. Up to a quarter of a million people might be dead.
The media talks about it in it's normal very close minded way. They interview the Americans living and working in Haiti, a husband is happy to find his wife though caught for 10 hours in the rubble is OK. Matt Lauer says, I'm so happy to hear you and your family are fine, and the husband on the phone says, yes, but there are 1000's of people outside in the streets that are not...
Later in the afternoon I hear Pat Robertson have a answer to why Haiti was hit, the same answer he gave to why the Big Easy was hit by Katrina... They have sinned and brought it on themselves....
While all this is unfolding on the news I'm reading an old book by Adrian Plass called An Alien at St. Wilfred's.
An absolutely wonderful book that everyone who like me wrestles with the question if there's a God or not and if there is, what is he like? HAS to read.
In that book I get to know the God and the Jesus that I used to think I knew back in Sweden, a life time ago, again. The kind, soft spoken, loving God. A God so far from the evangelical right wing you can imagine, A God that men like Pat Robertson have never ever heard of.
I miss that God.
There's a place in my heart and mind wishing so bad that the God portraited in Adrian Plass' book, the God I met in worship in my little house group back in Sweden, is the I AM.
And that the God the evangelical right wing people believes in is just a horrible character in a bad scary movie.
The media talks about it in it's normal very close minded way. They interview the Americans living and working in Haiti, a husband is happy to find his wife though caught for 10 hours in the rubble is OK. Matt Lauer says, I'm so happy to hear you and your family are fine, and the husband on the phone says, yes, but there are 1000's of people outside in the streets that are not...
Later in the afternoon I hear Pat Robertson have a answer to why Haiti was hit, the same answer he gave to why the Big Easy was hit by Katrina... They have sinned and brought it on themselves....
While all this is unfolding on the news I'm reading an old book by Adrian Plass called An Alien at St. Wilfred's.
An absolutely wonderful book that everyone who like me wrestles with the question if there's a God or not and if there is, what is he like? HAS to read.
In that book I get to know the God and the Jesus that I used to think I knew back in Sweden, a life time ago, again. The kind, soft spoken, loving God. A God so far from the evangelical right wing you can imagine, A God that men like Pat Robertson have never ever heard of.
I miss that God.
There's a place in my heart and mind wishing so bad that the God portraited in Adrian Plass' book, the God I met in worship in my little house group back in Sweden, is the I AM.
And that the God the evangelical right wing people believes in is just a horrible character in a bad scary movie.
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