Corner guys and conscientious objectors

Went on a 10:45pm skate tonight down chase ave. Longboard. Bout twenty miles per hour, just cruisin... Two passes of this north end: about a half-mile distance, maybe less... got a water at the UDF. Got yelled at by the guys on the corner... These corner guys are supposed to be drug dealers. This summer, there have been muggings, robberies, shootings, beatings... All at these two corners...

Last night I was practicing the preached things Jesus taught, and I was walking with Zach and I offered my hand to the corner guys... they wouldn't shake... "sorry man, I don't shake"

then on the walk back the same guy got me while he was walking alone and apologized! He said he was going through a really hard time because his girl was PG and didn't want anything to do with him... I was honored that he would apologize to me, a "rich cracker" in the eyes of this neighborhood. Needless to say, it was a great time of Jesus hugging on me. It's easy to preach the Word to a guy when you're the first preacher who has met him on the street and loved him at risk...

I'm installed in this neighborhood, hoping to really see Jesus more clearly. He's in the corner guys. Mt.25

Zach is applying for conscientious objector status. That's really unpopular. When he asked his former pastor, whom he helped to found a young adults ministry (Zach was the right hand man, there), the guy Blasted him. something about war, masculinity, violence and christianity all being one big ball of... being the thing... or something.

I don't know what I'd do in Zach's shoes. He's really, truly the stuff of a Conscientious Objector (CO). He's had an extreme, even traumatic change of values and views in the last year, starting with exposure to the emergent/postmodern movement, continuing with the influence of JP, Matt, John Wallis, among others... It continued and intensified last winter when he went to visit The Simple Way and The Camden House. Now he's ruined for military service by the firm conviction that physical violence and human force aren't the path for his Christian witness.

If I were Zach, I'd be right where he is right now. I'd be him, darn it! There is no way I could judge him wrong today, from here. What's more, the more I am exposed to his journey, the more I question the things I've been told on the TV. I no longer feel unmoved...

I said the other day, "It's not that I'm changing my opinions, I'm just getting some!"

I am sad about (understatement) our state of war. We are losing so much in spending so much on war. We have lost the image of God's creativity in dealing with the world... We've been lied to. I believe that. And I believe that we are wasting the hour of opportunity. anti-personnel bombs. on a hospital. on more than one... laser guided? exportation of torture?

Oh yeah, that's just war. I know.

sad? No. Horrified.

And Hopeful. I'm more hopeful now than ever that the sleeping giant of the church can awake and shine light in this darkness... There are hundreds and thousands out there who will jump at the chance to answer the call of Jesus to sell all and follow. I'm hopeful that many will lose it all to follow him.

before the "all" is lost to upheavals that we cannot foresee...

But one thing's for sure: I'm proud of Zach. I'm proud of the God of Zach. He's the God who takes a spoiled, well-groomed, taught to conform, worldly guy, and undoes the devil's job. Now he's blowin' in the wind, ready to serve Jesus in risky circumstances.

Did you ever wonder if Jesus really meant it about the whole "sell all" thing? Well, when you find love, you find out. Love, people. find love and run with it. I truly look to the Father to show more people how to find love and run with it all. That's gonna free us of the shame of our affluence and complacency...

...i'd feel sad for someone who gave up all but didn't have love, though.