Love

The Necessity of Moral Resistance in the Face of Militarism

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This past weekend I spoke as part of the Poor People’s Campaign event: The Necessity of Moral Resistance in the Face of Militarism. Reverend William Barber was, of course, the main speaker, and if you are uncertain as to how war and militarism play a role in the demands of the Poor People’s Campaign or in the way war and militarism have always played an oppressive and devastating role in our society, then please listen to Reverend Barber’s sermon as he clearly and definitively explains those two things. My talk, on the effect of war on veterans, is here below, while Reverend Barber’s sermon and the comments from Phyllis Bennis are in the Youtube clip below. Wage Peace.

 

From Now On, I’ll Be Mad

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Fittingly, this was the poem I read on Tax Day:

Bewildered

There are many guises for intelligence.

One part of you is gliding in a high windstream,
while your more ordinary notions
take little steps and peck at the ground.

Conventional knowledge is death to our souls,
and it is not really ours. It is laid on.
Yet we keep saying we find “rest” in these “beliefs.”

We must become ignorant of what we have been taught
and be instead bewildered.

Run from what is profitable and comfortable.
Distrust anyone who praises you.
Give your investment money, and the interest
on the capital, to those who are actually destitute.

Forget safety. Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.
I have tried prudent planning long enough.

From now on, I’ll be mad.

–Rumi

Each day I read a poem from Coleman Barks’ very excellent collection, A Year With Rumi. Thanks to my friend Fareed for suggesting this to me when I first began recovery three years ago.

Wendell Berry: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

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As we struggle with our personal and daily trials and difficulties, while wrenching and stumbling from the constant, unremitting horrors of the world as they keep stride with our lives through the tv and computer screens in every room we enter, take that much needed breath, perhaps permit yourself the luxury of a tear, and, for as many moments as you can allow, think of what your life, your world, your kingdom, mad with your own visions, wishes and loves, would be like. Now, go build it and live there.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoyias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion– put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts
As soon as the generals and politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trial, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Ida and the Cycles of Violence and Forgiveness

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Have you seen the film Ida?

It is a Polish film from last year that is a powerful, brilliant piece of filmmaking. I use those words powerful and brilliant, because, 48 hours later, I am still contemplating and dissecting the movie; I am still in meditation over its meaning and in awe at how the film has stimulated my own thoughts and tested my beliefs.

The story is a road trip in the early 1960s in Poland between a young woman, brought up in a convent and on the verge of taking her vows to become a nun, and her aunt, a once leading figure in Poland’s post war Communist Party and now a judge. The young woman has no worldly or sensual experiences and is about to begin her adult life by joining the once almighty, but now politically bankrupt, morally spent, and intellectually disregarded Church. The older woman with her life ending professionally, and judging by her alcohol consumption, physically and emotionally as well, belongs to the new order, the new way of the world, the post war communist party promising brotherhood, meaning and purpose in the years after the cataclysms and holocausts of WWI and WWII. It is a political and philosophical movie, but it is also a deeply personal movie, as two individual life stories, differentiated by commitments to competing ideologies and life’s purpose, commitments that dominate and control their lives because of circumstance and history, more than by individual choice, are forced to look past the veneer and trappings of their costumes and titles, to examine who they are and why they are.

As I watched Ida the same challenges arose in me, and as a testament to the great storytelling of the film, are still resident with me. Most concerning, about 2/3rds through the film, I said to my girlfriend, “if I were them, I’d take that shovel and split his head”. It was an honest and true feeling. I was not acting or parading as some phony tough guy or a has-been Marine, but my visceral, gut reaction at that time, during that scene, was that I would commit violence and I would revel in it to assuage my anger and celebrate revenge. But, as the film went on, and as I reflected on those emotions, spurned by the actions of the characters, I realized how wrong, how foolish and how weak such a sentiment and desire was and how embarrassing my utterance.

In the scheme of the movie, killing the man would have been possible and it would have fulfilled some form of duty or obligation to my family, my community and my people, as well as fulfilling a duty to my own image of myself and my need for vengeance; vengeance based on personal, cultural and institutional values. However, taking myself away from that scene, watching the characters and applying my own life’s experience participating in and around the violence of war, I grudgingly recognize and must accept the futility of such violence. I say grudgingly, because violence and revenge is such a part of our identity and our culture that I am loathe to give it up, I am afraid to move on, and to recognize the myth of redemptive violence, as exactly that, a myth constructed primarily for the purposes of national, ethnic, sectarian or religious hegemony, dominance and absolution.

But if I had killed that man, if I had split his head with that shovel, seen death overcome him and gain the satisfaction of such grisly passage of state, what would come of it, what events would I now own? His wife and children, as innocent of crimes as those in whose name I murdered, would be widowed and orphaned on a struggling farm. His sons, would they not seek revenge and in time come for me and my family? Would not the children of my family, the next generation, be butchered in turn? My actions, murder and the infliction of suffering on the innocent, would begin a cycle of violence, an uncontrollable, bloody cycle without end, the likes of which we see in our wars overseas and in the wars in our own cities. And for me? My own experiences in war, my own and personal struggles with moral injury, is that not instructive to me? What would become of my mind and my soul after killing the man?

To move on and say nothing to the man is an option and a better one than violence. However, it is an incomplete option, leaving a chapter of life open ended and without closure, in essence running from a problem and not attempting a resolution, but it does not require the strength needed for a third, and rightful, option. Imagine saying to the man: “I forgive you” and giving him your hand and your blessing. How hard that would be! It seems nearly impossible to me and such a thought, such an option, which leads to an involuntary reflex and rejection within me, would stop the cycle of violence and lead to peace, both within me and my community.

The choice of mercy, of forgiveness, is anathema to my sense of manhood and my obligation for revenge and justice; but what would come of such forgiveness, besides a rejection of cultural and institutionalized violence and loss of personal pride, if I had the courage to enact it? A man would be given mercy and his family spared, and perhaps nothing more than that, but, with deep consideration, is anything else truly necessary? Breaking the cycle of violence is enough. Quite possibly, and maybe very likely, the man would be changed and his family enlightened, hell, maybe his daughter would grow to be the second coming of Mother Theresa, but such achievements or results would not be necessary to validate or vindicate the forgiveness proffered to the man. Stopping the cycle of violence is enough, the peace that would come to my mind and to my community would be enough.

I like to say that one of my favorite quotes is from Saint Francis de Sales: Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength. Yet, how difficult to turn such an outlook into an attribute, even when through personal experience you have seen the glaring failure and horrific counter-production of violence and have been affected so forcibly by grace, kindness and forgiveness as I have.

So please give Ida a watch. It’s a wonderful, well done, contemplative film and I trust it will challenge something in you.

*For another excellent film that takes on the myth of redemptive violence and exposes it for the tragedy it really is, please watch Blue Ruin. Both films are available on Netflix.

If there can be one thing I ask, please watch and share this video:

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If I could articulate well and share succinctly my entire thoughts on PTSD, depression, moral injury, alcohol abuse and, especially, suicide, it would be ensconced in this 4 1/2 minute video from Ze Frank.

When I was first shown it, my shield went up and I spurned it, wanting to disregard his words, because he was talking about teenagers and that certainly doesn’t apply to the pain and experiences of a returned warrior [cue the self-indulgence…;)], but I listened and everything, EVERYTHING, he says applies to me and to so many like me who have suffered and are suffering from the pains of mental and psychiatric wounds.

Frank’s description of himself, his breakdown, his rejection of others, his forays into getting help and how bloody hard it can be, and how this mental pain, this psychiatric trauma, is worse than anything physical, applies to those of us who carried rifles in far away lands just as it does to civilians at home. This commonality of suffering does not just unite us as humans, children of a natural and spiritual order, but it a source of relief and compassion. For, as you may be suffering, just as Frank and I suffered, you know that you are not alone, and through that shared suffering, through this community and commonality, you can find assistance, begin recovery and, through time and effort, including seemingly inevitable regression and relapse, you can regain your life.

The video ends with words to the effect that “if someone sent you this video it is because they love you”. No one is going to ask you to watch this video who doesn’t care, who doesn’t love you or who won’t help you. Most importantly someone who has sent you this video is offering their hand. They are not going to leave you and they will help you get to that other side.

Please watch and share.

 

Two Poems: One of Death, One of Life

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I wrote an essay a couple of years ago expressing my views and feelings towards Veterans Day. I still hold those sentiments in my mind and soul as true.

At the end of my essay I emplaced Siegfried Sassoon’s World War One poem Suicide in the Trenches; which I vowed to read each Veterans Day, or Remembrance Day as Sassoon’s contemporaries, festooned with poppies on their lapels and overwhelmed by much dead in the ground and in their memories, would establish to mark the war to end all wars….

This year I read Suicide in the Trenches at our small Veterans for Peace Swords to Plowshares Memorial bell ringing service at the North Carolina State Capitol on Veterans Day. Here are Sassoon’s words, a more eloquent, concise and honest description of war I do not know:

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

War and its primary companion, suffering, may take possession of your life, but by no means does war need to be in permanent claim of your mind and soul, by no means does war need to be the victor. Through love, through mercy and though kindness your soul and your mind may find forgiveness in yourself, and this, which is a process and a journey, is often enabled and emboldened by the grace of a stranger.

Such a stranger sent me a poem. The life war takes away, love, and its acts, can restore.

The Summer Day – Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

So now I have two poems to read each Veterans Day. One to ensure those who have suffered never leave my purpose and my life, and the second, to remind me that this is my purpose and that this is my life.

Thank you Megan.

Coming home, being even more distant…and not having sex

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Journalist Sean Langan provides a brave and wonderful service by sharing with readers the difficulties he faced, in particular his inability to maintain closeness or intimacy with his loved ones upon returning home from his imprisonment by the Taliban in 2008. The article is here in The Australian.

Sean’s circumstance as a prisoner, like Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl’s, is extreme and, fortunately, rare. However, many of the symptoms Sean shares in his article, are those symptoms that those of us, returning home from the wars, face in our lives, and, by extension, our families and friends suffer through as well.

I find the loss of intimacy, the distancing of oneself from others, and the general numbing of emotions and murder of relationships that many inflicted with PTSD, depression and moral injury experience, are the least spoken of and the least understood. In particular, the distancing from one’s partner, both physically and emotionally, is an affliction that ravages many of us and is one of the key reasons that professionals speak of PTSD as a relationship-killer. Tragically, but not surprisingly, the ending of a relationship is often a trigger for a veteran’s suicide.

I certainly went through those experiences and it cost me relationships and hurt people I loved. Looking back, it seems so odd, so foreign, but that was certainly me: sharing so very little about myself, letting no one know I was hurting. I was afraid to confide in someone, anyone, for fear of exposure and because I thought my peers, friends, family, strangers…would see me as weak, ill and not a leader. Never mind that I would ever apply such framing to a friend that came to me with such problems; double standards always exist for yourself.

I’m not even sure I understood that I was being distant or cold, my mind was so overwhelmed with stress, with noise, as if 1000 TVs were playing at once, (that seems such a right description to me, although I can’t remember where or from whom I heard it). The alcohol was key in all of it too. Each day was a measured exercise to get to my first drink, my first hit of medication to sooth the sadness and the guilt, and placate the fury my whole life was wrapped in, like a taut barb wire eco-skeleton stretched along my skin, never letting me move or act without some connection or thought to the wars.

And I lived like that in silence, for years, with a few exceptions. An ex-girlfriend who expressed concern at my state was told she was out of line and that SHE was the crazy one. Traveling on my own, I would sometimes get to a state in a bar where to others it was clear I was emotionally distressed, so drunk I was visibly sad, muttering to myself and drinking doubles of bourbons or Irish whiskey as fast as they could be poured. In Paris, San Jose, Louisville and so many other hotels and bars in Europe and the US, I’d be approached by a kind hearted stranger, if they persisted past my first silent responses, they would get a polite but firm request to fuck off. Sometimes I can recall the guy being a veteran himself, saying he understood and knowing he did, we’d buy each other drinks, make introductions and then drink aggressively, in silence, in mourning, in anger. Anger at what? Everything. Ourselves and the people all around us who didn’t measure up. Plus, we didn’t belong.

In Arlington, I would drink at a bar, late, right near Ft. Myer. You could get pitchers of beer there, along with your side of Jame-O or Jack.  The bar would be full of soldiers and vets, just sitting there, not talking to one another. All in pain, all dying inside, but all quiet, none of us willing, wanting, able to break through the encasement we lived in. Like a womb or a cocoon, alone inside that encasement, you could revel in your anger and your isolation, and make co-misery with your guilt and your sadness.

To your friends, your family, your partner, not a word, not a god-damn sound. And to Him? Well, I was in a wasteland.

The hardest thing to share, the most humiliating, is the loss of physical intimacy. Lust and sexual desire are still possessed, but the ability to make love to your partner and achieve that special intimate connection is gone. I’m at a loss for how to describe it and this post has gone on much longer, and in a much more rambling manner, than I intended, obviously, I’m not terribly comfortable expressing it, but this is the point I am trying to make: If you are suffering from PTSD, depression, and/or moral injury, it is very likely you are not having sex with your wife/girlfriend or husband/boyfriend. That happened to me. In multiple relationships. There were many reasons for those relationships dying, but the PTSD induced loss of intimacy seems to have had the longest knife.

It is not a physical or sexual dysfunction, you can still operate and act, and it does not mean you do not find your partner attractive or that you lack feelings for her/him, but it is a mental block, something so hard to explain, so embarrassing and so, so very frustrating. For both you and her/him. Understandably, for a young woman and through no fault of her own, the loss of sexual interest in her by her husband or boyfriend is devastating.

If this is happening to you, or if it is happening to your partner, please address it. Trust me, like other symptoms of PTSD, depression and moral injury it is something that can be helped and managed. But without attention, without treatment and care, and without love, it will destroy everything you ever loved and wanted in your life.

I can be reached at matthew (@) matthewhoh.com if you’d like to talk about this.

 

True Love

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My good friend Danny Davis has published this piece on the Huffington Post on Christianity, love and homosexuality. Please take a read and give his words some thought.

True Love

“That Religion, or the Duty which we owe our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and convictions, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.”

–Article XVI, Virginia Declaration of Rights, 12 June 1776

(written by author of US Constitution, George Mason)

by Daniel L. Davis

On May 10th, former Missouri football player Michael Sam became the first openly gay player ever drafted in the National Football League. The selection set off a firestorm of reaction across social media, mostly in support for Mr. Sam. A few, however, voiced displeasure. One of the highest profile was Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman, who said he was going to lead a boycott against the St Louis Rams for drafting Mr. Sam, claiming that by signing the gay player, the Rams were “trampling on Christian values.” Is Mr. Burkman right? Have the St. Louis Rams and Mr. Sam “trampled” Christian values? In a nation where 77% of the 315 million residents self-identify as Christians, the question deserves examination.

I was born in 1963 to a football coach and a stay-at-home mom in small-town Texas. My conservative parents were members of a local church and took my family there every time the doors were open. As a six year old, I became a Christian. The next four decades saw me graduate high school and college, become an officer in the US Army, get married and enjoy the thrills of becoming a daddy, experience the searing pain of divorce, and engage in combat during four wartime deployments. My Christian faith has been subjected to the pressures of many fiery trials.

What I’ve discovered is that some of the tenets of the faith I learned as a little boy were proven absolutely correct and have served me well through many stormy seasons. But owing to some of these storms my understanding in other areas was exposed as having been amiss. Beginning in my late 20s, I purposed no longer to base my spiritual identity solely on what others said, but on a careful examination of the Bible. After more than two decades of studying Scripture and observing how the concepts have played out in the trials of a real life, I have come to a few conclusions.

On the most fundamental level I have observed that the Bible is right and true. But I have also regrettably observed that a considerable number of believers in this country have squandered the chance to demonstrate that life-enhancing truth from within the crucible of life. Fortunately, I believe a recalibration with the truth will make it possible for Christians to regain lost opportunity. One of the key areas where we’ve gone off the tracks over the past several decades has been in how we have interacted with our society on the subject of gay lifestyles.

Though it is mentioned in numerous places in both the Old and New Testament, one of the most oft-cited passages is 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, which states “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Many believers cite this passage to stridently oppose gays. Regrettably, the way this opposition manifests itself often exposes an insufficient knowledge of Scripture and, if I may be allowed, reveals a problem of the heart among some of us who call ourselves Christians.

Viewing the passage in context, it is clear Paul is not suggesting that Christians set about to oppose gay people. To the contrary, he expressly noted a few verses earlier (Chapter 5, v.9-13) he “did not at all mean” the believers were to avoid association with people outside the church who engaged in immoral behavior “for then you would have to go out of the world.” Paul explicitly wrote that it wasn’t his job to accuse or judge people outside the church of anything. “For what have I to do with judging outsiders?” he said. Paul’s purpose for including the list of what the Bible defines as sinful behavior was to take the Christians to task for not living to Jesus’ standard within the church.

How, then, should believers behave towards those outside the faith whom they meet, especially when those people are characterized by one or more of the behaviors listed in chapter 6, verse 9? Though Jesus never directly addressed the subject of homosexuality, He did provide two direct examples of how He responded to those guilty of two of the sexual sins listed in 6:9.

The first is the well known story of the “woman at the well (John 4:9-24).” Jesus shared with a Samarian woman how she could have eternal life. At a certain point in the narrative, Jesus reveals to her that he is fully aware she is a multi-divorcee and was presently living with a man outside of marriage. Yet he did not condemn her for this obvious violation of Jewish law, instead reiterating His offer of eternal life. But perhaps the most pertinent to our discussion was the John 8 account (chapter 8:3-11) of the Messiah’s encounter with an adulterous woman.

The religious leaders of the day were trying to put Jesus in a no-win situation by presenting Him with a woman who had been caught “in the very act” of adultery, in order to put Jesus to shame: they reasoned that if He agreed with Moses (Leviticus specifies death for adultery), He’d look bad in the eyes of the people for passively watching as this poor woman was stoned to death; let her go without punishment, and He would be guilty of putting aside the law – heresy among the Jews of that day. After marveling at the coldness of these religious leaders’ hearts, He spoke some of His most well-known words: “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” After all the accusers dropped their stones and walked away, He told the woman “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” In that moment, He demonstrated the mercy and love He had for the woman, offering her acceptance and love, yet without compromising His own standards.

In his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul emphasized the centrality of embodying the heart and spirit of Jesus in empowering believers to engage the world as did their Savoir. “I pray that out of his glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,” Paul explained, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Jesus commanded – not ‘suggested’ – that His followers “love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” Instead of following our Leader’s example and demonstrating sacrificial love for others, however, a number of Christians in contemporary America seem to be characterized more as judgmental than compassionate.

The Bible does identify homosexual activity as wrong. But the 1 Corinthians passage also identifies other wrongs: the sexually immoral, adulterers, thieves, the greedy and drunkards, among others.

There’s no soft way to say this, so I’ll just be blunt:

With what justification can we Christians cite the Bible as the standard for opposing gay lifestyles, yet not give equal emphasis to standing against heterosexuals who engage in sex outside of marriage, those who commit adultery, those who steal (or cheat on taxes), are greedy or get drunk? If we are to be consistent, we have to recognize all categories of the sins of that 1 Corinthians 6 are equal in the eyes of God. Yet we don’t. Instead, we pick those sins that seem to affect other people, while wholly ignoring our own. How many “normal” heterosexual Christians have remained sexually pure their whole lives? Evidence suggests a very small minority (full disclosure: I’m not one of the pure).

Upon what logical basis, then, can a person be guilty on some of the sins of 1 Corinthians 9, be unrepentant of same, and yet with vigor and righteousness condemn others who may be guilty of sins from the same list?

In the book of Matthew, Jesus speaks to this issue of myopic believers when He warns to be careful of judging others, lest we be judged by our own standard of measure. “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye,” He continued, “but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? …You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

So we circle back around to the issue raised by Mr. Burkman of whether the St. Louis Rams have “trampled” Christian values by drafting a gay player. If a Christian supporter were to logically endorse this effort, there would need to be concurrent boycotts planned against any team that drafted heterosexual players that had sex outside of marriage, routinely got drunk, were greedy or slandered others. One might imagine the NFL would have trouble fielding a single team if those who engaged in the sins listed in 1 Corinthians 6 were prohibited from the league – and I would imagine that were the same standard applied to those supporting the boycott, none would qualify to conduct it.

Instead of leading a coalition of Christian leaders to boycott an NFL team owing to the presence of a single gay man, how much better would it be to see instead devoted followers of Jesus building a coalition who would commit themselves to loving others as Jesus loved, and themselves living pure and moral lives? Imagine the impact that could have on our society.

Such an effort would encourage men and women who follow Jesus to live the hard, disciplined life required by the Bible of Christ-followers. Such people would genuinely care about others; would love them sacrificially; be no respecters of status, class, race, gender, nor any other category; and put the needs of others above their own. In short, they would prove a fair representation of the genuine Jesus in a world desperate for His authenticity.

Let each believer, then, examine his or her own hearts. Let us live to the example of Christ; givers of true love. Let us henceforth be known more for our love of and service to others, rather than for judgment and condemnation of those who may be different from us. As was seen in this country as a product of the First and Second Great Awakenings, when believers live out their faith as it was modeled by Jesus, societies have been positively transformed. Let us, then, as professed followers of Jesus Christ, live what we say we believe to the glory of God and the benefit of our fellow citizens.