I'm turning in my card

So many times I sit down at this computer, load this blog template and begin to spew my thoughts.  I do this only to completely erase the drivel I've just written. Sometimes three, four, or more times I write a few sentences, a paragraph only to have it line the bottom of the virtual garbage can.  Thoughts possess my mind and I want to get them out, but when I do it sounds, to me, like literary "DUH!" At times I fight through the mental block, organize my thoughts, and other times I just give up and walk away with a blank screen silently judging me. And truth be told, I'm ok with that.

Today was one of those days, but I've decided perseverance is the path I will travel.  This morning I was listening to NPR's Morning Edition.  Nothing uncommon in my life.  I was drinking a cup of organic coffee we have delivered, out of a coffee mug specially purchased and painstakingly brought to me, made of fragile clay; I was enjoying the morning.  Then the story comes out of a bombing in Pakistan.  You think "wow, another bombing in Pakistan, another in the Middle East, another, another, another."  This is where my anguish surfaced.  20 dead, by a car bomb.  Not directed at soldiers, or those who choose to be in the thick of these political struggles.  Civilians, going about their business to school, to work, to the market, to run down to the corner to get a small container of milk so a loved one can have cereal or a perfect cup of coffee. 

The sad part about this is no matter what portion of the area you are in, no matter what country of the Middle East you live, the bombings are every day and natural.  As natural as us getting angry at the task of facing traffic or because the grocery is out of our favorite vegetable, we have to deal with this.  However, these don't end in the senseless death of us, or worse, our loved ones.  And it doesn't stop.  We seem so distant from it, but we are humans, whether we be Christians, Muslims, Hindu, or Sun Worshipers, we share the bond of being the same.

One thing I've learned from my limited travel and mission work is a big lesson on Love.  We can think our love, American love, Christian Love, Whatever love is better because of who we are.  We can find ourselves knowing we love our families more because we can allow for them to eat all day every day,  for them to wear the latest and greatest.  Because of this we obviously love better than any person not like us, right?  Love is the same no matter where you go.  No matter how much money you make, or the health care you are provided.  A mother's love is the same in Shreveport as it is in the mountains of Haiti.

You can look at your Love ones and say no one loves like I do, but we all know that's not true.  The ability to love, the common thread that unites us to everyone.  The one corner puzzle piece upon which we can find commonality.  When I hear of these bombings or disasters ending in the loss of life, I can't help but feel a part of my love has been extinguished.  I'll never know these people, I'll never been anything more to them than a random statistic or example of a selfish American, but that doesn't break the connection we all share with each other. 

It's been said God is Love.  That I can digest, I can believe.  Love is everywhere, so God is everywhere, right?  In our friends, in our enemies, in our competition?  In the faces of those who believe in God and in those who openly deny him. Love abounds. 

This drivel doesn't leave us with answers, more than likely more questions and uncertainties.  But really, what do we hope to solve by blogging. 

Love has a sister (for another day I guess).  Love's sister is Peace.

Peace and Love everyone!