Oh God can you forgive us?
We sacrifice our innocents
In so many ways.
We defile their youth
with adult filth
and age them before their time.
We shake their security
with adult quarrels.
And we take their lives
far before time
for the love of ” rights” and ” freedoms”.
Oh God forgive us
for the altars to Molech
we have made
to shatter young lives.
Oh God forgive us
for emulating Herod
again,
this Christmas.
Unless the USA does some deep soul searching it will never be remembered in the annals of history as it could have been – a truly great nation. The recent tragedy of 26 Americans not being able to fulfil their destiny saddened us all.
When I look at USA I see so much potential. Unlike other nations and empires it was conceived as a democratic nation – a nation of the people “under God”. The Romans for all their engineering and culture will still be remembered as brutal oppressors and the British as imperialists. But the US has often (not always) had a more altruistic motive. The nation entered both WW1 & 2 reluctantly but to serve humanity. The Marshal plan, the Peace Corps and its overseas aid have been signposts of its heart.
However, it is also the nation of trite TV and film, gross affluence and even worse the home of pornography – but most disastrously of all, mass shootings.
I enjoyed visiting the US. The people were overwhelmingly friendly and generous. In many ways I felt at home there, but the fetish with firearms is confusing for those of us who come from other democracies. Many of us find the power of the firearm in the US, frankly, obscene. In a civil society one can argue for the regulated use of appropriate firearms but as an outsider I see a national addiction and like any addiction it gets out of control and dangerous.
For me the saddest is the alliance of many Christians with the gun lobby. Knowing Christ, could we, even in our wildest imagination, see him supporting NRA? The Christian is called to be counter cultural by proclaiming in a prophetic fashion, the life and the life style of Christ.
I weep and pray for my American friends. You have gone through so much. No nation should see its young wilfully murdered. I believe the challenge is to rekindle the vision of a nation under God. Forget about guns, the British are long gone. A nation under God would be the most amazing legacy you could leave for generations to come. In fact the legacy would be eternal.
Travels from Ur 