The UmBlog

I watched Restrepo last night. It was very similar to the Danish documentary, Armadillo , Image via Wikipedia which I watched last month. In between I read and reviewed here , What is it like to go to war by Karl Marlantes . I also witnessed a highway fatality for the first time in my life and my dear grandmother passed away. So I've been thinking about death lately. Restrepo got me writing on it. Both films are the products of filmmakers embedded with squads in Afghanistan, caught in frequent firefights with the Taliban . Death visits both sides of the conflict and is documented on camera. One of the soldiers in Restrepo describes exactly the same phenomenom that Marlantes describes of the firefight "high", which Marlantes calls a transcendent state. The young soldier, without the decades of reflection afforded to the Vietnam veteran and author, can only say the firefight experience exceeds any other sensation one might have known. He doesn't quite grasp that his s...

Two nights ago, a predator, neighbor and I blame the raccoon, tore up our ducks, story here . Only one was left alive in the morning, Norbert, the tough male named after Hagrid's pet dragon. Image via Wikipedia He had many bloody wounds and a lame leg. My son spent time tending to his wounds and giving him water within his reach on the ground. Despite the tender mercies of my son, Norbert died before I got home from work. My dad duties include undertaker. It's a sad job. Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia A month ago our duck pen was visited by a predator. That was terrible. It was the first time we had forgotten to lock them up for the night. One duck was killed. It seemed wonderful later on that a friend of mine wanted to find a new home for his two Indian Runner Ducks . We had lost one but ended up with two more. We had four birds, 3 runners and one Khaki Campbell , our reliable egg layer. The Campbell survived the earlier attack. She didn't survive last night's attack. The predator pushed the cinder blocks out of the way and got in the duck house and chewed her and the newcomers up. I never found one carcass, presumably carried off for pups or kits, but I had to pick up two more. It was a brutal sight and made breakfast difficult going down. Image via Wikipedia Norbert, our male who survived the first attack, survived this one as well, but bloodied with a limp leg. He was named after Hagrid's pet dragon . He's a tough duck. My children were so up...

I just read a great short piece at Time.com about the Iranian media showing The Lord of the Image by misterarasmus via Flickr Rings Trilogy to pacify the rightly upset public, HT: Get Religion . But then I followed a link to a slideshow of the violence against the protesters in Iran. But the tragedy is the list of the Top 10 read articles today at Time. Half of them are about Michael Jackson and one is about Farrah Fawcett. Two popular entertainers died while more are dying for more important things in Iran . In light of this, my brother reportedly, though I did not see it myself, wrote as his status on Facebook something like, "I don't care about Jackson dying when there are tragic manicures going on in the world." He had a brain fart . We all do. He meant "tragic massacres." His point is well taken. But I think, based on the media coverage I'm seeing today, most people act as if they don't care about injustice in Iran when there are tragic manicure...

Since moving to suburbia we have enlarged our managerie from dog and cat to ducks and bunny. We lost a cat this winter, probably to traffic. We got another cat. She was moved outside and has disappeared this last week. Last night we forgot to lock our ducks up. This morning one of the females was missing. My son found her chewed up in the woods. I think we have a fisher cat feasting on our animals. That's a bummer. I fear the knowledge of food in the duck pen will bring the thing back and it will not be stopped by my cinder blocks. The kids are so sad. update July 1: it came back .

As Solzhenitsyn was specially escorted to a scientific GULAG station from a more typical working camp in the GULAG he sat between his guards in the train station and listened to the trivial conversations around him and wanted to cry out to them to wake them up. Myself, I almost never leave the house or go to sleep at night without letting my family know I love them because there are no guarantees. Brothers! People! Why has life been given you? In the deep, deaf stillness of midnight, the doors of the death cells are being swung open - and great-souled people are being dragged out to be shot. On all the railroads of the country, this very minute, right now, people who have just been fed salt herring are licking their dry lips with bitter tongues. They dream of the happiness of stretching out one's legs and of the relief one feels after going to the toilet. In Orotukan the earth thaws only in summer and only to the depth of three feet - and only then can they bury the bones of those ...

I think it is important to make plain the uncomfortable parts of the Bible. Hiding the awkward parts is the mark of a false religion. Mormons and Muslims come to mind. If God is real, he is fully responsible for how he has revealed himself. I think the Scriptures show that he has revealed his involvement in our creation and expiration. Some of us were created in violence. The means of the creation is an atrocity but the creation is still good. The child is not guilty of his father's sin. ikewise, death can feel atrocious. The Bible calls death an enemy, the ultimate enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26), but it is an enemy that will be defeated. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Death is the enemy even of someone who lived a long life full of love and happiness even when that death came in the victim's sleep. It's no less an enemy to the good old woman than it is for the victim of Alzheimer's disease. It's no less an enemy than it is for the father of three young chil...

I believe God is involved in every step of a person’s life. Proverbs 21 provides one jumping off point. 1 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will. (ESV) I consider the end of the chapter a complementary bookend. 31 The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord. (ESV) Consider how this plays out in the life of Christ. Augustus Caesar wants a census so Joseph and Mary have to travel to Bethlehem where Jesus is born in fulfillment of God’s word through the prophet Micah (5:2). When the Magi from the Orient show up and inquire in Herod’s court the location of the newborn king, Herod flips out, resulting in two more fulfilled prophecies. A massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem and an early childhood spent in Egypt. ( Matthew 2 :13-18). Rubens portrayal . I presume God knew what would happen when the Magi came to visit Herod's court. Perhaps the slaughter was small, 10-20 infants and toddle...

Death and injustice are dominant themes in Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago , which I have commenced reading in response to his passing this week. A friend told me he reads my blog when he wants to get depressed since I post so frequently on humanty’s inhumanity to itself. I don't consider myself a morose person but I do abhor determined blissful ignorance of injustice. This blog started partly in response to Terry Schiavo ’s court supported starvation. I sincerely believe that human rights for the majority are only true if equal for the minority, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the weak. I believe in the sanctity of all lives, including those in need of external support, the disabled, the brain damaged, the en-wombed. I recognize human rights, because as a follower of Jesus Christ, I consider all humans bearers of God’s image. I believe God is involved in the gestation of every human as well as their expiration.I've been ruminating for years on God's role on human exp...

Great news at CNN, Killer's parents hug, cry with parents of 2 slain teens The pastor said he invited the Murrays to visit the New Life campus after praying over the holidays. The family immediately accepted his invitation and was given a guided "step-by-step" tour of where the rampage took place and shown where their son died. "It was extremely emotional. They wanted to hear the details. I kept telling them I would stop with details, but they wanted to hear them," he told CNN in a phone interview this week. At one point, the parents also met with security guard Jeanne Assam, who shot their son in the leg before he turned his gun on himself. The parents thanked Assam for her swift action and for helping save more lives, said Casey Nikoloric, a Murray family spokeswoman and long-time friend. "They told Assam that they were so deeply sorry she had to do what she did," said Nikoloric. "There were tears, lots of embraces, prayers." The visit,...

A YWAM friend pointed me to this video of "Highlights of a memorial service held for the Youth With A Mission staff members who were shot and killed on December 9, 2007. This 14-minute video is an inspirational celebration of their lives and a powerful message of forgiveness and hope."

the individual articles surveyed are fine, but the synthesis of this post is moving, especially between these bereaved parents and the bereaved father who killed their children.