Category Archives: 25 D.O.P. (2016)

Future Peace (DOP #6 2016)

From a technological standpoint, I think we live in a really exciting time.  Incredible things are happening every day, and technology seems to be outdoing itself faster than I can learn about it.  It seems like there is something new being talked about every day.

My job is to use technology to meet certain goals, so I work closely with it every day.  I am constantly learning new things (mostly because I have to) and I find that each new thing opens my eyes to what might be possible in the future.   I think there is important work to do to consider the impacts of technology on our world, and our societies.

Perhaps I’ll turn this into a series of posts, but tonight I’ll just focus on one aspect of our technological future.  Some of the biggest things being developed right now are driverless cars.  If you listen to or watch the news on a regular basis, you’ve no doubt seen or heard all about them.  I’ve heard predictions that in 10 years a large percentage of cars on American roads could be self driving or automated.  Awesome right?

Well, maybe.  Let’s assume our legislatures actually provide a legal framework for this to happen, and all of the ethical concerns about crashes and who is ultimately at fault for them are resolved at some point in the near future, and driverless vehicles start to become common on our roads.

Did you know that the industry that employees the most people in every single state in our country is trucking?  I didn’t until recently.  What happens when truck drivers are no longer needed because advances in technology make a truck driver a dangerous liability instead of an asset?  What will our society look like as nearly 3 million people enter the job market as they are eliminated from their positions?

I think there are a lot of compelling reasons to move in the direction of automated vehicles.  Many people aren’t paying attention to the road anyways, so why not make everyone safer by giving them a safe way to look at their phones while on the road?  Accidents caused by speed or reckless driving will decrease, and drunk drivers will be safely driven home, instead of taking innocent lives.

We can not stop the march of progress, nor should we want to. (I, for one, greatly enjoy access to indoor plumbing.)   We should be preparing ourselves and our society for the changes that technology will thrust upon us.  If we don’t start preparing ourselves now, corporations will move without us, resulting in the loss of jobs without a safety net in place.  How can we be preparing to change the workforce in our nation so that everyone can have meaningful work to do?

It doesn’t take a genius to see conflict coming as a result of these changes in the future.  How can we proactively take steps to ensure peaceful transitions to new technology?  What steps can we ask our legislature to take?

How can we best prepare to take care of our neighbor, before it is too late?

We can plan for peace, and I think we should.

 

Processing Internally, Externally. (DOP #5 2016)

Potential reader, treat this post more as a diary entry than an attempt to convey a truth to you.  It began in my typical fashion, addressing a listener who may not be there, but quickly became a verbal processing of internal though.   I do welcome your comments, as I fight to understand peace more completely.   What connects with your spirit?  What thoughts strike you as inaccurate?  

As I pursue peace, I usually end up stopping to ask myself what peace really is.  Obviously if I don’t know what I am looking for, I will not know when or if I find it.  As I look more and more deeply into the idea of peace, I seem to discover a new layer of meaning with each new look.  If you had asked me two years ago how I would describe peace, I would have probably told you that peace is the absence of conflict.  If you had pushed me to consider what self-peace was, perhaps I would have hinted at the idea of comfort.  Being comfortable with who I am, and what I am doing could have easily been my description of peace.

In some sense, both of the above descriptions of peace are correct.  I’ve discovered, however, that those descriptions are certainly not the whole story.

I’ve wrestled with this in the past, and I continue to wrestle with it now.  How can one live a life of peace, when those around us are in peril?  My own mind is often drawn to the plight of others caught in a military conflict, but it is broader than that.  Just like I have a personal self-peace, each of us has that same potential.  So how do we live peacefully in a world where people are treated poorly because of their skin color, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs?  What about people who are oppressed by their views of their own self-worth?   What is my responsibility to others around me?

Do I truly possess peace when others around me are living without it?

Is living a peaceful life a life of ignorance, a life of ignorant bliss?  How else could our spirits be at peace with the tragedy surrounding us in the world?  You don’t need to go far to find tragedy.  Am I peaceful if I watch a child drown and do nothing to attempt to change the outcome?

Perhaps I have confused peace with comfort.

Comfort tells me to stay on the side of the pool, to not risk getting wet when I may not be successful in saving a drowning child’s life.  If I passively watch a child drown, will I not be haunted by my inaction?  Would I rather live life knowing that I tried to save the child’s life, but was unsuccessful, or would I rather live knowing that I chose comfort over action?
If I approach peace from this perspective, where does my personal responsibility end?  Or should I be haunted be each thing that happens, by each choice I’ve made.

I do not have answers, but I will keep wrestling until I have them.

Tomorrow (DOP #4 2016)

Phillipians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Trying to write tonight has been an exercise in anxiety.  I can’t seem to get anything down on paper.  I’ve actually found myself on the verge of giving up this process.

So in this moment, I will approach tomorrow with prayer and petition, praying for the peace of God to guard my heart and mind.

Until tomorrow friends.  

Time (DOP #3 2016)

We always think there is going to be more time.

Over and over again we hear a story about someone who just wasn’t ready for something to happen.  Often it is regrets over the loss of a loved one, perhaps a broken relationship, or suddenly realizing your kids grew up while you were busy at work.  We always think there is going to be more time.

I put off work to browse Facebook, thinking that I’ll find more time to finish my tasks later.  I press snooze on the alarm clock as many times as I think I can get away with, usually resulting in missing the first 5 minutes of my work day.  I pay my bills at the last possible moment, not because I don’t have the funds, but rather because I forget what time it is.

I’ve heard people wonder about the Holocaust, asking how it could have gotten so bad, how could no one do anything to stop it.  I’ve heard the same about things like so many different conflicts and tragedies.  People can always look backwards and see the signs of an approaching catastrophe, but always wonder why no one stopped it.  The list is long, Somalia, Syria, ISIS, Kosovo, and Rwanda come to mind, with many more that could be added.  We always believe we have more time.

There is a new genocide brewing in the world, many organizations are already pointing towards it, begging someone to do something.  We are running out of time.

There is a clear and present threat of a coming terrible genocide in South Sudan.

I don’t what I can do to change it, I don’t know if anyone can do anything, but in pursuing peace there are difficult things that must be done.  At the moment the only thing I can think of to do is tell everyone I know that it is coming, perhaps it has already begun.

Sometimes it is difficult to care for people we will never meet, but if you live life from a Christian worldview, can you imagine Jesus being unaffected by this news?  Would Jesus shrug his shoulders and say “That sucks…oh well, nothing I can do about it.”  Even when the Canaanite women asked Jesus to heal her, and he told her that he was sent to the people of Israel, he acted to heal her because her faith was great.   How much more is our mission to reach the whole earth?

What if we lived in a world where the Church knew how to intervene in a crisis like this?

What would that even look like?

What would it take for the Church to intervene?  Unity, for one thing.  We would have to be united in following the God man who gave his life to heal the divide between us and God.  Surely he would desire that same unity in those who are called by his name.

The Church is the most powerful organization on the face of the planet, and we squander that power so that we can stay comfortably content in our padded seats, meeting together on Sundays to have coffee and hear someone talk about finding our best life now.

Blessed are the peacemakers.  Not the coffee drinkers.

Time is a precious thing.

Never waste it.

Understanding (DOP #2 2016)

25 Days of Peace is back for another year of compelling posts from nearly 10 contributors.  This year you can check out the action on Facebook, or at 254peace.org!  I can’t wait to hear from some of my favorite voices as they wrestle with peace, and what it means in their life during this Christmas season.  As always, subscribe to get my latest posts delivered directly, and head over to the Facebook page to connect with the rest of the contributors.  

I’ve (very) recently started trying to learn Spanish.  I’ve been to a Spanish speaking country several times in my life, and I currently live in an area with a reasonable number of Spanish speakers, a coworker who can speak Spanish, and I’ve recently met someone who has inspired me to finally make an effort to learn.  I’ve learned just a few words over the past few years, mostly just enough to apologize, or ask to be excused.  I might be able to ask how old you are, and if you are less than 10 years old, I might even understand your answer!  (Thanks to Seasame Street!)

I’ve often marveled at the ability of others to speak another language.  As someone who struggles to communicate in English, to me it is a miracle to be able to communicate with people from another culture.  Even though I can’t speak Spanish, when a situation would arise requiring me to communicate with a Spanish speaker, I would just make gestures and repeat the English words until I made myself understood.  It is a crude method, fraught with frustration, but it is usually worth the effort in the end.

When I have to gesture and point my way to communication, it reminds me that we as people often don’t put in enough effort to really understand the people around us.  When you speak my language, I automatically assume that you use words in the same way that I do, that my thoughts must be your thoughts as well.  Obviously, this is not true, and misunderstandings happen regularly in my life from a lack of effort on the part of both parties to really communicate.

When I take the time and effort to try to communicate outside of my own language, I find there is a connection that happens when meaning is finally communicated from one person to another.  The struggle and confusion can absolutely be worth it.

So why do I want to learn to speak Spanish if I can usually make myself understood when necessary?

I want to fully understand.

As our nation becomes increasingly polarized along nationalistic lines, l want to be available to be a bridge between two cultures that are not at peace.  I want to use my ability to communicate in English to tell the stories of those around me who can’t make themselves understood by those who won’t put in the effort to listen.  When a whole people group is maligned, made out to be the enemy of our success as a nation, I know that unless people are willing to stand up on their behalf, there is a genocide of sorts, lurking around the corner.

In every culture here in the United States, you can find good and bad.  In the same way that not every immigrant comes here illegally, I understand that not every immigrant obeys the laws.  I hope to celebrate the good, and expose the bad.  Dividing rightly the truth of the matters at hand from the false and terrible rhetoric.

In the pursuit of peace, sometimes we all need a little help understanding.  I hope to one day learn enough to be the beginnings of that bridge of understanding.  No lasting peace has been found without dialogue between the parties at war.
No lasting peace has been found without reaching understanding.

Feliz Navidad!