Love Loudly

"...we read the news through acts of violence rather than the hidden acts of love that keep hope alive."

"Violence kills the image of God in us. It is a cry of desperation, a weak and cowardly cry of a person suffocated of hope. Violence goes against everything that we are created for – to love and to be loved – so it inevitably ends in misery and suicide. When people succumb to violence it ultimately infects them like a disease or a poison that leads to their own death."

"So in these days after Easter, even as we see the horror of death, may we be reminded that in the end love wins. Mercy triumphs. Life is more powerful than death. And even those who have committed great violence can have the image of God come to life again within them as they hear the whisper of love. May the whisper of love grow louder than the thunder of violence. May we love loudly." - Shane Claiborne

The answer blares: "We can make the power of those who exploit us irrelevant... Choose to know the truth about global struggles, and live in a way that supports a just alternative."

Make power irrelevant. Make horror irrelevant. Make fear irrelevant. This is the end of oppression. All we have to do is give up worship of power, our own and that which flows through us from the symbols to which we cling. Give up the tunnel of violence that focuses us on despair. The media focuses on this because it helps reinforce the sense of helplessness that prevents rebellion. As long as most people sit locked in unchangeability, those who enforce their will with blood and torture can continue unhindered.

The madman in Virginia killed 32 innocents. The madmen in Washington have killed 655,000, but you'll look in vain for the parade of psychologists explaining why they kill, what secret mental illness caused the war in Iraq. "This week’s deaths in Iraq are the ones we should all be contemplating with due solemnity, because they belong to us." Accept that ownership and start to bellow. Loudly.