Hotel Rwanda

Today, I went with my Getsch RA staff to see the new movie, Hotel Rwanda. I must say, it is a very painful movie to watch. It is the story of one hotel that became a shelter for refugees during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. It made me hurt to see the violence, the fear on the faces of children, and the scenes of corpses littering the roadsides. I didn't even know those people, but it still makes me feel so broken to witness a portrayal of the suffering that they endured at the hands of their fellow countrymen. What injustices have been done in the history of humankind! Also in the movie, I was so broken by the negligence of the American and European people, even though they could see the suffering on their televisions, it was just easier for them to ignore it and "go right back to eating their dinner," as one American character remarked. How much do we as Americans ignore the suffering and injustice in this world, simply because it doesn't affect us? Let me be a little bit blunt, and say, maybe the reason our armed forces are over in Iraq right now, "establishing freedom," or whatever they call it; is simply for our own national interest, and not for anything else. What about the other countries that don't have oil for our economy? Why did we not intervene in Rwanda in 1994, why are we not intervening right now in the genocide in Sudan? We can't push our own agenda on the rest of the world, but yet we can just sit idly by as our fellow humans suffer and die needlessly? Why are we not broken over the tragedy of the tsunami, or the Holocaust, or the civil wars and ethnic oppression in Latin America? Simply because it doesn't reach into our nice, suburban lives or into our nice, suburban television? Can we just close our eyes to the pain that is going on all around us? When I drive into Minneapolis, you can see everywhere on the streets the effects of a society of inequality and discrimination. Why do my Latino friends live in apartments where there are bullet holes in the walls and the halls are dark and smell like urine, while there are million-dollar townhomes being built not even a hundred yards away? Why should they not receive an equal opportunity as everyone else? Simply because of their ethnicity?
Do you ever look around at this world, and wonder, how far have we fallen from grace? This is not what God intended for us to be! Is peace ever possible, is real community ever possible, is selfless love ever possible, is true beauty ever seen, is true expression even appreciated, do we even know how to search for the divine? We live these "Christian" lives, making sure to get all of our doctrine straight, say the right prayers, and get enough Scripture memorized to make us mature. But maybe we're still missing the point. Don't you think that God wanted us to witness the power of his love in the stare of a grateful homeless man, rather than attending a well-organized worship service? Maybe God wanted us to hear his heart through poetry, music, art and literature, rather than perfectly delineate his Word to the point that it no longer holds any meaning? Do you think that God just put us on this earth to merely survive; to get through each day sufficiently? As my favorite song, The Pretender, by Jackson Browne says: "I go to work each day, and when the evening rolls around, I go on home, and lay my body down, and when the morning light comes streaming in, I'll get up and do it again." Were we only made to become creatures of habit, ruled by our routine and business, but rather having something, someone that made it worthwhile to get up in the morning? Do you dare to love deeply, hope for more than just everyday routine, and actually be more than just what society says you should be? What is this all for, what is the point?