And I will sing!

My defiance takes a different note,

“They” want me to fear

So I will choose love not hate,

For only love casts out fear.

“They” want to manipulate my mind just as they manipulated the killers.

No go! I have free choice, I choose good, not evil.

“They” want me to cower, to become afraid to voice my own faith,

I choose instead to confirm my faith in a God of love,

The only one able to deal with “them”.

“They” cannot be “bombed out of existence”

Like the hydra “they” will only grow more heads.

Like chemo or radiation, that may give temporary reprieve, (while creating devastation) but it will not destroy the “stem cells”.

The real perpetrators lurk unseen in the shadows and the “cancer” will spread and grow again,

We see only the pawns in their diabolical power game.

Yet I will sing,

For God himself plays against “them” and is able to heal anything.

Limited by His gifts to us, of free choice, and earth’s dominion, He yet holds the end game.

Though I foresee escalation, destruction and hate,

I will love.

Though political idiots undermine our UK police forces (who protect us) with crippling budget cuts, while buying nuclear armaments,

I will trust.

While media are no longer free to print the truth,

I will seek it and speak it.

While orphans wail, and children lay in pools of blood,

While Paris is but the tip of the iceberg, and other nations experience such horrors on a daily basis,

I will continue to believe in the flame of good in humanity.

This is my defiance.

I will love, I will seek the truth behind the lies I’m fed, I will not be manipulated.

I will choose to see the good, the stories of courage, humanity, and compassion that remind me that man was made in the image of God, a God of love,

And I will sing my defiance!

Who was he?

“He was born in an obscure hill town in a small Mideastern country. In early childhood his family had to flee as refugees from political injustice and attempted infanticide.^[1]

The son of a manual laborer,^[2] he showed little promise of greatness. He had no opportunity for higher education as we know it, never learned anything about technology, never even possessed a TV, a computer, cell phone, or I pad. There is no record of him owning a home or even any form of transportation.

In his thirties he was living hand to mouth,^[3] wandering from town to town, never going more than 100 miles from where he grew up. Yet his deep and caring love for mankind inspired a small group of others to travel with him to learn more.^[4] He often spent his time around social outcasts and the seamier side of society.^[5]

For a period of three years he managed to gather some crowds through the use of what some called miracles. But false charges^[6] that he associated with suspected terrorist elements seeking to overthrow the government, and accusations that he was claiming to be the king of his own nation resulted in his arrest, torture, and subsequent execution^[7] at the behest of some influential enemies.

His friends and associates claimed that the charges were trumped up and that the whole incident had been a conspiracy by top religious and political elements to discredit what they saw as their competition, but none were ever brought to justice for what happened.

His life on this earth ended as it had been lived: focused on giving all that he had in order to rescue others. From a life of obscurity, poverty, and oppression, he showed that the simple truth was greater than the greatest intellect. Through his love and care for the weakest and neediest, he proved that power and wealth were truly weak and worthless unless used for God.

Instead of his death being the end of an obscure life, his subsequent resurrection triggered a kind of uprising in the hearts of men, a revolution of freedom and truth and mercy^[8] that the armies of the earth throughout history have been unable to crush, that the superpowers have been powerless to suppress, and that the deceits of greed, malice, and hatred have never been able to silence.

The attempt to stifle his voice by a torturous and brutal death was futile. It has burst out in the voices of those whose lives down through the ages have been transformed by the truth he gave and the spirit he provided and the love he instilled in their hearts. What he gave to those who chose to live the example he set has proven to be greater than all the forces that have tried to prevent it spreading throughout the earth.

The result: All the powers that have tried to sway this world throughout history, all the wealth of nations and influence of kings and queens, czars and emperors, presidents and dictators, and all the revolutions and wars combined have failed to have as great an impact on the lives and hearts of mankind as this one extraordinary life”.^[9]

(Adaption of the essay “One Solitary Life” by Dr. James Allan Francis, 1926.)

Paris.

My heart grows numb to violence. The news is sad, more killing and in its wake my fears grow, not for my own safety, but for where this will end. I see posts of hate flooding the networks, irresponsible, deluded men proclaimed heroes. (To be murdered, tragedy though it is, does not make one a hero, nor a martyr of free speech.) A hero is one who gives or endangers his life for others or a worthy cause. Heroes should not be devalued this way, they are worthy of our respect. These men, dreadful as their murder was were not.

Now the hate on both sides will grow, fanned by media coverage, moderates will be pushed from influence. I have travelled enough to know terrorists are not made by mere religious fanatics; the seeds are too often sown and watered by the actions of western, supposedly Christian, nations. Were we true Christians the lies of our adversaries would find no ground to grow. My heart bleeds not only for the dead but for those who will die because of this in years to come.