Red and Mistrust

Have you heard about the new Missile Deal? The US and Poland have a new missile treaty. Not the good kind of treaty, in which nations decide not to arm themselves with weapon of terror and mass destruction. No, this is the kind of treaty in which nations get together to help each other make more weapons. Russia is displeased. Americans are uninformed. It's all dressed up in the vague political rhetoric we expect. We aren't trying to hurt anyone, we just want to protect ourselves from "them." Who are they again? The real reason is the same as it has always been, we want the power to controll our relationships with others.

What a broken world.

The world is a place of distrust in which people push out against each other and against God, creating distances we hope no one will cross. We have lost our senses. We do not hear what is spoken, or see what is illuminated.

You see, we are like Cain, who walked away from God and built a city in Nod. Like Cain, we're all a little apprehensive about what others hold. We've heard that God will protect us, but we don't believe. After all, look at how God is protecting them--those pitiful ones we fear to think too much about. The poor, the suffering, the victims. Abel. God doesn't fit into our blood-soaked world view now that we know our own power. Our own weakness. We can kill; we can be killed. We think little of the promise of a God who could not even protect his favorite. Full of our own power and fear, we mistrust God and each other. And those whom we mistrust, we also mis-hear.

Like Cain, we walk away and try to build our own safe place. A city in the Land of Wandering, a paradox we believe we control. Missiles for peace.