It’s now lunch time the day after the movie.
I can now blog this without crying, it wears off…Maybe the purchase of a wide screen might help it wear off a little better…
I am sorry, sorry that I am a human that has within me the potential to do such evil as was seen on that movie. I am sorry that our planet has a history of such evil. I sat and watched men kill their brothers because of the shape of their nose or the slightly lighter tone of their black skin. I sat and watched as a man showed sacrificial love and compassion to both sides of the conflict. A man who was just…a man. He simply did not see the difference that men of his…nose shape…saw. To be honest, it was the Belgians that did the ‘nose measuring’ and segregation so many years before, it’s stupid, pathetic that such simple differences should cause such atrocities, that any difference should cause this type of thing. But it does, every day.
But what of the UN forces that were left in Rwanda after the massacre began? Yes, most of the world just said “leave these people to destroy themselves” and they flew away. Those that remained were powerless to act. They were not allowed to do anything much.
Nick Nolte played a UN PeaceKeeper (not peacemaker!) who’s role I thought was played out well. He explained to the hotel manager why everyone was deserting him, why the US were leaving, why the Belgins were going, this is what they all think – “You are dirt, you are disgusting, you are nothing, you’re black, you’re not even a nigger, you are African”
So much hatred, so much apathy.
My hero? Well of course the hotel manager, but no, I thought the Red Cross lady was the hero, she spent her time out side the walls of the hotel rescuing people behind the lines of war, she was amazing.
After speaking with my friend about the atrocities done to his Aboriginal people, and then seeing this movie I wondered if we have done this same thing but just spread it out over a few hundred years instead of just a few months of warefare?
I cried.
No Guarantees 
now take the same thought but apply it to all the people that we are violent towards because of their lifestyle choices. regardless of the “sin status” of these choices, we are called to be love and light to the world. yet we so often justify our arrogance and judgement in light of our own righteousness (maybe closer to self-righteousness).
Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church, Seattle (one of your favourite preachers, Scotty) says that we must all read the bible and associate ourselves with the villians in the stories – not the good guys. he says that until we see ourselves in the brokeness and depravity and evil in each story, we are never going to be able to appreciate the grace and forgiveness of God in our own lives – and therefore never be able to be conduits of it to those who also need it around us.