Oh, the Places You'll Go

Austria
Germany
France
Spain
Italy
Hungary
Slovakia
Slovenia
Croatia
The Netherlands
Czech Republic
England (& Wales)
Scotland
Ireland
Denmark
Sweden
Turkey
Mexico

Those are all the countries I've visited.
And yet...sometimes I feel like I've hardly been anywhere.  I meet all these people who travel the world on what seems like a monthly basis.  Like a friend I work with--she and her husband went to Ireland last weekend.  (Last. Weekend.)  As in, just for the weekend.  Seriously.  Seriously??  
It must be nice to live a life where you can pick up and fly to a foreign land for a romantic weekend...
And then I look around my home.  I see all my things that I've collected on my travels--the framed postcards, keychains, posters, shot glasses, and don't even get me started on all the clothes...  I see gifts I've received from friends and family over the years--blankets, flower vases, jewelry, gently used furniture...  I see photos of fantastic memories--friends gathered for birthdays and holidays, awkward first dates that led to lifelong friendships, memories of good times hanging around the house or out making our own adventures.  I look at all these things and I think, How could I ever say I've never been anywhere?  
I'm thankful for being given the opportunities I've been given.  Really.  This week I'm going to work really hard on remembering that.


Oh.  Speaking of struggling to do things...


Yesterday's sermon at church was about Luke 6: loving your neighbors AND your enemies--the whole turning-the-other-cheek thing?  Yeah.  For me, that's really hard to wrap my head around.
I'm politically conservative.  Actually, according to politicalcompass.org/test, I'm dead center between right and libertarian.  Which, basically, I interpret it this way: you can do whatever you want to do as long as you don't force it on me or you don't (in any way) have your decisions affect my life or others' lives; and although my faith tells me that there is such thing as right and wrong--I firmly believe there is--I cannot make that decision for you; gov't should exist to make sure we don't kill each other and should interfere as little as possible.
I believe in personal responsibility.  [Hello.  My name is Rachael, and I'm a hardcore pragmatist.]  Although I'd love for us to all get along and agree, we don't.  And that's okay.  But as soon as you drag me into it--showing up on my doorstep flipping out on drugs, breaking into my home in the middle of the night, I will not hesitate to point a gun in your face.  I have the right to protect my own, and I will.
That sounds so overly dramatic, doesn't it?
Let me bring this full-circle back to Luke 6.  How can I possibly love my enemy?  How can I embrace and forgive those who do terrible, almost inconceivable things?  (Rodney Alcala or Charles Manson, anyone?)  If someone shoots my mother while holding up a gas station, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be able to put a hand out on his shoulder and say, "Look.  This was wrong, but I forgive you.  Please think about where you're going with your life.  Can I help you get a job?"  It's just not going to happen.
So I struggle.
How can I reconcile my faith and my natural human instinct?
Lots of prayer.
And hoping nobody gets shot.

<3
r.