Still, we are at war, and I"m responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.

-- President Barack Obama, in Oslo, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.

When Hillary Clinton was in Pakistan she heard complaints about the use of drones [unmanned aerial vehicles being used in great numbers over Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, controlled from an Air Force base in Nevada by skilled members of the military.] --not from those being targeted but from the population in general. In the view of the complainers the use of drones amounts to execution without a trial.
--"Attack of the Drones! The Ethics of Remote-Controlled Warfare"

I'm not writing to make a political statement. I am not being either laudatory or critical of our President's acceptance of the Peace Prize. Political pundits have plenty to say about it. And, I don't know what to make of this new technology in military weaponry. The layers of complexity are beyond my understanding.

My head hurts! I'd rather just think about Christmas, wouldn't you? As I write, it's dark and extremely cold outside. The wind would surely blow out the already flickering Peace Candle on the Advent Wreath. The cold shocks me into awareness that we wait during Advent, struggling to stay awake, praying in earnest for God's kingdom to be realized here and now -- and alert to the irony of welcoming the Prince of Peace into a war-torn world.

Perhaps we are about to develop a social reality in which technological advances have sterilized life of any attention to moral concerns. If that happens, we will have lost something of our lives even while managing to protect them.

--The Thoughtful Christian: faithful living in a complex world

Come, Lord Jesus, Come. Teach us how to live.

Blessings,

Pastor Kris