Changing the Enemy

This past Christmas’s theme of peace on earth was a bit interrupted by the extremist Muslim dude trying to blow up a plane. What is often overlooked in such conflict is the need for changing minds. One news item that didn’t get nearly enough press was what happened in Libya. Officials of the Libyan government, which once sponsored terrorism, met with imprisoned Al Qaeda affiliates and learned to understand them. Then they convinced the terrorists that blowing up innocent people was not nice and that this activity should stop. The terrorists eventually denounced violence, were released, and are now propagating across the Arab world a concerted message of peace and reconciliation.

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Knocking Down Walls

By Peter Lundell

In this new year, before we try new things or quit old things, we should remember one thing: To do the new or quit the old, we need to break through what has hindered us until now.

Take a lesson from the Berlin Wall, erected in 1961 by the paranoid East German government, which divided democratic and Communist Berlin. The wall epitomized the government’s iron-fisted control of its people and its fear of the West. The concrete blocks and barbed wire isolated West Berlin from the rest of East Germany for 28 years.

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Turn, Turn, Turn

By Peter Lundell

I was driving one day, listening to an oldies station, when I heard Pete Seeger’s 1965 classic, “Turn, Turn, Turn” that the Byrds turned into a number one hit song in America. Right there in the left turn lane, the Holy Spirit seemed to dance all around me. I love it when God works through “secular” stuff.

But in fact the song is not so secular. It’s a musical rendition of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. That day I spent two hours on a plane ride reading and rereading and meditating on those verses. In them I saw wisdom so deep, so multifaceted, so life encompassing that I could say it’s essential to everything a person ever thinks or does in life.

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Fake Prayer and Real Prayer

By Peter Lundell

Jesus would have had a great time with this one: a website offers to have a computer with text-to-speech capability say your prayers for you, so you don’t have to. They “voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to a typical person praying. Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the subscriber displayed on screen.” You may choose from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or Unaffiliated prayers. For Muslim prayers they even face the speakers toward Mecca. Isn’t that thoughtful?

Don’t laugh; these guys are serious—about making money at least. I clicked on “Protestant” and found I could have a computer say the Lord’s Prayer for me each day for only $3.95 a month. Or I could choose prayers for peace, health, financial help, my children, or get a package deal. Catholics pay 7 cents for each Hail Mary. That adds up, you know.

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When Our Lease Is Done

By Peter Lundell

I recently moved my mother to a new, downsized apartment. At times the process involved careful sorting and packing; other times demanded chucking things in boxes or in the trash. At the end of the move, the walls were bare and wounded with nail holes and plastic drywall anchors. The carpet lay lined and pocked with impressions of once-arranged furniture. And the windows stood stark and vacant against the sunlight. The furniture and decorations that once made it home were gone, leaving only an empty shell.

Throughout our lives we may go through some phases with great care and others with wild abandon. And at each phase of life, we will leave the previous one behind—a place that was once home but is now gone, like an empty apartment.

At death we may leave behind money and furniture, but the life we lived—the space we took up, the “us” that people knew—will be gone, empty as a moved-out-house.

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