SEEK to OVERCOME the TERRORS

Will we forget the news scene of the woman who lifted her hands in prayer near Boston's well-known square? It was moments after the Boston Marathon bombing. Medics were helping people on the pavement near the woman. She was standing, her back to the injured and their helpers. Seeing her in profile, I noticed her head lifted toward the heavens and her slender hands put together in prayer; she was doing what she could.   

     I do not like the fact that we are likely to live as a people who must deal with shocks of terror. How will we do it? Our grandsons knew people watching near the Finish line in Boston that day, young people changed from happy to frightened in an instant. 

     In recent years, the USA and Europe have seemed to be relatively safe from terrorists' acts. Then Boston; then London. Young men intent on "teaching others a lesson," "paying back for events of the past" and railing against governments appeared to be normal and innocent. In Boston, they walked unnoticed amid crowds of happy marathon watchers; in London, they walked unnoticed in a relatively quiet neighborhood. Recently, people similar to their victims were bombed near Kabul, foreigners who had gone to help those in need in that city. 
   How are we to live unbound by fears as individuals, families, nations and regions...wherever we are, in these days?       

     Deliberate acts of terror can happen anywhere. For those who have not sought the peace of God yet, starting time is here. For any who have not prayed to Almighty God, it is time. This is important because we desire to have, in these times and conditions, a "peace that passes understanding." It is an inner peace that enables us to seek to settle our minds on the possibility, or maybe even the likelihood, that violence may happen near us or to us. To have peace with such knowledge whirling in our minds is the goal. 
     There is a peace that God gives that is possible, although it is unlike our ideas of peace. Our ideas mean that "nothing bad like this will happen again." We hope. The mental and spiritual peace that we need is unlike the peace of quiet or the peace of the absence of disagreement in the world The peace of God, being above and beyond the natural, is the highest, strongest, and most powerful peace. It enables us to live with inner peace while we keep our eyes open to dangers disguised as normal, friendly, sincere...and safe.   
    

     Lord, grant us Thy peace, which the world cannot give us or refused to give. We live in the open; we work; we take care of others; we love those closest to us. By Thy peace we seek to help all, including those outside the faith. We pray unceasingly for justice and for the end of anger, hatred, and all evil. We desire to see forgiveness in the world and the putting away of deeply guarded grievances. Lord, we desire Thy peace that overcomes the terrors that try to reside within us, whether we are children, grown ups, tribes, or nations. Amen. 

Copyright (c) 2013 Opinari Writers.

We Guard Freedom and Help the Innocent...Together

Dr. Keith Ablow expressed meaningful thoughts after the Boston Marathon bombings, and his statements gave focus for follow-up days. For example:   

• "The pursuit of liberty is a marathon." 

• "...We are vulnerable, because we are free and strong."

All freedom-loving people experience push-back in different forms and at different levels of intensity.  I agree with those who describe terrorist attacks as acts of cowardice. They are violent actions arising from misleading and evil thoughts, from moral blindness, and from deep spiritual emptiness. In calculating deliberateness, to shed the blood of innocent people requires twisting one's self outside the gates of civil life, beyond the influence of all that is bright and true. It is to place one's self in utter darkness beyond rational thought or awareness of the holy. 

Many children and young adults today face a world their parents and grandparents never anticipated for them. We grieve within ourselves, wishing we could change the world back to, at minimum, hidden evils, not overt terrors. 

I wonder again how my parents felt when their oldest son went to war as a fighter pilot. On a bright and warm day the world changed for his generation. He dropped out of college and went in the direction of a call to serve, to fight, to defend. He fought in World War II as a pilot of a P-38 Lightning, over North Italy and other areas, including as I recall from my mother's reminiscences, Egypt. At age 22, he held captain rank in the U. S. Army Air Force/Corps. Advancement came quickly in those days. 

Britain, the U. S., and Canada--who sent fighters--remained free during the war. Britain, however, was not spared extreme bombings. These and other countries of that time are free today, operating under free governments. Yet, none is free from threats and attacks by their foes.  All have a sacred trust to remain vigilant over freedoms. 

We are free people; due to our love of freedom, we are not free yet from those who hate freedom. As a Christian, I read Jesus' words, "It is for freedom that I have set you free." Christ set us free from sin--that is my belief and experience. Did He mean, perhaps, that being free in Him we therefore especially love freedom? It is for freedom that every Christian has been set free in mind and in spirit, if not in body. We have been made free to fight whatever threatens any one's freedoms, anywhere. This includes an urban area where people enjoy a race, a marathon, a celebration and commemoration of Patriot's Day, in Boston. 

We as a people, founded by men and women of faith, claimed freedom and inherited the desire to oppose anything or anyone that opposes freedom. We are free as a people to think for ourselves, as Dr. Ablow repeats. We are free to speak and to write our thoughts and to claim them without apology or embarrassment. 

It is a wonderful and proud thing to value and to defend freedom and freedom's ways, which include life not with license but with a costly liberty. Freedom is corporate, mutually experienced and guarded, not to be taken lightly or selfishly. Now, freedom reminds us to stand together. We owe a collective debt of freedom to remember those victimized by terrorist acts, to pray for them, to donate to their well-being and care, and never to forget. We remember them all, including witnesses scarred by memories. We remember the children and young people now shaken, trying to grasp what the recent violence means for their times.

We live each day in these times together. Even in solitude, we are not alone. In our different circumstances, in communities, churches, synagogues and other places we want to do more to help others. As a believer, I see freedom as God's idea, which He gave us as a  good desire in our hearts. Let us never forget freedom's value; let us guard against anyone or anything trying to destroy our freedom to dream, to strive, to hope, and to endure...together. It is for freedom that God has made us free. We are never weak when we love freedom enough to go forward in the light of each new, precious day.    

- Dr. Keith Ablow on Boston Marathon Bombings - Link
- FBI - Video posted to help the public - Link

- Boston Strong. Bruins fans sing The Star Spangled Banner - Link

Copyright (c) 2013 Opinari Writers.