Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 February 2006 07:55:34
***Warning, bit of a rant - and yes I probably have been here before. So you might just skip me and move to the link, which is the important bit of this post ***
Don't know about you guys, but sometimes I find myself getting hardened to stuff happening elsewhere. I question if what I read is real, or just another part of the battle for our hearts and minds. I decide that because I know that life is so complicated and the world is not just full of "goodies" and "baddies", I will view everybody as a potential "baddie" until proven otherwise. Then I shake myself out of it and realise that this is what I'm meant to think because if I believe it I will start to live in fear & start buying into the myth that we need to constantly protect ourselves from each other. (That is not to say that I think we should abandon common sense, but you get where I'm going with this).
Anyway it is with the cynical side of me that I sometimes read Baghdad Burning and just wonder if it is another part of the propoganda war. Today was one of those times,although I'm pretty sure in my heart this blogg and its events are true and River Bend is giving an accurate account of her life and country.
I don't know if part of the reason for my doubt is that I want to somehow deny that these things are going on because then I don't have to face up to them, or whether it's because the media has made me cynical or what, but I know when I feel like this "they" are winning.
What I do know is that when I do acknowledge what is happening in our world, and alledgedly in our name (although I still have the t-shirt proclaiming not in mine) I have to respond. Not sure exactly what the personal response can / should be, but I do know for me it has to start with prayer: prayer for forgiveness, prayer for change in our world and prayer for guidance as to how God wants us to respond practically to what we read, see and hear. I don't mean that to sound over spiritual or anything, but it's the only way place I know to start when I start overcoming the cynicism and realising how many people in the world are suffering because we are so ****ed up, and most of us find it easier to either look the other way or question it until the point where we become hardened and disbelieving.