HEAT...

I hate the heat. Always have. Don't know why tourists pick Cancun this time of year. It's miserable. Most of my adult life in this climate, and my body is still wired for northern Wisconsin subzero winters. After a walk, even the sweat-drenched shoes go in the wash.

Heat irritates me, oppresses, exhausts, incites… makes me impatient, impulsive. Reminds me of Albert Camus's, "The Stranger".

The sun was starting to burn my cheeks, and I could feel drops of sweat gathering in my eyebrows. That sun was the same as it had been the day I’d buried Maman, and like then, my forehead especially was hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing under the sun. It was this burning, which I couldn’t stand anymore, that made me move forward. I knew that it was stupid, that I wouldn’t get the sun off me by stepping forward. (1.6.24)

So he blamed the heat, too. It was one of the factors in the inevitability of the killing. And of course, "stepping forward" with it brought no relief.

Too much heat sparks fires that burn out of control.

Urban riots and the dog days of summer go together. More unarmed people dead at the hands of the armed. Don't they think about the powder keg they might have avoided? The upshot? More grief and anger… more resentment and defeatist attitudes.

I'm tired of cowardice dressed up as some sort of macho entitlement. You want to play brave with guns? The Old West was less despicable... let the other guy strap on his side arm and then go meet him at high noon on Main St. I hope it's a tie and you blow each other away. Our word to bullies on the playground when we were kids? "Pick on someone your own size."

The distance between a raised middle finger and road rage is about 0.50 sec. The time it takes to jump out of your wiped out race car to getting dead on the track because you challenge the culpable car on foot as it comes around a dark curve? About the same.

Rage will kill you. Violence breeds violence. Hatred engenders hatred. Oppression grows revolutionaries. Air strikes spawn kiddie terrorists. Blowing up tunnels attracts money and manpower to build more. Sow overreaction and reap death and destruction. What have we achieved? ISIS.

“…We don’t understand real evil, organized evil, very well. This is evil incarnate. People like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” the ISIS leader, “have been in a fight for a decade. They are messianic in their vision, and they are not going to stop.” Back to Iraq

Should we carpet bomb them this time? Where does it end? It would take the most catastrophic of events -the utter annihilation of the human race- for a violent action to actually succeed at ending violence. The only effective countermeasure would be to leave the planet without a single human being, including the perpetrators of the ultimate deed. Welcome to the wasteland.

Consternation: what I continually feel about what some espouse as viable solutions. It has been about 35 years since I have owned a gun. Haven't missed it, don't intend to ever purchase another. (Is this grounds for expulsion from my church? Maybe I should check...)

Time to turn down the heat. Or, more appropriately, time to find better ways to deal with it. In fact, I thought that was one of the more prevalent reasons that God had for leaving us here as his ambassadors. 

GOD TO MOSES: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I [am] the LORD.” (Le 19:18)

DAVID TO SAUL: “The LORD judge between me and thee, and the LORD avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee.” (1Sa 24:12)

JESUS TO DISCIPLES: “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Mt 5:39)

PAUL TO ROMAN BELIEVERS: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” (Ro 12:19-20)

We don't fight fire with fire. We don't fight heat by turning up the heat. The judgment seat of Christ will prove that the martyrs were right, not their inquisitors.

The buck stops here... we are followers of Jesus first and foremost...  time to be examples of the love of Jesus Christ, albeit dying ones... it wouldn't be the first time. 

Our Christian, Anabaptist heritage demands it.

--------