Blame me for war....

I was up at TJ today, running around the track with Terrence for a while, and then I headed inside to lift weights. The lady at the reception desk greeted me as I came in, but there was a visible change in her face when she looked down at my shirt and read, "Blame Me For War" on it, along with a quote from Jacques Ellul. Her face sort of melted into confusion mixed with disgust. I was self-conscious the rest of the time I was at the gym. My cover has been blown, I kept thinking. What if someone asks me to explain? What would I say? "Uh, well...I think Christians are to blame...I mean, I'm a Christian....er....the Church must be the agent of change in our society and we can't rely on government to....well, as a follower of Jesus, I'm supposed to die rather than take the life of another, so essentially, it's my fault. Sorry I'm not dead." As you can imagine, this would have gotten me strong up on the weight machine at Thomas Jefferson Community Center. I half-heartedly lifted ten pounds over my head a few times and left. I ran home...fast.

Being a social misfit probably isn't the worst part of being a pacifist (or someone who likes to think she is). It's the tangible, earth-shattering reality of the belief itself...a belief that isn't simply talked about and or screen-printed on t-shirts. It's lived. It involves the whole of ourselves, our bodies and our minds and our very souls, to be put on the line for the one's we hate the most. Anyone else find this disturbing and unreasonable, perhaps even wrong? I left Tj tonight without having to say a word about my sympathies with pacifism. Maybe that's why I left - so as to escape the questions, the prying eyes, the looks of disgust.

It's fine to slap pacifists slogans to my bumper or my chest, but I'm still full of shit. How am I a pacifist if my first response is always to defend my ego? How am I a pacifist if I can't stand my somewhat unstable next-door neighbor? How am I a pacifist if I curse and fume at the television whenever Bush decides to open his mouth? How am I a pacifist if I respond to Linda's questions with short, dismissive answers? How am I a pacifist if I'm consuming goods that economically and environmentally oppress? How am I a pacifist if I fuel my car with gasoline drilled in a war zone? How am I a pacifist if I role my eyes instead of responding to Hazel's emotional needs? How am I pacifist if I hoard my belongings and ignore the beared man on Glebe Rd who wants nothing more than a few bills? I think it would be just as accurate to replace "pacifist" in these sentences with "Christian." I'm in the process of becoming a Christian, but I have such a long way to go.