the blocked way

I just wrote a blog, and then deleted it. Computers are nice in that way, you don't have to commit to anything you write. If when you're done, you decide the thought wasn't conveyed well or the thought just plain sucked, you delete it and it's done.

Below are the basics of what I just wrote and deleted. Beforehand, it was way too long and way too boring for a blog. Better for a book....maybe, if that book were to be a long incoherant rambling by a PE teacher...

War. Abortion. Child slavery. Human trafficking. Prostitution. ALL OF THOSE go against life and human rights, and therefore I hope someday we will see an end to all of them.

As someone who deeply loves Jesus, I have to consistently ask myself how I am going to be a part of his Kingdom on earth. After all, it's hard to imagine anything great if you've been a slave since childhood, no? How am I going to show a woman who just got pregnant, and doesn't want to be, just a piece of the Kingdom? Do I show her I care for her and her baby by going to the politicians and illegalizing abortion? Or do I show her I care by doing life with her on a daily basis, where she's at (which, ironically enough, is where I'm at)? Do I show I love my enemies in Afghanistan by sending our troops to war ("love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you" are pretty difficult words to manipulate)? And the questions go on and on and on and on.

These are the questions I ask myself living in a new city. We can't claim Christ and refuse to figure these things out! Charity is something, but to be honest it is kind of half-assed. Moving beyond that is the hard part, towards solidarity with the oppressed. As I read recently in a fairly good book,

"Charity wins awards and applause, but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them."

For some reason I always come back to these questions. I think it may be because I keep ignoring them and going on my way....which is creating this repetition in my life that just can't be shaken until I take them for real.

*if you've commented on past blogs, i have responded under the comments, not in this entry necessarily