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Eleven After Eleven
September 11, 2012
Many people will be or have already been blogging about this “day of infamy” and I’m no different. Eleven years ago to the day I woke up with a strange song on my lips: The Ballad of the Green Beret.
A decade later I still don’t quite understand it. I’ve never been in the Army and having this song running through my mind that morning was odd. It was even stranger an hour later when I heard the first plane had crashed into the Twin Towers.
As a geek, I’m still trying to process it. In some ways, I feel as if I have a warriors soul but philosopher and cleric also hold sway there as well. All I can say is the idea of people dying for an ideal holds an iconic sway in my life.
And this is where my internal battle really begins to war within myself. I am a Jesus follower. I follow the God-Man whose name has been used to engage in war on so many levels. His name has been invoked throughout the Western world causing men and women to engage in a civic religion which often has little to do with him.
What do I do with all of this? How do I reconcile the Prince of Peace with my own desire for warfare? How do I handle this Man who told us to pray for our enemies and love those who use us badly? This Man said he would suffer and die yet he fought not against it.
Eleven years after 9/11 all I can think to do is place the wings of a snow white dove upon my breast and try and be an agent of God’s love to all around me. I am to show mercy and kindness to those who find this an alien concept and to pray, wherever this life leads me and whatever my fate, those same wings would land upon the breast of my children and they would follow in my faltering steps toward a more peaceful and better world.
Whenever the battle comes, we are to engage it with the Sword of the Spirit which is the Story of God. The God who became man, the God who was born and walked along dusty roads, the God who was beaten, scorned, laughed at and abused yet remains the God who loves all. The proof of this love? An empty tomb and hearts full of kindness and mercy toward neighbor and stranger, friend and enemy.
This, my friends, is the God of the geek.
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