Paris

I arrived home tonight after a full week of work ready for some relaxation for the weekend, to the news report of the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris. I am unable to describe all that I am feeling right now. I am writing glued to the television. I want to turn it off. I want to go out to a movie or watch something funny on the TV, or read or do anything but watch the unfolding story, really listening to reporters with video running of milling around responders, the side of an ambulance, dark blurry figures.
I feel like a voyeur, sitting in the comfort of my safe home, but if I turn it off then what else am I going to do. I can’t do anything else. It would seem the height of narcissm to do anything other than be with Parisians and others there, even if only with my prayers and being an ocean and 1,000 miles away in the heartland of America. I want the reporter to shut up, and I want him to tell me more.

France has just declared a state of emergency. Pictures of motorcycles parked with police standing behind them. I feel sorry for the announcer. He has to keep talking, no dead air is allowed. He has to keep talking when he doesn’t have anything new to say. It’s his job to talk. He is saying the same thing over and over again because there is nothing new to say but he has to keep talking.

I have dear friends in France. One is often in Paris. I hope not tonight. All I can do is send him a message and wait until he responds or doesn’t.  I just checked.  Nothing yet, and it is now 2:00am Saturday morning in Paris. He often takes a long time for him to get back to me. I hope not so long this time.
I am not going to try to explain any of this right now. No sermonizing about reasons why, or calls for peace, or love or understanding; though all that is need and must be done. Now, only human outrage at the malicious evil that seduces any man, woman or child into a way of thinking that can in any way justify violence targeted at other men, women and children just like them.
I am going to have to turn the TV off sooner or later. I will go to bed and sooner or later sleep. Tomorrow the horror will already begin to fade for me and most, but it will only grow for those who loved the ones now dead. Lord, help us all to grow aggressive in our gift of peace to as many as we can. And may your peace one day reign among every person on this planet, all of whom are loved by You.

Afterword:

I just read a blog from an old friend who has been actively sharing the gospel with Muslims for a number of years.  He brings a perspective worth the read:  Thinking Biblically About the Muslim Threat