Love Your Neighbor

“When I think of a soldier fulfilling his office by punishing the wicked, killing the wicked, and creating so much misery, it seems an un-Christian work completely contrary to Christian love. But when I think how it protects the good and keeps and preserves wife and child, house and farm, property, and honor and peace, then I see how precious and godly this work is.”
– Martin Luther

War causes conflict. While it is obviously true that war itself is conflict, it is ironically true that war, as a concept, causes incredible conflict. Few issues cause people in the church to get more agitated than questions of war and peace. For some, there are few ideas more reprehensible than the suggestion that anyone could knowingly seek another’s death regardless of the circumstances. For others, it is just as disgusting to propose that mortal injustice be allowed to progress unhindered. To the Pacifist a “Just War Theory” makes about as much sense as a “Just Rape Theory.” To his opponent Pacifism is nothing less than complicity with evil through neglect.

While it might be earnestly hoped by all that the subject of war would simply be a matter for historians, violent conflict has a nasty habit of intruding its way into the present. A few minutes in any bookstore will reveal that war has been a part of history as long as histories have been written. A few minutes in a newspaper will likewise inform anyone that battle does not seem to be a passing fad. War is far too common a human practice for the church to maintain some kind of respectful neutrality.

If the church is going to be the church then she must establish her positions based on what God’s word says about this issue. With such a central issues that cuts to the core of justice, humanity, and love we cannot simply rely on our fallen dispositions to tell us where to go. Whatever logical or pragmatic reasons can be marshaled by either side of this debate ultimately account for nothing if the Bible does not speak in accord with that position.

As nice and straight-forward as that might sound, finding what the Bible teaches in this matter is much more complicated. There are people who believe the Bible who are on either side of this issue. There are those for whom Pacifism is the fulfillment of prophecy in the Bible that the lion will lie down with the lamb and Christ's first coming has changed everything. On the opposite end are those who would argue that the Just War perspective takes the Bible seriously since it does not place a false dichotomy between Israel and the church or forget that Christ has not yet returned.

It would be helpful if somewhere in the book of Hezekiah or in III Peter we could find a list of circumstances under which war was allowed or perhaps where it stated in no uncertain terms that war is never allowed. Since there is no such verse we are left to infer from what is said what God would say to his church. While this can seem quite intimidating there is a potential short-cut to the truth. Since Pacifism is necessarily absolutist, any exception to a total prohibition on warfare in the Bible can be its Achilles' Heel. That is to say, one cannot be a half-Pacifist. If it can be shown that the Bible does not condemn war in all situations, then the debate has moved from Pacifism vs. Just War into an in-house debate within Just War Doctrine about whether this or that war is in fact just. Pacifism could fail by a simple process of elimination

Granted, this is a negative argument in that we’re looking for a passage where something does not happen, but the point still stands that if there is any place where the Bible does not prohibit war entirely then Pacifism cannot then be said to be biblical. Putting aside the Old Testament for a moment since many Pacifists would reasonably object that the wars of ancient Israel do not apply to Christianity, are there any places where the New Testament does not condemn war wholeheartedly? Or, are there any places where soldiers or a government’s use of lethal force is not treated as sinful?

In Luke 3 John the Baptist is asked by a series of people how they can properly repent as he is calling them to do. Some average Joe’s are told to practice generosity. Tax collectors are told to stop taking more than they are allowed to collect. Some soldiers also come to the prophet to ask his counsel. If the Pacifist position is correct, then this would be a perfect place for God to speak into the lives of these men (and to us as well) to turn them from their entirely wicked profession. Yet the man whom Jesus said was greater than any other born of women tells them only to stop oppressing people and be content with their pay. This is hardly a solid rebuke of their job choice.

Later on in Acts 10 we find the dramatic first inclusion of Westerners into the church with the conversion a Roman soldier named Cornelius. This man had already been follower of God, but in this passage the Apostle Peter brings the message of Christ. Once again, if the Pacifist position is the biblical view then here was a perfect moment to hear that the arrival of Christ had so transformed the situation that while soldiers were a part of the Old Covenant there was no longer any place for them. Yet Peter says none of these things.

None of these soldiers in the gospel or in Acts are shown as men like the Pharisees who needed to change their hearts or like the tax collectors who needed to change their jobs. Whatever sins they might have been guilty of there is no mention here that what they do for a living is incompatible in and of itself with the biblical message. Prostitutes, idolaters, fornicators and all sorts of other sinners are called upon to repent of their actions. Soldiers are never issued such an order.

Later on in the epistles we find both Peter and Paul addressing the place of the state in human society. In contrast to the Pacifist position, not only do the Apostles not condemn the government for using lethal force, they call such a state the minister of God. In I Peter 3 we are told that as Christians we are to be subject to the state as it is sent by God to punish evil. Peter offers no side-bar to tell us "except when they use force." Likewise in Romans 13 Paul specifically states that part of the government's role in being God’s minister is that it “bears the sword.” You don’t use swords to gently chide someone. Swords kill. If Pacifism is biblical then this passage makes no sense.

I have no illusions that this little essay will spell an end to this question. Christians have been debating Pacifism vs. Just War since the time of the early church so I’m quite sure there is a way of explaining away the lack of comments in the passages mentioned here. However, the question then must be asked as to why such a lack needs to be explained away in the first place. If Pacifism is biblical, then why, among the many times that biblical writers spoke to or about soldiers or a government’s use of lethal force did no one tell them to stop? If war is sinful at all times and there is no place for it in Christ’s kingdom, then why did none of the inspired writers feel it necessary to tell anyone about it?

War is dreadful. There is no question about that. But just as the Fall of Adam has brought in disease, and God has raised up doctors to keep it from running amuck, so has the Fall brought in chaos to human society and God has likewise raised up the state as his minister to prevent our more tragic impulses from running the tables. To stand for justice in the face of wickedness by taking up the sword is not contrary to loving my neighbor but its fulfillment.

Auto-Compassion

I’m sure you’ve been in this position. It's rush hour or some other heavy time on the road, and you need to cut into traffic. Maybe you’re trying to enter the main flow from a parking lot or it’s that you’re in the north bound lane and you need to cross the SUV infested south bound lane to get to your destination. All you want is for some kind soul to see your predicament and give you the space to get through. Particularly if you are running late already the anxiety of being stuck and the relief at being let through are palpable. When a sympathetic driver finally does slow up to let you through you are able to send a genuinely grateful wave and smile to your savior.

Now let’s spin things around a bit and say that you’re not the one trying to get across traffic but the one in the position to help. You can see the stricken face of your fellow commuter, and you fully understand his plight because it was just yesterday that you were trying to do the very same thing. With mercy on your mind you slow up and let the distraught soul cut through your lane full of the knowledge that a little sacrifice on your part has helped out with another’s day immensely. The wave and smile you get in return is more than enough to drown out the sounds of ungrateful honking from those behind you less interested in compassion. Despite their impatience, you know you’ve done the right thing.

One more time let’s change the perspective. This time you are not the driver in need of help, nor the gracious commuter who gives the help. This time you are the guy stuck in traffic behind this sweet affair who gets the short end of the generosity stick. Just like the person cutting across traffic, you have places to be. Perhaps like the first person you too are running late. While you sympathize with situation you’re not too certain how it is that the one person’s need outweighs your own. Maybe you are one of those who lets out a not so subtle honk of displeasure, and the smug smile on the face of the benefactor does not then raise in you thoughts of mercy or compassion. The plans of yourself and the dozens of others similarly trapped in line are being held up for the convenience of one and the self-satisfaction of another as two or even three lanes of traffic are held up long enough for the single car to make it across.

Like I said, there is not a one among us who hasn’t been in each of these places. Sometimes there is just no way to get where we need to be without doing some serious Frogger reenactments, and sometimes we are the one stuck with the consequences of the Good Samaritans among us. If we are one of these two then we can only play with the hand we are dealt. Our decisions at that point are dependent upon others. However, if we are the second sort of person, then we are deciding for the rest where the line between compassion and functionality should run.

While I applaud the desire to help the person in need, I have to wonder if when we reach out like that who it is that we are thinking of. If our desire is to help others get where they need to go, then how much are we paying attention to those who are impeded by our own good works? By what standard are we deciding that helping the person we can see is worth hurting those we can’t see? Sure, we all feel great when we are able to see that smile of gratitude on the face of those we help, but what about the frustration we cause to those now inconvenienced? Particularly when we feel righteous indignation when we hear the honks of those less merciful and understanding, are we motivated by the pleasure we get from “doing the right thing” or by actually working for the common good? In our driving habits, in our daily lives, and in our political choices, how often is our determination centered not so much upon the actual good accomplished, but upon the short-term feeling of enlightenment and superiority found in the easy good work of being nice rather than the hard choices that often come with doing the real right thing?

Senatorial Choices

The other day in class one of my professors was talking about the religious consequences of the American Revolution. Like any of the rest of us I knew that when the Founding Fathers established the new government with the US Constitution they made sure that there would be no National Church to which everyone would be compelled to belong. Not only this, but there would be no tax money going support otherwise struggling organizations.

What I hadn’t thought of was how this would encourage all sorts of religious diversity. Think of it like this. When everyone has to go to a particular church, the pastor is going to get paid no matter who shows up so there is little incentive for the leaders of that group to tailor their message or presentation to suit the desires or needs of the people in the pews. However, once the First Amendment was enacted your American Everyman or woman could go to whatever church, synagogue, or matinee movie they felt like. If ministers wanted people to come to their church they would have to be offering something that the people wanted to hear.

Every Sunday my wife and I put this freedom into effect. We get up earlier than we’d otherwise have to so that we can travel the half-hour across Chicago to go to the church of our choice. Now there are a lot of options for us that are a whole lot closer to where we live. We go to all the extra effort because we can find at our church those things that we want to hear. Thanks to the religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution we are able to live according to our own choice.

I say all this because apparently my Senator is not aware that this freedom exists. He seems to be under the impression that you cannot choose where you go to church. Just this morning he gave a beautiful speech in which he responded at length to the many questions arising from the unusual sermons of his former pastor. I truly mean that it was a beautiful speech. The man is a master of his craft. Senator Obama’s craft is, like that of any other politician, is to tap into the emotional undercurrents of his audience and carry them along with the vision he lays out.

Today the vision he hoped to impart was that while his longtime spiritual mentor had indeed said some drastic things, the Senator strongly disapproved. In the midst of some specific criticisms, Senator Obama refused to completely abandon his longtime friend whom he said was “like family.” To illustrate his reasoning he told the audience of his white grandmother. He said he knew she loved him dearly, but at the same time it caused him pain when she occasionally used ethnic slurs or confessed to fearing black men. Just as he could not deny his grandmother simply because she sometimes said regrettable things, he, for the same reason, could not now abandon his pastor.

Now this was powerful rhetoric. The Senator deftly connected with his audience by getting us all to consider how many family members or friends we have that go around saying things that we really wish they hadn’t. Anyone reasonable listening is forced to concede that they wouldn’t kick granny to the curb no matter how loony she might sound sometimes. If we think it’s okay that we continue to associate with those who “transgress” taboos, then we have to grant the same consideration to the candidate.

However, before we all jump on the Obandwagon, let’s think about this a minute. Senator Obama has gotten things a little bit confused. He has confused the nature of his relationship with his grandmother with the one he has with his pastor. His grandmother is his grandmother because she is his mother’s mother. His pastor is his pastor, however, because Senator Obama chose him.

As the candidate suggests we all put up with all sorts of nonsense from those around us. From our families we don’t really have much choice. We don’t get to decide who we spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with. Sometimes we are lucky in this respect and sometimes . . . not so lucky. Yet even in this sacred space there are limits to what we will tolerate. If Cousin Luigi shows up on Turkey Day and starts ranting about how “the Jews” are out to get him most of us are going to be hoping that he doesn’t get invited next year.

The same principle goes for our friends or other social relationships. The only difference is we have a choice when it comes to them. We have an acceptable level of disagreement within which we will tolerate, but beyond which we’ll cut off the relationship. Each person’s line is going to be in a different place, but once it’s crossed we will go our own way. For most people this applies to our use of religious freedom.

Senator Obama has said that Rev. Wright is like family to him. If this were literally the case then his association could be excused. As it is, he has used the same religious freedom that I use each Sunday to go to the church of his choice. If I were to show up one Sunday morning and my pastor were to launch into openly political advocacy, as Rev. Wright has of late, I would seriously question my continuing attendance. If he were to shout to the cheering crowd, calling on God to damn America, as Rev. Wright has done, I would never darken their door again.

Of all the churches among what must be the hundreds available in the Chicagoland area, Obama has chosen one whose beliefs are drastically inconsistent with the vast majority of the American electorate. He says this is not something we need to be concerned about. He wants us to believe that the pastor who ministered to him for a decade or more does not represent his views. He wants us to believe that just as we put up with the unfortunate remarks of our friends and families, he puts up his mentor’s raging against Israel and America for the same reason he continued to love his grandmother. Apparently, he also wants us to believe that his pastor’s desire that “God Damn America!” is an acceptable disagreement. Somehow I am not comforted.

Vote for Hope!!!

Good Morning,

My name is Joe Bamah, and I’d like to be your airline pilot for this flight. Now I know there are a lot you out there who aren’t too happy with the way previous pilots have been flying us around. I know you’ve been hoping for a new way of flying. I am here because I too believe we can change the very way airline flights are done.

I know there are a lot of cynical people out there who want to scare you by saying that someone with more experience flying planes should be the pilot, but I ask you, what has all their years up there in the cockpit done for them? Has it meant that your plane has arrived on time? There are those out there without hope. They say that my flight simulator “experience” isn’t enough. But has their “experience” given you flights free from turbulence?

I offer you hope for change you can believe in. I haven’t been contaminated by the hours of association with the comforts of the captain’s seat. I haven’t had my hope drained by countless take-offs and landings. I won’t be held captive by their so-called laws of aeronautics. I will fly us through beautiful skies with the smoothness made possible by a complete lack of experience.

Vote for Joe Bamah. I am not a pilot so you can trust me to fly.

Errors of Judgment

A couple of years ago I gave a talk about the dangers of Utopianism. I said that those who have a simplistic view of life’s problems can end up being even more destructive in their attempts to make things better than those who act with malicious intent. ‘The Road to Hell’ and all that. After my talk a friend asked me if I thought that The Anglo-American venture in Iraq should be categorized in the same fashion. At the time I dodged the question by saying that we were too close to the situation to be able so see what the final outcome will be. After all if a few specific battles in 1864 gone differently President Lincoln could have lost the election and history would be dramatically different. In the same way a few things changing in Iraq will greatly affect how future generations view this campaign.

A few weeks ago this same friend asked me the same question and asked if the intervening time had led me to alter my answer. For the most part it remains foolish to forecast what the end result of the war will be. However, we can look to some things that could have done better and could in turn have made our little game of guess-work go more smoothly.

The main criticism that I have had of W, Rumsfeld et al has been that they confused what it would take to defeat Hussein with what it would take to run Iraq. For the first point they were absolutely correct. Despite all the criticism to the contrary before they went in, they managed to take on the largest army in the Arab world, advance 200 miles in 4 days in the face of opposition, and take the enemy capital in three weeks of combat. That campaign, led by Gen. Tommy Franks, was brilliant. I've heard of Iraqis who had only the propaganda to hear of the war who were absolutely shocked that morning in April of 2003 to see American tanks rolling through their streets. They'd only heard about Iraqi victory after Iraqi victory. This campaign cost "only" a few dozen American lives and few Iraqi lives as well. It was a textbook military action.

However, to defeat Hussein's army was only one thing. To rebuild Iraq was another. Whether it was a naiveté about the goodness of your everyday Iraqi or a misplaced insistence not to play the role of the conquering foreigner, The Anglo-American forces failed to exploit their advantage. Instead of maintaining the perception of invincibility created by their charge up the Tigris and Euphrates they soon were perceived as first indifferent and then as impotent in the face of the chaos in the power vacuum. They managed to cause far more damage by playing Mr. Nice Guy than had they been a terror to behold. People are not nice, and it was foolish for them to think that their hatred of Hussein was the same thing as a love for their fellow man.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22349336-2703,00.html

Either of two things could have avoided this situation. The first, and least likely, was that the UN could have organized massive peacekeeping forces. This was unlikely for two reasons. The first is that the UN is perhaps the most useless organization in the world when it comes to conflict resolution. You might think that they would have learned their lesson out of the 90's with the Balkans and Rwanda. UN forces there sat and watched as Serbs and Hutus killed their neighbors. That this hope is a shadow is shown by the UN's paltry response to Darfur in which their peacekeeping force amounts to 26,000 troops that cannot interfere, but can only "observe." However, we never got to see even this pathetic effort. The UN pulled out the first time they got hit. How they expect to resolve conflict if flight is their first response is beyond me.

The other thing that could have helped was the Iraqi Army. Many argued that just as the German Wehrmacht had to be de-Nazified in 1945 so the Iraqi Army needed to be de-Baathified. This makes sense. You can't end a tyrannical regime by keeping the tyrants in power. The question remains is whether the baby went out with the bathwater. After the war in Europe, many who had been not only foot soldiers but also officers ended up in the new West German armed forces. They were able to help build up their country from the chaos their leaders had unleashed. Has our zeal to rid the land of Hussein’s cronies in the Baath Party led us to leave the Iraqi military without teeth.

Without an effective military you don’t have a nation. You have a bunch of people who are little but prey. Until there is an Iraqi Army strong enough on its own to police its own cities and to defend its borders on its own we can’t leave. So long as we are doing this job for them we leave ourselves vulnerable to pressures from other regions of the world. Iraq must stand.

Now many folks have come to just this conclusion and have decided that the best course for America is to cut our losses and get out before more of our blood is spilt. They say we started this mess by going in and the best thing for all concerned is to get out now. Unfortunately this has the same logic as someone kicking a hole in a ship and deciding that going back to his cabin is the best thing to do.

The answer is not go away and pretend it isn’t happening. Many on the Left have let their visceral hatred of the President blind them to the fact they’d be far less comfortable were radical Islam to become the dominant force in the world. Many on the Right have joined in with the short-sighted calculations of those who cannot see beyond next year’s election. The first group pretends that the radicals will sit down quietly and join Greenpeace if we leave, and the second group pretends that preempting our immediate pain will forestall greater pains later on. Both see this deep and global conflict in terms of American political jousting. Do we really think Bin Laden cares which freedom-of-religion and equality-of-gender advocate is in the White House?

This is a war that must be won, and to be won it must be fought. Some of us like to think that fighting is not a nasty, disgusting business. But there simply is no clean war. There is no war where civilians don’t die and soldiers don’t kill. The dangers of Utopianism that were disgusting two years ago stand still. If we withdraw we will be turning millions of souls over to the affections of those who consider broadcasting beheadings of relief workers to be a service to God. What choice do we have? We must, in the words of The Untouchables’ Elliot Ness, never stop fighting till the fight is done. We have to stay there and fight until no one can say that we were driven out. The smallest window otherwise will be a golden ticket inviting attack after attack after attack. God help us.

Bumper Sticker Ideologues

I’ve often thought that there must be some negative correlation between bumper stickers and intelligence. It seems that the greater the number of bumper stickers to be seen on a car’s back end, the less intelligence can be found thereby expressed. It doesn’t matter which end of the political or cultural spectrum is being advocated, bumper sticker ideologues seem to try to make up for the shallowness of their thought-life by the sheer depth of their plasterings.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not actually against bumper stickers as such. I think it’s great if you want to make a joke on your car or support your Alma mater with some adhesive space. I’m just against trying to make wide ranging statements about life in the world on an 18 by 4 inch billboard while traveling at 70 miles per hour. You simply can’t make an argument like that. It is not so much that I disagree with this or that opinion that you have, but how substantive can you be on an over sized index card?

For instance, take the example of Einstein was a Vegetarian: Think about it. This, I suppose, is designed to connect Einstein’s intelligence with the rather dubious dietary practice of ignoring the fact that we have the same sorts of teeth in our jaws as do our friendly neighborhood carnivores. Aside from the question of what being an expert in Astrophysics has to do with knowing whether Bessie the cow is our friend or our food, you kind of wonder what our vegetarian friends would make of a bumper sticker relating the ardent vegetarianism of someone born just ten years later and from the same neck of the woods as Ole Albert. Hitler Was a Vegetarian: Think About It. That’s right; Ole Adolph was a vegetarian, non-smoker, and non-drinker. I’ll bet Bessie seems a tad tastier now, eh?

Another of my favorites is, You Can’t Hug a Child with Nuclear Arms. This has the advantage of sounding oh-so important without going to the trouble of saying anything at all. Of course you can’t hug a child with nuclear arms! There are plenty of other things in this world that you can’t hug a child with. Buicks for example: They simply are not huggable at all. It’s just that Buicks are not designed to hug children. They are designed to be a way you can spend far too much money on gas. Nuclear arms are likewise not designed to hug children. They are designed to be something so unimaginably awful that no one in his right mind will get up from the negotiating table and risk open war. They are designed to make damned sure that that huggable child can grow up to create inane bumper stickers of her own one day.

Lately I have come across a couple of stickers related to just how God fits in with politics. The first one is fairly innocuous. It simply says, God Bless All Nations – No Exceptions. I’m guessing that this is a response to those who, for some crazy reason, want God to bless America. However, there are others that seem to think that wishing good for one’s own people over and above those who are not is a bad thing. Well, I’m sorry folks. I am more interested in the good of Americans than I am the good of anybody else! I also more interested that my nephew wins his basketball game than I am that your kid does. This doesn't mean I hate your kid. It just means that I love those connected to me more so than I do those who are not. My love for America supersedes my love for some random human just as my love for that same random human overrides my love for a shark who’d like to eat him.

The second one just misses being redundant, but ends up being just plain condescending. It goes something like; God is not a Republican or a Democrat. Yes, thank you very much. I had already gotten the impression that God was around for a little while before Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson started running for office. The thing is, the way I just wrote it isn’t how it shows up on a car near you. What it actually says is;

God is not a Republican or a Democrat.

So what does this sticker actually say? It says that you are really ticked off when you people confuse GOP and GOD. Fair enough. If each party was listed equally then you’d be making a fair statement that we could all get on board with. But it also says that you don’t think that this is a lesson that Democrats need to hear. It says that you are either so naïve or arrogant that you don’t think this is a street that goes both ways. If you don’t think Democrats do this too then just sit and listen to religious liberals opine at a party. They are as disgusting as any Pat Robertson clone ever dreamed of being.

So please, if you want to put something on the back of your car, just make sure it’s short and sweet and preferably tries to be no more serious than the space allows. But if you do want to make a cultural statement, and you actually think the world is more complex than a five word essay, then do me a favor. Do what reasonable people with a need to emote do: make a blog where you can pontificate to your heart’s content. I think we’ll all appreciate your car’s back side more in the end.

The Beauty of Life

In a book of pictures I once saw a beautifully ugly face. It was of a woman from somewhere in Asia. There was something appealing about this poor woman’s face that was fractured with ancient wrinkles and a magnificent smile. Her face was not one that will ever grace the cover of Madison Avenue’s magazine covers with their perfect beauty, but there was something in that grin that was more flawless than that of some gangly fashion model with air-brushed skin. There was something incredibly beautiful about seeing a smile break out onto someone’s face and seeing them giggle at something even if you have no idea what they are laughing about.

No doubt you’ve seen little moments like that in your daily lives. Last November I was at my wife’s family’s house for Thanksgiving. She has a niece that was just a year old. She is a chubby little thing. The niece that is, not my wife. Little Aurora doesn’t know that much about social interactions just yet. She doesn’t know how to make a clever remark or to tell a joke that will capture everyone’s attention, yet that didn’t stop her from holding everyone’s eye captive for the whole weekend. She brought incredible joy to her audience simply by cackling at simple pleasures like riding “horseback” on her aunt or seeing her uncle make faces at her. There is something so wonderful and right about seeing a child giggle uncontrollably.

Think of all the art museums you’ve been to and the utter awe you feel at those times. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard that if you go to the Sistine Chapel in Rome you have to look at the ground. I’m sure the floor is perfectly nice, but that is not what is meant. What I’ve heard is that the efforts and skill of Michelangelo’s ceiling are just so astounding that it is more than a human mind can handle. Think of that! Something that a human being can make can be so incredible that it can only be taken in by small doses! We’re talking about the artistic equivalent of staring at the Sun!

Have you ever had a moment like that? Have you ever seen a work of art, or maybe read a book, that moves you down to the core of your being? It doesn’t have to be a hoity-toity work like Da Vinci or something found in a museum. Where have you seen human craftsmanship so carefully applied that you just have to stand back in awe?I have an example that you probably won’t think of. I’ve worked in the restaurant business for something like ten years now. The most amazing thing to me about working there has nothing to do with my job at all. I wait tables. That’s really nothing more than sweet-talking people into buying more food than they want to buy. What is amazing to me is watching the cooks work when it is incredibly busy.

The next time you go to a restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night, if the place has an open kitchen where you can see the cooks, go and watch them work while you wait for your table. If it is a good kitchen you will be amazed. I remember when I was working right in front of them how efficient they can be. You’ve got five or six guys running at full speed in very close quarters while carrying around things that are literally flaming hot. They are able to keep track of all these orders and all the minutiae that go into preparing your food. When I see them get into their zone I am astonished that no one gets hurt, no one misses a step, and no one misses an order. It is a work of art.

Not all works of art are found in museums or are the product of any human mind. Some of my favorite sorts of things of beauty are to be found in the natural world. You can see there the immense glories of the stars and the planets. I have always been a bit of a space fiend so I am a little biased, but sometime go someplace far away from the city. Here in town you can see maybe ten stars in the nighttime sky. Go some place far out into the countryside and just look up into the deep, deep blackness. Look at the diamonds of brightest burning stars so far away from our eyes. Look at the Milky Way band itself as it hovers over you and around you. When I see such things I feel so very small and so very fortunate at the same time just to be able to see and enjoy them.

When I was a little boy my family traveled to Switzerland several times. There are few places on our spinning globe so wonderful just to be in than that tiny country. When would arrive my body would still be operating on North American time. While this left me in the uncomfortable position of falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon, it did afford me the opportunity of waking up before the sun first peeked out from the night. It was at those times that I saw what to this day is one my fondest memories of stunning beauty.

I would wake up early and go out on one of the many balconies. At first it would be the same twinkling majesty that I mentioned a moment ago. Then ever so gradually the blackness would slip into a pale, pink glow. After a few minutes the rose-tint would bleed into a deeper shade nearly red in its intensity. The coloring would soon drip onto the highest peaks of the mountains around me and would pour down until the heights would be ablaze with light while the valleys remained in darkness. I will never forget those times.

I truly wish that all the scenes of nature that I have seen were so inspiring. But you know as well as I do that ‘Mother Nature’ often acts in a way that is hardly nurturing. I believe it was Woody Allen who said that nature is not ‘mother.’ He said it was a restaurant where everybody eats everybody. We have all seen instances only in these past few years where the gentle hand of nature was one that smothered her children rather than one that lifted us up.

It was two and a half years ago that I was in Chicago with my family for Christmas. I don’t remember if it was late that night or early on the morning of the 26th when the reports started coming in, but I do remember that I could hardly believe what I was hearing. A massive tidal wave had swept through parts of East Asia leaving hundreds dead in its wake. A day or so after that the hundreds had turned into thousands. I couldn’t believe that as many as 7,000 people had died from a natural disaster. Soon that tragic number climbed higher and higher still. People from as far away as Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Sumatra lay dead in their homes or lost to the sea forever. It is said that around quarter of a million people lost their lives on that single day. God alone knows how many have died since from water-borne disease and malnutrition. One of the greatest natural disasters in human history had come and gone and there was no one to blame.

Closer to home, this past year’s quiet storm season could easily beguile us into forgetting the devastation we saw in our own backyard just last year. I remember watching the early reports of the incipient hurricane Katrina as she boiled up from the south Atlantic and churned her way across to our shores. With all the wonders of our most magnificent technology there was nothing we could do to stop a major city from being wiped out.

Neither our compassion nor our power could do anything to stop the devastation. We all wanted something or someone to blame. Everyone from local municipal officials to the President of the United States was strung up in the minds of the entire world as we demanded an answer as to why it could have happened. We knew that this sort of thing was not supposed to happen. How can a natural thing be bad?

A few paragraphs back I mentioned how amazing it is to see what can happen when you have a group of skilled human souls. I think it impresses us all to see a master with his craft. But what is our reaction when we see a master at his craft when that craft is destruction? How do we respond when we see great effort and skill poured into something revolting? We’d all be more comfortable thinking that great skill and great intelligence were somehow mutually exclusive to great evil. Tragically, we’d all be fooling ourselves if we thought that this was so. We’ve all seen too much to think that this is so.

Think for a moment of these past 100 years. How much effort was put into butchering millions and millions? We all know of the Nazis and their death camps. We’ve seen enough documentaries to each teach a class on the horrors that went on during those sickening years. At least for me I think that I have seen so many such things that I lose touch with the reality that happened. I forget how very much care was put into making the death machines do their deadly deeds. I forget that they had to arrange train schedules to bring the supplies of gas into the camps. I forget that someone built those morbid showers knowing how impure a purpose they had.

I see the amazing technical ability of the German people put to such a use and something inside me screams that something good has been twisted. I look at those events, as well as the horrifyingly common fellow examples, and I don’t know what to do or to say. Just as there is something wondrous about watching a group of skilled people work towards something beautiful, there is something ugly about seeing that same sort of intelligence warped into an amazing horror.

You can see this same sort of ugliness with the same sort of people that I spoke of so glowingly at the start. I don’t mean the great evil that otherwise beautiful people can create. That is what I was referring to just before. I mean you can see the effect of such ugliness in the lives on the receiving end of such works. Think again of the beauty of seeing a little child at play. There is to me a joy simply in watching little kids play.

Sometimes I think I’d like just going to a playground to take pleasure in the uncomplicated joy of a three year old slipping down a slide. But I don’t go hang out at playgrounds watching little kids. It isn’t because there would be anything wrong with me doing so as such. However, you know as well as I do why I can’t do that. I cannot enjoy the simple pleasures of children at play because there are men who look like me and talk like me who take pleasure in children. They take pleasure in children in a way that makes the most stern of us grow sick as little else can.

Have you ever spoken to someone who was abused as a child? That’s a silly question. Unless you’ve never met more than two people you have met someone who is forever marred. The stats tell us that something like one out of every three girls you meet and one out of every four or five boys has been stained by the most twisted of desires. Speaking to such a one is heartbreaking. You can see their very soul shattered. Women who will never grow to trust a man, while they will always be desperate to do just that. Males who never quite become men, but you cannot call them boys because their innocence was ripped from their spirits long ago.

There is not a one among you who will look at such a situation and say to me, “That’s okay. It’s just a part of life.” Every one of you will have seen in your life someone who will never be okay because of what someone has done to them. You have all seen someone who will never quite recover from that death in the family early in life. You have all watched as someone crumpled under the weight of a sickness that only gets worse.

We all have that one thing that angers us to no end. We might not have seen much grief in our own lives or even in the lives of those we know. But I’d bet that there is something for each of you that makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs that something isn’t right. Something is not the way it is supposed to be! You don’t have to be told by some abstract philosophy or some religious text that for an adult to pour out his sexual desires on a child is wrong. You don’t need me up here to tell you that human ingenuity should be used to help others and not to devise more and creative ways to inflict pain in those around you. You don’t need some intellectual justification to be sick to your stomach when you see body after body after body floating in the waters of New Orleans or Indonesia.

Think of these things. The next time you hear some self-confessed expert tell you that it is arrogant to make moral judgments, think about these things. The next time you hear some egghead tell you that each culture determines its own standards of morality, think about these things. Remember that those folks living up in their ivory towers or their monasteries have isolated themselves by layers of arguments or repeated mantras from the nastiness that we all live in. Remember that there is such a thing as beauty and such a thing as evil and that we cannot ignore the existence of either just because they make us uncomfortable.