Dec
2
Written by:
Route 365
12/2/2010 5:00 AM
by Ric Palma
"People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?” This was the public appeal for calm before television news cameras on May 1, 1992, the third day of the L.A. riots, by Rodney King, the African American man whose beating at the hands of Los Angeles police officers on 3 March 1991 sparked a period of rioting after the officers were acquitted. That plea truly represents for many of us a guttural cry from within as to why we have to be subject to hateful attacks from adversaries in the first place. Why these conflicts, why these wars? Why can we not simply live in peace?
Like the Jews of the fifth century BCE, many of us desire to live our lives in peace and freedom – determining the locations where we live, building (or rebuilding) homes and fences (or walls), earning our livings, raising our families – without the complications that come from conflicts of any kind. The reality is, unfortunately, that there are obstacles along the way, primarily due to other people, which keep us from realizing the idyllic lives about which we fantasize. It almost seems that there are people whose sole purpose is to undermine our quest for a perfect life.
It is precisely the corrupt, cut-throat nature of this world that conspires against us as we try to fulfill our innate desire for contentment. If, instead, we remain girded and focused, and continue in the work of our lives, God will “fight for us” against the any adversity as we strive to live the life to which he has called us.
A fellow traveler,
Ric
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