Shades of Gray
My dear daughter, you stood bravely in front of your entire school during the Remembrance Day Assembly and spoke these words into the microphone: "This is my Great-Grandfather." Then the Principal of your school proceeded to read about your Great-Grandfather's contributions to both World Wars.
War. I have been blessed to live almost four decades without experiencing the loss and agony of war. True, I was born when the Vietnam War was ending. I was a teenager during the Gulf War. And I was an academic when America declared the War on Terror after September 11, 2001. Yet, I've lived in peace in this corner of the prairies. No one in my immediate family has been deployed to fight.
Your Daddy's Mennonite heritage includes the right to be a conscientious objector to war. War was not considered an option to global conflicts. Non-violent solutions were preferred. Your Daddy's ancestors have fled countries to avoid being conscripted. Why? Because they truly and firmly believed war was not a moral act - in any circumstance - for a Christian.
On my side of the family, a huge percentage of my uncles and aunts have enrolled themselves in Indian cadet programs. Both your Nana and Nani where trained to shoot rifles. My Grandfathers have served in one or more of the World Wars in some capacity. Why? Because they believe it was their duty to serve their fledgling country, to defend it with their lives. It didn't matter if one was Hindu, Muslim, or Christian. Religion was irrelevant. In certain circumstances, war was deemed necessary to survive.
How can the God-fearing, Jesus-loving individuals that make up your ancestry have two totally different views on war? Who is correct? What should you believe? (Personally, I'm on the fence with this issue.)
I am learning more and more through life that there is much gray in the Christian faith. I believe that God just allows us to make a stand, even to the point that we think God "convicted us" to believe that way. Don't worry, I do believe there are definite fundamentals in Christianity that are black and white such as the sinfulness of the human race and the saving grace offered through Jesus' Death and Resurrection. But the shades of gray abound. And God, the Father, totally allows it. Because we are not seeing the whole picture. We are just receiving distort images and mere reflections off the grander truth. For some of us Christians, war is evil and should be avoided at all costs. For others, war is necessary to subdue the bullies that decide to take over the whole world. The truth is probably found somewhere in the tension that stretches one view from another.
This is good for me to remember, especially when I am tempted to judge others on lesser issues. Right now, your class project is on pets. And I feel sort of bad for you since you don't have a pet that you can talk about. So I try to pawn off my righteous reasons for being a non-pet owner on you: "You can tell your class that we rather spend money on a sponsor child with Compassion than wasting that money on a dog." Then, it hits me. Wasting? I think I'm right! I believe I am doing humanity a service while others, who own pets for pleasure, are socially irresponsibly. How dare I make that judgement! How dare I think everyone who sinks finances into God's lesser creatures are totally out to lunch with their logic.* Owning pets is a gray issue and I need to make my stance and allow grace for the opposing opinion. (Interestingly enough, your Daddy's side of the family are huge pet lovers while no one currently owns a pet on my side of the family.)
I am thankful for the gray, really. It is so much more freeing to live one's life with a few essentials instead of trying to wrestle through minutia for the sake of self-righteousness. I pray that you, my daughter, and you, my son, will let go of the illusion of being right with humanity and instead pursue being right with God. Because, that is what counts in the end.
*To my faithful readers: These statements are not meant to make my pet-loving friends and family feel guilty. We all spend money on pleasures in this affluent part of the planet that could be used to better the living conditions of the poor in our community and in our world. My pleasures are lattes, aesthetic services, and travel. We all have our reasons for investing money in such. Some are good. Some are wrong. And some are gray. :) We need to search our own hearts before God. He is our gracious judge.
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| Major J.D. |
War. I have been blessed to live almost four decades without experiencing the loss and agony of war. True, I was born when the Vietnam War was ending. I was a teenager during the Gulf War. And I was an academic when America declared the War on Terror after September 11, 2001. Yet, I've lived in peace in this corner of the prairies. No one in my immediate family has been deployed to fight.
Your Daddy's Mennonite heritage includes the right to be a conscientious objector to war. War was not considered an option to global conflicts. Non-violent solutions were preferred. Your Daddy's ancestors have fled countries to avoid being conscripted. Why? Because they truly and firmly believed war was not a moral act - in any circumstance - for a Christian.
On my side of the family, a huge percentage of my uncles and aunts have enrolled themselves in Indian cadet programs. Both your Nana and Nani where trained to shoot rifles. My Grandfathers have served in one or more of the World Wars in some capacity. Why? Because they believe it was their duty to serve their fledgling country, to defend it with their lives. It didn't matter if one was Hindu, Muslim, or Christian. Religion was irrelevant. In certain circumstances, war was deemed necessary to survive.
How can the God-fearing, Jesus-loving individuals that make up your ancestry have two totally different views on war? Who is correct? What should you believe? (Personally, I'm on the fence with this issue.)
I am learning more and more through life that there is much gray in the Christian faith. I believe that God just allows us to make a stand, even to the point that we think God "convicted us" to believe that way. Don't worry, I do believe there are definite fundamentals in Christianity that are black and white such as the sinfulness of the human race and the saving grace offered through Jesus' Death and Resurrection. But the shades of gray abound. And God, the Father, totally allows it. Because we are not seeing the whole picture. We are just receiving distort images and mere reflections off the grander truth. For some of us Christians, war is evil and should be avoided at all costs. For others, war is necessary to subdue the bullies that decide to take over the whole world. The truth is probably found somewhere in the tension that stretches one view from another.
This is good for me to remember, especially when I am tempted to judge others on lesser issues. Right now, your class project is on pets. And I feel sort of bad for you since you don't have a pet that you can talk about. So I try to pawn off my righteous reasons for being a non-pet owner on you: "You can tell your class that we rather spend money on a sponsor child with Compassion than wasting that money on a dog." Then, it hits me. Wasting? I think I'm right! I believe I am doing humanity a service while others, who own pets for pleasure, are socially irresponsibly. How dare I make that judgement! How dare I think everyone who sinks finances into God's lesser creatures are totally out to lunch with their logic.* Owning pets is a gray issue and I need to make my stance and allow grace for the opposing opinion. (Interestingly enough, your Daddy's side of the family are huge pet lovers while no one currently owns a pet on my side of the family.)
I am thankful for the gray, really. It is so much more freeing to live one's life with a few essentials instead of trying to wrestle through minutia for the sake of self-righteousness. I pray that you, my daughter, and you, my son, will let go of the illusion of being right with humanity and instead pursue being right with God. Because, that is what counts in the end.
*To my faithful readers: These statements are not meant to make my pet-loving friends and family feel guilty. We all spend money on pleasures in this affluent part of the planet that could be used to better the living conditions of the poor in our community and in our world. My pleasures are lattes, aesthetic services, and travel. We all have our reasons for investing money in such. Some are good. Some are wrong. And some are gray. :) We need to search our own hearts before God. He is our gracious judge.