How to stop a fight

Not a week goes by that I don't hear about a fight between students at our local high school or middle school. I often have students run up to me on Wednesday night before our youth service to tell me about a fight they saw, a friend that was hurt, or how they were attacked by someone at school. I really get sick of students thinking that fighting is the only way to solve problems!

Whenever I have students that talk about wanting to fight someone I always tell them, "God didn't make you for that!" I always half joke when they tell me that they saw a fight at school by asking, "Why didn't you run into the middle and yell "God didn't make you for this!" to get them to stop fighting?" They usually laugh me off. Usually...

Last night as students were coming in for our service one girl came running up to me her name is Alison. She ran up and said, "Ryan, you will never guess what happened yesterday!"

She said she was walking down a hallway at school and saw a very large crowd of students in the middle. She looked a little closer and saw two boys facing each other walking around in a circle getting ready to fight. So Alison took off running through the crowd, jumped in between the two boys, stuck her hands out and yell, "STOP! God didn't create you for this!" Everyone looked at her funny and the boys and the crowd all walked away. She stopped the fight!

She then said, "But they ended up fighting today! And it was really bad!" I told her how amazing I thought it was that she was willing to step up and speak truth in a crazy situation and not give in to the crowd and animalistic behavior around her.

I read somewhere (I think it was something from Shane Claiborne) the "Violence is for those that have lost their imagination." I challenged my students to use their imagination against violance. What else can you do to help show the beauty and sacredness in each person? What can you do to help call into question the idea that violence is the answer to every problem. What can you do to be a peacemaker?

This Jesus that I worship calls us blessed and children of God if we are peacemakers! May you be blessed today! May you be called a child of God.




"Nothing is so characteristically Christian as being a peacemaker."
– St Basil the Great

The day I met Bill

Today was a pretty exciting day around Southern Indiana. Bill Clinton made a stop in Columbus and in Seymour to campaign for Hillary and share some of her plans for the economy.

I arrived about an hour before he was scheduled to speak and waited in line for about 30 minutes before they allowed us to enter a practice gym at Seymour high school. There were a few seats that were mainly used by some older folks while the rest of the crowd of about 800 stood on the floor around the stage.

The Seymour High School band was playing while we all waited for President Clinton to arrive. While we waited the band entertained us with such numbers as Cheeseburger in paradise, love potion number 9, and Holiday by Greenday! Exactly the music you would expect for the arrival of the one time leader of the "free world."

President Clinton finally showed up 2 hours late! My feet were tired, people were sitting on the floor, people were leaving! It was a bit frustrating. He talked for a while about the economy, jobs, schools and health care. He claimed that if Hillary were elected we would have access to cars that get 100MPG. Sounds good. He also claimed that there are already 50 of these vehicles on the road today. He also mentioned that the United States is not in a recession, because the definition of a recession is 6 straight months of economic decline. This is not the case for the U.S. but he says it is true for many Americans on a personal level.

After the speech he went around shaking hands and hugging babies. I managed to make my way to the front and was able to stretch my hand out far enough for him to shake it!

I didn't have my camera so the only pictures you get are small ones off my cell phone!

I still don't know who I'm going to vote for...I sure wish Edwards was still running!