Why I am a Superhero Nerd

When I was a kid, I was crazy about superheroes. My parents had the old 1940s Superman cartoons on video cassette that I would watch religiously, plus the reruns from the 1960s Batman TV show starring Adam West were on cable, which I also watched very frequently. My parents have fond memories of me asking them to tuck a towel in the back collar of my shirt so that I could jump off our couches pretending to fly, or running up and down our hallway screaming, “I’m Batman!”

My mother told me a funny story about when I was little and my cousins used to baby-sit me. One day, while I was napping in my room, my cousin, Christopher got under my bed with my junior karaoke set and woke me up with his big booming voice into the microphone: “RYAN, THIS IS BATMAN. I AM UNDER YOUR BED.” For that brief moment, I was so bewildered that my favorite superhero would come and visit me of all people, and under my bed of all places. I was a happy kid that day.

The only other time I remember capturing that childlike fantastical feeling was when my mother and I saw Batman Begins in theaters shortly after my high school graduation in 2005. I remember staring at the big screen in awe, watching Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and his transformation from billionaire playboy to the Caped Crusader. The nostalgia was almost too much. That was the one time I ever thought about dawning the towel in my back collar again, running around my house and screaming, “I’m Batman!”

Silly? Yes. Creepy? Maybe. Justified? I think so.

Now, I’m in my early-twenties. I am a soon-to-be college graduate, getting ready to join the ranks of the clueless in terms of career path. You’d think that the days of fantasizing about costumed-crime fighting are long gone. You’d think that after seeing what people are capable of in terms of violence and war in my short lifetime, as well as how low people can be in a college town like the one that I live in (or any city on the globe for that matter), would give me a heavy dose of reality that there is no such thing as superheroes. If their was, our human race wouldn’t be going to hell in a hand basket because we haven’t learned how to be good to each other because there is no intimidating masked man in a cape to show us.

For a while, that was exactly my outlook. I would stay away from the news because I knew that there would be nothing positive that would come out of it, just stories about death, destruction, and crimes against humanity. I almost gave up on everyone, and took some of my closest friends down with my attitude.

But then, something started happening; my eyes starting opening up to the homeless population of my college town that I would normally pass by daily without so much as batting an eye towards them. I started seeing them as they were: hurt, hungry, struggling with their addictions. And one by one, I started interacting with them, getting to know them, hearing their stories, and realizing that they were just like me. I was hurt, broken, and lonely, waiting for a hero to rescue me.

These interactions with the homeless turned into overseas mission trips I would take to interact with people from a different culture that were suffering from the exact same things, waiting for a hero. After being around these people for a good period of time, watching how their attitudes changed from simple acts of attention, love and kindness, I began to realize that the very superhero I was waiting for was in me all along. But I had yet to realize my full potential.

A small part of my wardrobe consists of superhero t-shirts. These shirts used to represent the shred of childlike imagination that I refuse to let go of (Plus, it’s a much more suitable (no pun intended) substitute for a towel). Now they represent something greater.

A friend of mine had once given me a prophetic word about how the insignias on those shirts were made for me. He told me that a hero like Batman had his own way of combating injustice in Gotham City, and not everyone agreed with it. Gotham’s police force had many issues with it, calling him a vigilante, and many of the public considered him to be a lunatic in a cape. But regardless of the public’s opinion, when there was injustice happening in Gotham, when that Bat signal shone brightly in the night sky, it made the criminals flee, and it gave the people of Gotham hope. “That’s what you are going to be to people,” he said, “when they see you, they will see hope.”

After hearing that, everything started to make sense. There was a reason why I loved running around in my Batman cape as a kid, why I love to watch superhero movies and collect superhero literature. And it’s no wonder why I feel called to travel to poverty-stricken countries like the Dominican Republic as a missionary. It’s a part of who I am. It’s a mark that God has placed on my heart.

And I don’t think that’s something that is just meant for me. I believe the calling to be a superhero is meant for everybody. I don’t think it means that everybody has to go on a missions trip to a foreign country or interact with the homeless on a daily basis, because not everyone is meant for that. But I do believe that God has put a destiny of greatness in us, to stand up for the people suffering from injustice and give them hope, using whatever talents we have.

We are the new Justice League that we once admired from the TV stations and comic book pages. Our weapon of choice is love.

Screwtape

We are the sons of the serpent
conceived in slaughter
Sending our best wishes to
Your sons and daughters.

Try to relax, heed the whispers
and you won't feel a thing.
Try to resist and we'll make sure
you feel everything.

We will kill, feed, kill
Repeat.
And when the time is right,
piss on your whole pathetic race.

Dream About Street Preacher Guy

It's not often when I have a dream about my faith that really shakes me up. This was one of them.

The street preacher was back on the campus again. Annoyed, yet determined, I brought my own sign that I had made to counteract his "God Hates The Wicked/Homosexual/Pottymouth" sign. Mine had things written on it like, "God loves the poor in spirit/the broken/the sinner" and I stood next to him, as he shouted at people, only to get cursed at and laughed at in return. I decided that I would try and speak to see if people responded more positively. "God loves you guys!" I said to them. But they also responded with laughter and turned away as if not even interested. I said it again, "God loves you all very much!", but again, no response from them.

Street preacher guy continued on with his usual hellfire banter, and I decided that I would drop my own sign and just talk to everyone as a normal person without an agenda to convert people, just to be real with them. "Can I tell all you guys something?" I asked, but none of them answered. "If you guys could just listen for a minute...", again no response of remote interest. Finally, I shouted out loud, hoping to grab their attention, "Please, everyone, I need to tell you something!". I managed to turn some heads my direction to listen. By this time, there was a knot in my throat, and I was trying to hold back tears, but they streamed down my face as I tried to continue with a choked-up voice trying not to cry. "Please, listen everyone," I began, "I want to tell you that Jesus loves you. He loves you all so very much. Please understand this. If you only knew how much he loved you that he literally died to be with you. He just wants to be with the ones he loves and he loves you all. He doesn't care who you are or what you've done, he still loves you! Please... please understand that." My body shook as I poured my heart out to them and became vulnerable right on that spot, hoping that I was able to reach at least one person. But to my dismay, none of them responded. They just laughed at me and walked on. I stood there, crying, heartbroken that they were so turned-off by Christians that they even ignored the message about the love of God, the one that has touched so many hearts.

I didn't know what else to do but to continue talking about God's love, so I stifled my tears to continue trying to reach out to anyone who would listen. But again, to my dismay, and to my horror, the street preacher does something outrageous to try and drown me out. He puts the American flag in front of my face, saying to me under his breath, "If you were a true American, you would be up here doing what I am doing. You would be shouting at people about abortion and gay marriage." Determined not to be swayed by this ridiculous and shocking act, I tried to continue on talking to people about God's love, but street preacher guy had gotten a few military recruits to drown me out by playing army marching tunes, telling them, "Just play over him". One of them even went over to hoist the flag up with a pole in front of me, but finding it too heavy to lift on his own. Street preacher guy and the army recruits and even some of the students around me starting yelling at me, "Help him hoist the flag up!" Hesitantly, I went over to the the guy holding the flag and helped him raise the flag up more, but then I stopped. While they continued to shout at me to hoist the flag up, an anger started boiling up inside of me. They weren't willing to hear how much God loves them, but they would stop for anything to express their patriotism. As they continued to yell, the anger went from my chest up to my mouth as I finally shouted with passion, "MY FAITH WILL NOT BE MIXED WITH THE THEOLOGY OF EMPIRE!" and I let go of the flagpole, causing the flag to hit the ground.

People around me gasped. One of the army recruiters pointed at me and shouted, "He desecrated the flag!" and others joined in. I looked over to see the street preacher had already packed up his sign and headed off and was now too far away for me to say anything to him. Maybe he was satisfied that he did his job, or maybe he was scared, I don't know. As people continued to shout at me for letting the flag hit the ground, I didn't know what else to do but to just stand there, to stand my ground for my beliefs. It was so sad to me that they would choose an inanimate object to concern themselves with rather than real tangible love from a God who cares about them so much. I felt alone, I felt scared, I even felt a tad bit of regret to have caused such a scene, but I had no more words for them.

This is when I woke up. For the first couple of hours, I barely spoke to anyone at all. I had no words for them. My mind was still trying to wrap itself around the intense dream and the meaning it had. Even through church it was hard to concentrate on the pastor's words, because I was still somewhat shaken up and was trying to piece together what it all meant. As I write this, a thought had just come to me. I would imagine Jesus, as a human, when he preached to the crowds saying, "Today, the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing," and "The kingdom of heaven is near," and was met with angry people who would not accept his love and the message of his Father, he probably felt alone. Even more so when they brought him before the Sanhedrin to be handed over to be crucified. As they spit in his face and hit him, I could imagine he felt alone and scared. But he also had courage given to him by God to carry out the mission he was given. As scary as this dream was, it does bring me some comfort to be able to relate to my Savior.

The Future of Prop 8 and My Thoughts

I got an event invitation on Facebook for the Federal Court's acceptance of the challenge of Prop 8. Apparently, clicking on the "attend" button means that I support the LGBT community, clicking on "not attending" means I don't support it. As one of the hot-button issues of our time, especially for people of faith, this one is a struggle for me.

Let me explain. A year ago, I followed my convictions as a Christian and voted "Yes" on Prop 8. The proposition surprisingly passed, and that caused a lot of uproar. Within the next few days, I saw the LGBT community and the Christian community at each other's throats. The same hate preachers who were supposed to be exemplifying God's love were blabbing out their usual jargon and causing the LGBT community to be even more furious at the Christian community, to the point where one night, people from the Justice Prayer House in San Francisco who, as per their usual routine sing worship songs in the Castro District every Friday night, were mistaken as "Prop 8 supporters" and were met with extreme hostility. They just wanted to communicate the love of Jesus by singing, and because of the recent political happenings, it didn't happen.

Intolerance on both sides gets in the way of true love. And by true love, I mean the love of Jesus. Because of intolerance inside the Christian community, the LGBT community now has the wrong idea of the message of Jesus' love, which is all-inclusive. I don't blame them for having a bad taste in their mouths for Christians. If I were them, I would, too. In fact, I'm almost certain that the reason why a lot of people in the LGBT community have not embraced Jesus is because Christians have done such a poor job in exemplifying him. If they only knew exactly just how much Jesus loves us and wants to be with us regardless of what we've done or who we are that he literally died to be with us, I'm sure the process of embracing Jesus would go a lot smoother. But so many of us think that smacking them with a Bible and telling them to repent would be a lot easier. Easier, sure, but effective? Only if you want to turn them away.

A story: Once, at a gathering for a Christian group on campus, I attended a sort of Q&A with the leaders and staff that they had with the students. One of the questions that they got and answered out loud was, "Can you be gay and still be a Christian?" My friend, Josh, who is on staff with the group, answered the question with a story. He told us the story of a cousin of his, who was a Christian struggling with homosexuality. He knew what the church said about it, which made him uneasy. But then he remembered his love for Jesus and felt convicted. He pushed away what religion had told him and concentrated solely on the love of Jesus and the impact that it had on him. It was then that he made the decision to be celibate, because he said that his love for Jesus is greater than any love he'll ever have for a man. What a powerful example about how the love of Jesus can transform a person! Of course, his cousin still struggles with those tendencies, but he is so in love with Jesus that he is overcome by that love. Christians should know that the love of Jesus can reach through anything and everything (and I write this to remind my own self that truth).

Another thing we tend to forget in the Christian community: Sin is sin. All sin is equal in the eyes of God. An adulterer in a heterosexual marriage is no better off than a gay couple. Some Bible-thumping Christians will cite the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah and attribute it to homosexuality, and while homosexuality was one of the many sins that the two cities committed (and believe me, there is a long list), the cause of their fall was something different. "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." (Ezekeiel 16:49-50). Their fall had a lot to do with how they treated the poor among them.

I think another reason people in the Christian community don't support the LGBT community is because it makes them uncomfortable. It makes sense. In Sunday school we had all of these rules drilled into us about how to live the Christian life, that when we are finally confronted with something that the Bible says is "unnatural" or "wrong", we tend to shy away from it as much as possible. I'm guilty of this as well. It wasn't until my third year of my career as a professional college student going on 5 years soon, that I learned that Jesus was a friend to the poor and the oppressed. I am not affirming the gay lifestyle, but I can agree that they have been oppressed. There are homosexuals being jailed for their lifestyle in other countries by Christians themselves, and many have been killed in our own country as well because of our own ignorance and prejudice (i.e. Matthew Shepherd, amongst many others), and whether or not you agree with the lifestyle, this is wrong.

I remember watching a video clip of filmmaker Michael Moore who was seeking out justice for gay rights by driving a bus full of gay men and arriving at the location of the Westboro Baptist Church, founded by the Phelps family who are the infamous "God Hates Gays" and "God Hates America" people. Michael had a short interview with Fred Phelps, the head preacher of the church, who as per usual went on his hateful rant about the gay community, and then he proceeded to bring Fred to the crowd of gay men that were eager to meet him. Right when Fred Phelps saw the crowd, he immediately backed away, almost cowering. Whether or not you like Michael Moore or agree with the gay lifestyle, you have to admit this is funny. It's funny in the sense that Fred and the rest of his followers have no problem standing outside with signs at a soldier's funeral where walls seperated them and the congregation, or the funeral of a certain actor who was not gay but played a character who was gay in a certain film entitled Brokeback Mountain, but when the people they are hating are not indoors and they no longer have their signs to hide behind, it becomes a different story.

Sometimes, in some cases, not all, I think that people who are apt to oppose gay rights are people who haven't bothered to make friends with a gay person, or just have never been friends with one. I think that if they got to know them as human beings, they would see that they aren't much different from each other. Again, I can't really blame those people because I, myself have fallen into that category as well. They have their reasons, whether it is because how they were raised or something else, there is always a reason, and I think that needs to be understood by the other side. They need just as much love and understanding. When I was at the Sacramento Urban Plunge, a week-long retreat event put on by InterVarsity, which literally plunges the participants in the poorest district of downtown Sacramento, where you lived inside of a church building and slept on it's floors and learned God's heart for the poor and His heart for justice, we had a Q&A with the pastor of the church we were staying at. I remember him commenting on why people get so uncomfortable around homeless people, especially in a church. I remember him saying something to the affect of "You better get comfortable, because they'll be in Heaven with you. If you can't be comfortable with them now, how will you be in Heaven?" Heaven is supposed to be the place, or state of being, when the lost and sick fully come to know the love of Jesus. Jesus himself said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” (Matthew 9:12 NIV) That means murderers, prostitutes, gays, and the poor who come to know Jesus will be in Heaven as well. We better get comfortable, then.

What gets me a little frustrated now is when I hear the words, "Homosexuality destroys families". This mostly comes from the mouths of the people in the church. What gets me so frustrated is that, again, we're singling out homosexuality as the only thing that destroys families, when in fact, there is much much more. And what gives us the right to say something like that when America has a 50% divorce rate, and most of it occurs inside of Evangelical churches? How can we blame homosexuality when our own heterosexual marriages haven't got it right? Something just doesn't add up. I think the church needs to have a better understanding and better relationship with the LGBT community.

All this to say, I believe there needs to be some common ground. If people of faith are about to go against gay marriage, then we need to keep in mind our own divorce rate. What if the government took away certain rights of divorced couples? How will we react then? Maybe the reason why we haven't come up with the right answers is because we haven't been asking the right questions. What is the right question? I don't know, honestly, but when you come up with one, let me know.

As for me, I'm still unsure of where to stand. I have my convictions as a Christian, but I also have been reminded of Jesus' love and how it goes beyond my understanding and it reaches those who society has deemed to be unreachable. In the end, I don't believe people's hearts are changed by politics, but by relationships. I don't support the gay lifestyle, but yet I am also aware of my faults in my own lifestyle and I want them to know that Jesus loves all of us unconditionally, no matter who we are or what we've done. And maybe when the church gets better at exemplifying that love (myself included), then this conversation could go a lot smoother. Until then, I am still learning how to love as Jesus loves.

The Fellowship of the Unashamed

"I'm part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have Holy Spirit power. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure.

I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap living, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded.

I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions few, my Guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, deluded, or delayed.

I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won't give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, preached up for the cause of Christ.

I am a disciple of Jesus I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, and work till He stops me. And when He comes for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me - my banner will be clear!"

Wings

I've been thinking a lot about the sky. I've screamed at it as if I was wanting to be found by angels who can't hear me because I'm bolted to the ground and my voice just can't seem to reach that high. And if I could play God for five measly minutes I would find a way to expel gravitational pull but the only time I ever got close to that was my first kiss and as I ascended, she floated up with me, too.

But that was the closest I got. It sucks that every other kiss was a failed attempt to try and get the butterflies in my stomach to lift this 150 pound shorty off the ground and, alas, they could not.
They could not, because love is their ultimate fuel and without it, a kiss is just... body contact. And it can't just be a spark to get them going it's gotta be a full-on, lip-locked atomic BOMB.

Wise man say, "We can't stop the butterflies from flying, but we can help them fly in formation." But as hard as we try to keep them in order there is always one bent on escaping. And I can't get to the sky alone, I need someone with me. So if you are the one I get to share my next kiss with the first thing I want to say is, "I'm sorry." I've never tasted a butterfly before, but I could imagine it would be a little weird.

But know this: I believe we were created to be angels. I believe the butterflies in both of our stomachs want to mingle so they can't keep themselves from lifting both of us off the ground to remind us of who we were always meant to be.

I know it's hard because both of us have had lost loves. I know we've left a trail of broken hearts behind us but if you split a heart in two, they make wings and it looks like we've got enough to help the angels find us.

And who knows, maybe when we're walking on air hand in hand together at one hundred feet and the Hallelujah chorus kicks in we can look down at all the failed attempts and commence with the "Na-na-na na-na's" and "You had your chance's" And to the ones who told us that true love for us would only come when pigs fly or the fat lady sings, all we have to do is smile back down at them, and flap our wings.

From Fort Hood to Virginia

So, here I am again with something that has been weighing on my heart for a while, and hesitant to talk about it for fear of stirring up controversy. I've always viewed writing as something that is cathartic, and it is a way for me to get out my honest thoughts. Making some writing public is always a challenge, though, especially if it is opinionated. Mind you, this has been on my mind for quite some time, and it took a certain string of events to finally allow me to get it all out of my system.

I want to begin first by confessing that I have a lot of opinions, and lately I've been putting those opinions in front of some friendships that I have. What I have recently realized is that my opinions are just that, opinions, and they don't mean jack when it comes to relationships. So, if you who are reading this were subject to my opinionated outbursts and felt uncomfortable or offended, I want to apologize. I need to practice taming the tongue a lot more than I have been, but I am getting better.

Okay, here it goes.

I'm sure a lot of you have heard about the shootings that happened at Fort Hood, Texas last Thursday. As I am writing this, it's been reported that Major Nidal Malik Hasan has woken up from being in stable condition in the hospital, and will be able to talk. My prayers go out to the families of the victims of the shootings. My prayers also go out to Major Hasan, that he will come to know God's grace and mercy as he deals with the consequences of his actions. May I also add that John Muhammed, also known as the D.C. Sniper, will be executed in Virginia tomorrow. I've been waiting to read an article or a blog on these two events to see if the authors would capture my feelings of what has been happening lately. Some of them have, but I think they only scratched the surface. So, I'm being bold and I'm writing it myself.

I can remember when I was a kid, especially back in high school, I formed a lot of my opinions based on what my parents thought. So, if my parents voted a certain way, I adapted to those views. 9/11 happened when I was a freshman in high school, and I supported the Bush Administration in going to war in Iraq, and I admit, because of my ignorance, I had my stereotypical views on the Middle Eastern culture. As I grew up and graduated, enrolled in college, and grew in my faith, my perceptions on things began to change. It was the beginning of me making my opinions my own, and my faith, my own. And as my perceptions grew, so did my curiosity and my drive to meet new people of different cultures. I realized that ignorance was a dangerous thing, and meeting new people gave me a fascination to learn more about each of their cultures, and cured me of a lot of the past ignorance I once had.

What I've come to realize after meeting so many of these amazing people is that we are all God's children. Every single one of us. Even those who don't believe in Him. And it's this very realization that creates a conflict in me when the issue of war is brought up.

I want to make something very clear before I proceed: I have no issues with U.S. soldiers. Members of my family have served America bravely, and I have very much respect for them. I DO have an issue, however, with the U.S. Army. If any of my military friends are reading this, I want to say that I respect you very much for your service, and this is in no way a shot at you. I just can't help but disagree with a lot of the things the Army has done. Any time someone orders an attack on a country, calling the people you are fighting against "enemies of freedom" and saying that it's God's will, and we're supposed to be a Christian nation, I have an issue with that.

This is just my opinion, but if these people are our enemies, didn't Jesus say to love them, and to bless those who persecute us? Where does a gun fit into all of this? I don't think any of this is what Jesus had in mind. And I don't understand how anyone could call us a Christian nation when we have a government that ignores the poor, oppresses the immigrants, and funds the killing of the unborn. Again, this is just my opinion.

I recently went and saw "The Men Who Stare At Goats" starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregor, and as funny as the movie was, how I wish a lot of it was true. I wish we could form an army of people who just want to make peace using nonviolence. In a weird way, that is echoing the words of Isaiah 2:4, "He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore." (NIV)

Call me a wishful thinker, a dreamer, an optomist, or an idealist, and say that this kind of thing only happens in a perfect world, but I believe that if we believe that God's kingdom will come "on earth, as it is in heaven", then this is a great start, right? Every time we show an act of love to one another, it brings God's kingdom to earth.

So then, in the wake of the recent events, why don't we exercise that love? As soon as Major Hasan feels well enough to talk, he will most likely get the proverbial stones thrown at him by the public eye. So then why not show an act of love, drop the stones that represent the wickedness in our own hearts, and offer forgiveness (and I'm saying this because I need to do it as well, I have just as much wickedness in me as anyone else)?

I'm not trying to defend Hasan and the acts of violence he committed. I don't know what exactly motivated him to do what he did. I remember reading one article in which the author said he didn't want to deploy, and when he was denied that wish, he turned to the one thing he knew would get people's attention (for a man with a doctorate in mental health, this was definitely odd). And if, in fact, he did have ties to the same mosque(s) that three of the 9/11 hijackers shared, with a radical imam who preached a message of extremism, then I feel sorry for him that he was exposed to a warped theology of an otherwise beautiful religion. And it's also important to note that the Christian religion is subject to the same thing. Why else would we have people claiming to represent God who stand outside of soldier's and gay's funerals with signs that read "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God For 9/11"? Or people who think they are doing God's will by bombing abortion clinics, or just recently, killing a Kansas abortion provider in his own church and unapologetically saying he did it to protect the unborn children. Warped theologies can definitely get the better of us.

The same could be said for John Allen Muhammad, who in his early life, served in the Gulf War as a sergeant, and afterward joined the Nation of Islam. It was said that he modeled himself after Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks. John fell victim to a warped theology and probably mixed it in with the only environment that he knew, an environment full of violence. Even the Nation of Islam Minister, Louis Farrakhan, said that what John did was against the Muslim law. And now the state of Virginia is going to kill him by lethal injection because they believe that putting him behind bars for life wasn't enough. But would killing him bring any of the victims of his rampage back?

I remember having a conversation about the death penalty issue with an old roommate. He brought up a case he saw on TV where a convicted killer was on trial and the prosecutor pushed for the death penalty, but the killer got life in prison instead. In an interview after the trial, the prosecutor said they would keep on pushing for the death penalty, saying, "Don't worry, justice will be served". "What justice?" said my roommate, "You got justice when he was caught and put behind bars. Now you just want revenge."

One of my very first thoughts after hearing about the deadly shootings was, "This is going to be another blow to the Muslim community." Because I have friends who are Muslim, and I know they wouldn't hurt a fly. And if you are reading this right now, I just want to apologize for the warped ideas I have had about the Muslim culture. You are God's children, and I love you all very much. I will continue to pray that you will know Jesus as your friend and Savior, but that's a conversation for another day :) .

One of the big reasons why I chose to write all this is because I'm hurting. It hurts me to see other cultures being misunderstood by ignorance, and it does hurt to see our governments try to play the hand of God and take another life. Ghandi said, "An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind". How much more blood do we want? How much more until we're all blind? And please understand that I am not writing this to cause any rifts between anybody, and I am not claiming to know any of the answers. These are just things that I am wrestling with, questions that I am asking myself to try and understand what is going on around me, and trying to seek God to make sense of it all. If you have some more insight you want to share to help me out, please feel free to do so.

"We hunger, but though all that we eat brings us little relief we don't know quite what else to do, We have all our beliefs but we don't want our beliefs, God of peace, we want you." -Aaron Weiss of mewithoutYou