Section 5

Guys
Just finished section. I must admit I really liked it, but it is some dense material that I want to re-read and check some of his references to digest more. Truly, we are a country addicted to power and violence as a means to power. Truly as American Christians we have taken the party line too often.

"To be a follower of Jesus in this light is a far different affair than many of us were taught: it means to join Jesus' peace insurgency, to see through every regime that promises peace through violence, peace through domination, peace through genocide, peace through exclusion and intimidation."

I also loved his discussion on value of peacemeaking. "The work of peacemaking is alwasy urent in peacetime as in wartime. Without people giving themselves to this important work, the entropy and gravity of war will exert their hellish, downward, destructive pull."

Believe it or not, I spent my day thinking about peacemaking. I'm not very good at it. I'm more geared towards what is fair, towards judgement, towards repayment of harm when harm is done. But today I tried to be a peacemaker. When things annoyed me today with some employees or guests or situations, I thought first about reacting how Christ would react. It was pretty encouraging.

I'm liking the book a lot. Let's keep moving and finish it up....and then the hard part begins...having to live it out!