I'm dyslexic.

I’m dyslexic. I’m sure of it actually, well no that’s really a lie. But it feels like I am some days! The more I work with sets of 4 and 5 digit numbers (account numbers at work), having to write them after seeing them on a screen, or having to type them after looking at a piece of paper, the more it seems like I keep jumbling them up and just switching the numbers, always ending up at the wrong account. It’s so odd, because I’m a great reader and speller, so I know it’s not really true, but just today when I tried to access my blog I typed in psalm72-38, not 73-28. Simple switch, but there’s a world of a difference.

I probably do this with God too… you know, He gives me one set of information and I make one subtle substitution that maybe I don’t even notice, but then I end up at a completely different spot than I had expected. I’m left wondering, oh my, how did we get HERE?

Take quiet times, ‘por ejemplo’ (hehe, I’ll work in some Spanish yet!). Of late time has been shorter than I’d like, but I still try to spend some time in the word each day. But in all areas of life right now, although I have a strong sense that God is near, I do not feel Him break through into my day. I’ve had so many mountain top experiences that sometimes I feel entitled to them … but the presence of God is always a gift, never a duty. So I guess my question is, is this the positioning of the Lord to have me where I don’t feel Him (for His unknown to me glory), or is it a form of spiritual dyslexia? Am I just getting myself a tad jumbled trying to sort through everything, therefore leaving me just missing the direct connection? It’s like those annoying computer cords to devices, the ones where you don’t know which hole it goes into in the back so you just have to keep trying to find the perfect connection. I’m trying to plug myself in to Jesus with a solid connection, but all of the ports are either in use, temporarily broken, or untried.

None of the normal ports are working. I’ve been plugged in before, but the connection is bad right now, and sometimes I try to go wireless, but I wasn’t made with a wireless card, so that doesn’t work either. I know that here I am, the device, and there God is; the master computer, and that there is/are cord(s) that go from Him to me, me to Him. Either I don’t have the right cord, or I just haven’t found the right place to plug in.

I guess it’s not quite spiritual dyslexia, not in the way I explained it at least. But it’s where I’m at. I don’t like it one bit!!! Fortunately for me, God is far more committed to my ‘success’ than I am: “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” –1 Thessalonians 5.24
Thank God, He will come and fix my connection problems, in His good time.

From:The Confessions of Saint Augustine

                          CHAPTER IV

    4.  What, therefore, is my God?  What, I ask, but the Lord
God?  "For who is Lord but the Lord himself, or who is God besides
our God?"[13]  Most high, most excellent, most potent, most
omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most
truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not
supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never
old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud,
and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet
needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating,
nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all
things.  Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet
free from care; dost repent without remorse; art angry, yet
remainest serene.  Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans
unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost.  Thou
art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art
never greedy, yet demandest dividends.  Men pay more than is
required so that thou dost become a debtor; yet who can possess
anything at all which is not already thine?  Thou owest men
nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and
when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby.  Yet, O
my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said?  What
can any man say when he speaks of thee?  But woe to them that keep
silence -- since even those who say most are dumb.

(http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/ipb-e/epl-01/agcon-02.txt)

Precious.

"You cannot show the preciousness of a person by being happy with his gifts. Ingratitude will certainly prove that the giver is not loved. But gratitude for gifts does not prove that the giver is precious. What proves that the giver is precious is the glad-hearted readiness to leave all his gifts to be with him. This is why suffering is so central in the mission of the church. The goal of our mission is that people form the nations worship the true God. But worship means cherishing the preciousness of God above all else, including life itself. It will be very hard to bring the nations to love God from a lifestyle that communicates a love of things. Therefore, God ordains in the lives of his messengers that suffering sever our bondage to the world. When joy and love survive this severing, we are fit to say to the nations with authenticity and power: hope in God."
-John Piper, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, 109
(emphasis added)
"Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
-Jesus, Matthew 5.11-12

What is precious? To you, personally; to me? What has highest value in our lives, what is our deepest longing, our determined goal? I examine my heart, and find ashamedly that Jesus is not precious to me. Not really, deep down, beautifully precious.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it."
-Jesus, Matthew 13.44-46

Worthy. Worth every sacrifice, worth complete surrender, worth it.

Sell-outs. Misfits. Counter-cultural. Not mainstream. Stupidly generous. Ridiculously joy-filled.

In love.

Isn't this what we should be called?

Prisoners. Persecuted. Hated. Despised.

Isn't this what we should be?

If Jesus is precious, if He and His kingdom have highest value in the universe, how does that change our hearts?

The Dance

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!”
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiraling down into the ache within the ache,
and I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, every day.

Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
and see who I am in the stories I live.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving
those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance,
the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
the stories and the songs
you want our children’s children to remember.
And I will show you how I struggle not to change the world,
but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging.
Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words,
holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest
intentions has died away on the wind,
dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale
of the breath that is breathing us all into being,
not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don’t say, “Yes!”
Just take my hand and dance with me.

© Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Dance, HarperSanFrancisco, 2001

The Call

I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.

But always it says: Wake up my love. You are walking asleep.
There's no safety in that!

Remember what you are and let this knowing
take you home to the Beloved with every breath.

Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing
colour the shape of your humanness.

There is no where to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.

There is no waiting for something to happen,
no point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.

You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.

How much longer can you live like this?
Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up!

Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the Beauty you are.

Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember- there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don't be tight-lipped and stingy.

Spend yourself completely on the saying.
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

© Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Call, Harper Collins, 2003

Thoughts on simplicity, from a book.

These are not original, but I hope you enjoy anyways. :)

“When I imagine my own life simple and uncomplicated, I picture my room and desk tidy, everything in its place. I myself am moving gracefully and graciously from one task to the next with precision, on schedule but with no strain or pressure. The schedule and the tasks are perfectly synchronized. It could all be so simple, I say to myself, if everything were only in its place.

But it isn’t. It’s complicated. It’s complicated because people don’t stay in place. They aren’t predictable, they foul up my schedule, they interfere with my agenda, they make demands I hadn’t programmed. It’s complicated because there is too much to do, too many tasks, too many needs, too much going on. I can’t keep up with it all; I’m always at least a step or two behind. I can’t do everything that needs to be done; I feel burdened, sometimes even guilty, for being so limited. And I think maybe I’m doing it wrong, and if I could just figure out how to do it right I’d be able to meet everyone’s needs. It’s complicated because there’s never enough time. In my anxiety to conquer time by controlling its dispensation, I feel myself victimized by it. I am unable to find time, take time, get time: all control words.

Mostly what I find is frustration. My life is out of control I feel a need to be in control of my life and all the factors, situations, and people that complicate it. I set myself over-against them and need to dominate them, to subject them to my agenda, fit them into my program. I do have an agenda, and I don’t want it interrupted. i set up my day and I offer it to God.

But there’s something wrong in the picture. When I imagine - or when I experience - the simple way, everything moves in a rhythm. There is AN AGENDA, and I’m in tune with it, but it’s not my creation. I don’t need to worry about controlling; I don’t need to be anxious that it won’t all work out. I’m not in command and don’t need to be…the interruptions are as integral to the scene as anything I had planned. I only receive the day and the program that come to me during the day from God. And that’s what makes the difference.” (Elaine Prevallet, Reflections on Simplicity, 3-4)

Return to Chico

free.

School's out for a little while, I try not to think about just how long because that's a tad depressing: my summer class starts July 21st. But for now, I'm not in school, don't have homework, don't have to be on campus: it's beautiful.

I celebrated by spontaneously going to California last week. It was really last minute and kind of crazy figuring out details, but God worked it all out amazingly! I re-visited the YWAM base where I did my DTS last year, saw a lot of people there who are on staff, saw my friend Mike from Sacramento, and Andria from Hayward, and even was able to drive into southern Oregon to see Chantelle and surprise my roommate Streuber. It was really relaxing and just a blessing to see these people and be encouraged by their hearts, as well as to not have schoolwork or work-work to think about for 6 days...I came back late Wednesday night to a piddly 2 days of work, and they had kept up my stuff beautifully so even that wasn't stressful!

yup, I think the word here is 'mellow'.

got to think a lot, pray some, read some, journal a lot, and rest. everything's changing, and it's hard to keep up, but God let me catch my breath last week.

more to come, and pictures.

i am invisible.

At least, that's what gmail keeps telling me. Right on the homepage of my inbox it says so:

"you are invisible."

and then it gives me this nifty option to "go visible". ha. as if, after 21 years of being visible, i would wish to abandon invisibility after 24 hours. not likely.

sometimes i wish i was invisible. on the freeway this could come particularly in handy ... speeding along without a care in the world on the shoulder of bumper-to-bumper traffic: yes that would be lovely.
right now i don't think that being invisible would actually help with my weekend projects: i don't see invisibility helping me write these papers or get out of them.

no, it seems i am stuck: visible, and with deadlines. drat.

moving on

"This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it."

or will i? wow, when i stop to think of this line that just came to me ... what an incredible concept. simple, but significant.

i think that God is revealing to me that i am not 'moving on' as He would desire. i have been living in the past, trying to resurrect the 'dead' - DTS. but it's not coming back. i'm not going back to DTS, ever. that time will never be alive again, and that experience if over, put to bed.

i'm not so good with moving on, though. i love to hold on to the good of the past, the great experiences that i've had, or the memories of something good. but life goes on, and God is calling: come. come. come. come. it's continual. it's moving. it's movement. perpetual, consistent, necessary.

more to come on this, as it is just coming to mind.

This Weekend.

Hello.

I know that you are all waiting, with great anticipation, to find out why this weekend (of all the weekends there are) shall prove to be so special in my life.

No, I'm not getting married.
No, I don't have a date.
No, I haven't found a church.
umm...what else?
No, I'm not going roller-skating.
No, I'm not going to a theme park (I don't like rollercoasters, remember?)
No, I'm not going anywhere.

This weekend, my big brother and his lovely wife are moving to Ohio from Denver! Yup! That's the excitement around here.
Of course, tonight I'm going to a play with a friend, tomorrow planting trees, having lunch with another friend, and going to another play; sunday I'll go to church somewhere, and go to a choir concert, and do stats homework...
So as you can see there are other exciting things going on. But the main event:

Yup. Here they come!!!

closer to done!

Today I completed one part of the requirement for my Spanish class.

Crazy enough, this is an Honors 400-level Spanish class (and I'm a Spanish major, if you didn't know) and it is the easiest class maybe so far in my college career. That's saying something. Because I've had classes where the teachers throw candy at you just for raising your hands, and classes where all I had to do was sing beautiful songs, and classes that I almost slept through and did well in. It's just ironic, I guess, that it's an Honors class. and cake-walk-ish. :)

Anyways, today I did a presentation on reflexive verbs, and it went really well. Taking chips and salsa and candy didn't hurt my approval ratings with the crowd, but even my Prof (good ole Javier) commented that I did a very nice job. yay! Now all that's left (seriously, ALL that is left) is to finish this paper on the same subject email it to him!

So allow me to list below the requirements for this honors class:

homework, that Javier only checked for completion, and not correctness. 5-6 problems 2x a week.
one 20-minute presentation, in Spanish OR English (i mixed my languages)
one paper on the same subject as the presentation.


that's it. can you believe this?! I love it. and it's been such a fun class, with really nice people, i like to think we've bonded. but we probably haven't. oh well, i'll still take snacks to them....

have a great weekend. this coming one may prove to be on of the most exciting of my life...more to come on this.

kara

4 out of 5 Kara's hate stats labs...

that isn't original. meaning, i didn't come up with that saying ... a friend came up with it in response to my 'status' on gmail today. :) it's not quite true, but it's fun because i happen to be in stats lab as i write. i don't hate it, i just would rather be at home.

i am really done with this quarter. which is too bad in the sense that i have 2 1/2 weeks to go, a few tests, a few papers, a few presentations. and my heart is ELSEWHERE. where? hmm.... i don't know.

option 1: Chico, CA. sometimes i close my eyes and see the streets, the places, the faces. i miss it ... and sometimes i wish i was there.
option 2: Guatemala. yeah ... it's pretty there. :) but to be there would be quite hard work, i know.
option 3: Columbus, OH. it's lame, i know...because it's so dang normal. but my heart is here in a lot of ways, with people, at OSU, at work ... physically, geographically, i'm here.

within option 3, there are more options! always options in my life. here in OH, my heart is sometimes:
1: at OSU - because God has me here getting a degree.
2: Speaking Spanish somewhere -- this hasn't happened yet but i think of it often.
3: with an unknown group of believers - unknown to me in that i have left my church and am looking to see where the Lord will lead me for fellowship.

today i wanted to give it all up. memories of Chico and DTS give me thoughts of going back and staffing, or doing a BLS so i can lead on DTS's. plus, there is a greater percentage of spanish speakers in CA than in Ohio. and what am i doing learning spanish anyways? i don't have a plan for it, i don't have anywhere to go, i don't have a purpose. except for obedience. and the desire of my heart. i don't know what it's going to look like. school is almost done for the quarter, but it's still demanding and i would rather be doing other things.

Oh Lord....help me! i am a confused kid.

i'm sure you weren't quite looking for that when you stumbled onto this post. sorry. :) just a little honesty about the state of my heart on rainy days.

it's interesting that looking back always seems better than the present. There's a Sara Groves song, "Painting pictures of egypt" to this effect, that we always think of the past in rosy terms even knowing full well that the past had troubles of its own.
the chorus:

I've been painting pictures of Egypt,
leaving out what it lacks
because the future feels so hard and I want to go back...
but the places that used to fit me
cannot hold the things i've learned,
and those roads were closed off to me
while my back was turned.

I don't know ... but it seems to me that everything is changing and if I'm paying attention I should be changing too.

so here goes.

um...if you read this, thanks. i appreciate your patience and desire to know my heart/mind!

love,
Kara


4:

a 're-defining' of key terms....

you know how those classes are, they start with the professor on the first day 'clarifying' and 'defining' terms, so everyone's on the same (correct) page.

i think we've missed something when it comes to defining. i think we see some words in the Bible and consider them in their definition from the dictionary. Don't get me wrong, dictionaries are great: but dictionaries define what words mean in human thought and language -- and human thought and language is quite fallible. One key word, or 'concept', is (with dictionary definition):

beauty -

1: the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit : loveliness 2: a beautiful person or thing; especially : a beautiful woman3: a particularly graceful, ornamental, or excellent quality4: a brilliant, extreme, or egregious example or instance beauty>

we'll start small, because i've got a paper to write, and i'm sure you don't have all day. :)

Beauty. In American culture, beauty is physical, and there is a laundry list of ugly characteristics that we all try to avoid so that we can achieve beauty. I don't believe that the Lord defines beauty in this way. To the Lord, beauty is something entirely belonging to Him, and He gives it to His people. Psalm 149.4 reads: "For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation." So for someone to truly be beautiful, it must mean that the Lord has had His way with them in bringing them to repentance. To follow logically, the only beautiful people are saved people. And we all consider most of the "beautiful people" of the world (super-models, movie stars, celebrities) to be pretty loose and in general 'not-saved', therefore they must not truly be beautiful. chew on that.

All of my life I have done a poor job of defining beauty. i believe that it is time we re-defined this key word, and lived out of the biblical definition - that we call things for what God says they are. After all, He is the author of truth. And in this situation, He is the only true "beauty" to be found.

seeking beauty? try Jesus. he'll blow your mind.

Bendi

meet Bendi. It's short for "bendición," which is Spanish for "blessing."

loving life

I read the article (below) in the WSJ on Monday, and it was really convicting. "Convicting?" You may ask, incredulous at my choice of words. But yes, it stands; the article was convicting.

Not obviously, and not directly, but reading it as a Christian whose main goal for life should be to die to herself and live to Christ, convicting. Because really, how much do we cling to this life out of desperation, because it is all we have, all we can see ... where is the faith in Christ and the hope of heaven? Those two things should vault us upward to the point of saying, and really meaning, what our Brother Paul said: "To live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1.21)

There is a man from the church that I grew up in, and he is dying. Of course, we are all dying, and somewhat dead already, but this man is being physically assaulted with the death of his body. I mean cancer, strokes, you name it. Christians are rallying to the family's side, praying for healing. Amen. According to the will of God, to display His power and bring Jesus glory, so be it!

But what if he dies?

Is God not good anymore, to allow that suffering to his family? Au contraire, is God not good now, to allow that suffering to this man's own life?

Biblically, the righteous "man perishes, and no man takes it to heart; and devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from evil, he enters into peace; they rest in their beds, each one who walked in his upright way." (Isaiah 57.1-2, emphasis mine)

Beloved, there is more to true life than what we call 'life'. More than the pursuits of earthly gain, more than the quest for happiness. What we see is not what we get. The image in the mirror will fade, will change, and then will be transformed forever when Christ comes back. This is not all there is.

I am frustrated with my own lack of desire to leave this life. How come the Muslims are the ones willing to die for their faith, shouldn't that place be reserved for the Holy People of the Most High God, who actually have a truth worth dying for? Shouldn't we be living (in Christ alone) out the death to sin, willing to forsake even blood and breath for the kingdom? Isn't God that great of a reality, that worthy of everything, that good...

isn't He worth it?

article from the Wall Stree Journal 3.3.08

OPINION

Worshippers of Death

By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
March 3, 2008; Page A17

Zahra Maladan is an educated woman who edits a women's magazine in Lebanon. She is also a mother, who undoubtedly loves her son. She has ambitions for him, but they are different from those of most mothers in the West. She wants her son to become a suicide bomber.

At the recent funeral for the assassinated Hezbollah terrorist Imad Moughnaya -- the mass murderer responsible for killing 241 marines in 1983 and more than 100 women, children and men in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 -- Ms. Maladan was quoted in the New York Times giving the following warning to her son: "if you're not going to follow the steps of the Islamic resistance martyrs, then I don't want you."

Zahra Maladan represents a dramatic shift in the way we must fight to protect our citizens against enemies who are sworn to kill them by killing themselves. The traditional paradigm was that mothers who love their children want them to live in peace, marry and produce grandchildren. Women in general, and mothers in particular, were seen as a counterweight to male belligerence. The picture of the mother weeping as her son is led off to battle -- even a just battle -- has been a constant and powerful image.

Now there is a new image of mothers urging their children to die, and then celebrating the martyrdom of their suicidal sons and daughters by distributing sweets and singing wedding songs. More and more young women -- some married with infant children -- are strapping bombs to their (sometimes pregnant) bellies, because they have been taught to love death rather than life. Look at what is being preached by some influential Islamic leaders:

"We are going to win, because they love life and we love death," said Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. He has also said: "[E]ach of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah." Shortly after 9/11, Osama bin Laden told a reporter: "We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us."

"The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death," explained Afghani al Qaeda operative Maulana Inyadullah. Sheik Feiz Mohammed, leader of the Global Islamic Youth Center in Sydney, Australia, preached: "We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech: "It is the zenith of honor for a man, a young person, boy or girl, to be prepared to sacrifice his life in order to serve the interests of his nation and his religion."

How should Western democracies fight against an enemy whose leaders preach a preference for death?

The two basic premises of conventional warfare have long been that soldiers and civilians prefer living to dying and can thus be deterred from killing by the fear of being killed; and that combatants (soldiers) can easily be distinguished from noncombatants (women, children, the elderly, the infirm and other ordinary citizens). These premises are being challenged by women like Zahra Maladan. Neither she nor her son -- if he listens to his mother -- can be deterred from killing by the fear of being killed. They must be prevented from succeeding in their ghoulish quest for martyrdom. Prevention, however, carries a high risk of error. The woman walking toward the group of soldiers or civilians might well be an innocent civilian. A moment's hesitation may cost innocent lives. But a failure to hesitate may also have a price.

Late last month, a young female bomber was shot as she approached some shops in central Baghdad. The Iraqi soldier who drew his gun hesitated as the bomber, hands raised, insisted that she wasn't armed. The soldier and a shop owner finally opened fire as she dashed for the stores; she was knocked to the ground but still managed to detonate the bomb, killing three and wounding eight. Had the soldier and other bystanders not called out a warning to others -- and had they not shot her before she could enter the shops -- the death toll certainly would have been higher. Had he not hesitated, it might have been lower.

As more women and children are recruited by their mothers and their religious leaders to become suicide bombers, more women and children will be shot at -- some mistakenly. That too is part of the grand plan of our enemies. They want us to kill their civilians, who they also consider martyrs, because when we accidentally kill a civilian, they win in the court of public opinion. One Western diplomat called this the "harsh arithmetic of pain," whereby civilian casualties on both sides "play in their favor." Democracies lose, both politically and emotionally, when they kill civilians, even inadvertently. As Golda Meir once put it: "We can perhaps someday forgive you for killing our children, but we cannot forgive you for making us kill your children."

Civilian casualties also increase when terrorists operate from within civilian enclaves and hide behind human shields. This relatively new phenomenon undercuts the second basic premise of conventional warfare: Combatants can easily be distinguished from noncombatants. Has Zahra Maladan become a combatant by urging her son to blow himself up? Have the religious leaders who preach a culture of death lost their status as noncombatants? What about "civilians" who willingly allow themselves to be used as human shields? Or their homes as launching pads for terrorist rockets?

The traditional sharp distinction between soldiers in uniform and civilians in nonmilitary garb has given way to a continuum. At the more civilian end are babies and true noncombatants; at the more military end are the religious leaders who incite mass murder; in the middle are ordinary citizens who facilitate, finance or encourage terrorism. There are no hard and fast lines of demarcation, and mistakes are inevitable -- as the terrorists well understand.

We need new rules, strategies and tactics to deal effectively and fairly with these dangerous new realities. We cannot simply wait until the son of Zahra Maladan -- and the sons and daughters of hundreds of others like her -- decide to follow his mother's demand. We must stop them before they export their sick and dangerous culture of death to our shores.

Mr. Dershowitz teaches law at Harvard University and is the author of "Finding Jefferson" (Wiley, 2007).

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

And add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.

link to the original article here.

i am a gentle warrior?

well, i don't know about the middle part, but i like the idea of this slogan:

"i am a gentle warrior."

because as Christians, we are called to emulate the gentleness, compassion,
humility, and servanthood of Christ; all in the midst of this perpetual battle
against the kingdom of darkness. armor-clad servants, warring lovers,
humble soldiers. amazing.

i met one such man just yesterday. A missionary to the Czech Republic for 15
years, looking at him was the closest i've been so far to gazing on the face of
God. not to worship Roger, not at all; but to stand in awe of God as i came
into contact with one of His humble servants, a kind-hearted warrior in the
kingdom. it was a true blessing. i'm still in wonderment about it all! but really,
he reminded me of Jesus, more than anyone i think i've met so far. and that was
awesome. Jesus is amazing.

example 4

example 3

this little Iraqi girls' parents were both killed (if I remember correctly from the story)
and she was shot in the head but not fatally wounded. as she recovered, she was inconsolable
except by this officer, who proceeded to spend 4 nights sleeping in this chair, holding
this child so that she would finally sleep.

she is recovering well.