Each and every morning (with the exception of Sundays), Rebekah and I read the newspaper along with that first cup of coffee. Our paper – because we live here – is the Raleigh News & Observer.

Today wasn’t an exceptional compilation of news; but it did give me pause (in fact, not thinking of the news as all that exceptional gives me pause…). So here is my collection of fairly random responses to what I read.

1. Syria: The conflict has been going on so long we tend to receive it as “lower-tier” news. However, along with the constant loss of life, an entire culture is being literally obliterated. One AP journalist reporting from the historic Clock Square in Homs yesterday said the streets “appeared almost apocalyptic.” If we think this doesn’t affect us, we’re wrong. This world isn’t just hurting, it’s writhing in pain.
2. Education: Where to begin? Two items in the news are not unrelated. First, the front-page headline, “North Carolina has a reading problem.” The second item is a house panel hearing regarding “Unionizing college athletes.” There is way too much of politics polluting K-12 schooling, and there is far too much money polluting college sports. The key word here is pollution.
3. Gay Marriage: It’s all over the front page. Here’s my brief summation. If we’re concerned about “the state of” marriage in the USA, it’s not gay marriage we should be worried about; the real threat to the institution of marriage is the consistent practice of unfaithfulness, selfishness, and hypocrisy in heterosexual Christian unions. How about we define marriage as the committed practice of, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude; it does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)? How about we define marriage as a relationship where people actually live according to, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23)? How about the people who say they care about “the integrity of marriage” begin by demonstrating some integrity in their own marriages? How about living love out loud, and letting that be your witness?
4. Boko Haram: Yes, we’re all horrified at the abduction of over 200 school girls, and now we’re even more horrified about the prospect of them being sold into slavery. I’m glad something has our attention! Now could we possibly be just as horrified over the fact that America’s appetite for pornography and illicit sex keeps literally thousands of children in the human trafficking trade, both in to and out of the USA!

Four random items. Maybe not such an unexceptional news day, after all. Like I said, this world isn’t just hurting, it’s writhing in pain.

– DEREK