Procrastination

Yep, that is definitely what I am doing; a thing for which blogging must have been designed. I am in that weird frame of mind that I get in every time I return from a trip abroad for a peace conference/activism event. (Of which this is actually only my second, but I hope to have many more.) I return to my normal, daily life and am struck hard by the fact that so much of what we are doing doesn't matter! How can we, for example, sit around an air conditioned classroom and discuss the ethics of aesthetics, when people are suffering under oppression and dying. Heck you don't even have to look past our own borders for that! It just frustrates me. What frustrates me even more is that this feeling wears off in about two weeks once I become saturated by "daily" life here once again. How can I sit here and read a book about pastoral care, or the New Testament, when I could and should be doing those things? How can I get into my car and drive anywhere I want, when I know that Palestinians have to suffer through the dehumanizing degradation of checkpoints? It just irks me...

In any event, I need to transfer some of this emotional and intellectual energy into finishing my sermon for tonight's Canterbury service. The Acts lesson for today is the conversion of Saul, which is quite appropriate. "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Israel, Israel, why do you persecute your brothers and sisters? Israel, Israel, why have you once again worshipped the false gods of wealth, power, and military might? Why do you persecute me, O my beloved children?

-R