Thursday, June 05, 2008
A view from the front lines
From Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw's new book, Jesus for President:
The other night a soldier called us on the phone (not that unusual these days). He said that he and his friend had just gotten back from Iraq, where a bunch of folks were passing around a copy of the book The Irresistible Revolution. His friend had been in a shooting conflict with some Iraqis, and he shot an older man. Now this twenty-year-old American soldier was having a hard time sleeping. But it wasn't the fact that he had killed the man that was keeping him up at night. It was the face of the man's son, a twelve-year-old boy, who had run out of the house, grabbed his dead father's gun, and started shooting at the US soldiers. So the soldier's friend shot the boy too.
What else could he have done? The soldier said it's absolutely maddening; people feel like they are turning into animals. And every time they point a gun in some young kid's face, they feel they're creating a terrorist. He said that our guns and wars are not making the world safer.
Labels: politics, Shane Claiborne, social justice
Hi Mike! Look forward to seeing you at PAPA Fest. Did you hear we're working on a little (ok, not so little) movie called "The Ordinary Radicals". I have a feeling you might already have heard about it but wanted to drop you a note just in case. Check out: theordinaryradicals.com for more info, clips, pre-orders & what-nots.
See you in a couple weeks!
~jamie