Near Indianapolis a desperate young man jumped the barrier in a check-cashing store and demanded money at gunpoint from the terrified attendant. In her fear she instinctively began to pray, and as she prayed she began to talk to the young man, and tell him he ought to pray and not throw his life away like this. Over a period of time the man calmed down, and the two (get this!) spent about 30 minutes in prayer and discussion together. In the end the man handed the woman the only bullet in the gun, took $20, and left. He said he needed it to feed his 2-year-old. On the security cameras you see the two, assailant and victim, embrace before he leaves.

George Stephanopoulos reported the story on Good Morning America this morning and called it "grace."

Grace indeed, and whereas perhaps the majority of instances like this end up very differently, the fact that in this case gentleness and faith won out over cruelty and violence shows that grace indeed has the potential of yielding a powerfully transforming experience, something that the standard path of this world cannot muster.

So what are we going to bank on? Choosing the standard path is to put grace up for a vote that fails to entertain eternity. Choosing grace, even though most of the time we'll get hurt is to vote for heaven, and vote for the great reversal at the resolution of all things where finally the last shall be first and the first last.

President Hamid Karzai has chosen to do something truly historical for Afghanistan. He has agreed to a run-off election between himself and his closest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah . This is historic because for the last 20 or more years the country has been the battleground between one strong-man against another.

When you are a strong-man any sign of weakness can spell the end of your career, and most likely your life. This could be interpreted as a sign of weakness--to acceed to the requests of the decadent and sinful West. I'm sure he will catch flack for it.

I know that concerns for the sense of legitimacy are part of his consideration, but on the other hand, weakness as a way toward reconciliation and unity is not something native to the strong-man mentality. Perhaps he is blazing new trails for this war-torn country.

Muslim though he is, however, his is also showing us something of Christ. Christ's way forward is by weakness. The greatest of all is the servant of all. Greater love has no man...Only in dying lies the potential of resurrection.

I would sure like to see him win again!

Catalino Tapia is a Mexican fellow who came to California early in life. When he got here he had $6 in his pocket that he called "capital." He got work as a gardener with a lawn-care company. After some years he went on his own. He got married, had a family, and worked to put his kids through school. His crowning moment was when his son graduated from UC Berkley school of law.

It inspired him to gather some of his friends who also had kids in college and do something about the economic difficulties that Hispanic students often face. He set up the Bay Area Gardener's Foundation (http://www.bagf.org/) and sought donations. The foundation grew, and last year awarded 21 scholarships of between $1500 and $2500. You do the math.

Why is this story inspiring? Yes, this man has realized the American Dream, but more than that. When ABC interviewed him they showed him in his own back yard--it was not as nice as mine. This man works for kids, not for himself.

Jesus worked for us, not for Himself. In fact, He gave Himself for us. He brought us abundant life, like Catarino does for his scholarship recipients. He gives us hope in the darkness like Catalino does for the poor of th Bay area. This story is inspiring because Catalino gives us a glimpse into the heart of God.

This morning at Rotary I met a fine young Iraqi man who is living here seeking to help the U.S. Military correctly identify its targets in Iraq. I thanked him and welcomed him. We need more like him.

I can understand why there are Iraqis who do not want us to be in their country. Since the invasion the U.S. has lost 4349 service men and women according to icasualties.org. If you add the rest of the coalition forces it brings the total up to 4667. Add to that the 2993 who died in the attacks on 9/11/01 and you have a total of 7660. A recent report in the Killeen Daily Herald released the figure of 85,694 Iraqis who have died betwen January of 2004 and October of 2008. That does not include those who died in the initial invasion, because there was no functioning Iraqi government to keep records. It does not count the ones who have perished since Halloween last year. Comparing the two figures, our own losses counted to the max compared to this figure which is clearly limited you still have to admit that for every American loss more than 11 Iraqis have perished. We have lost just under 1% of what they have. For us to suffer equally would mean having 900,000 people die, someone from virtually every family in the country.

I can understand why some Iraqis don't want us in their country. Some, undoubtedly, do not want us to interfere with their extremist agendas, but I would guess that is an infintessimally small number. Some so strongly believe in their own sovreignty that, intending no harm at all to us, they still just want to be able to play house by their own rules. I would suspect that most resistance to our presence would fall into that favorite of sinful human exercises of blaming whoever is closest or most obvious for what hurts. The Americans come, masses of people die, it must be their fault.

On that one none of us can claim the higher ground. The headline article in the same issue of the KDH talked about a young man who has been indicted for first degree murder. The details of the case are not public knowledge yet, but I would bet a whole hill of beans on it going something like this: Someone wants something, someone else stands in the way of getting it. Instead of being content without it someone gets violent in order to get it. Life hurts and we don't want it to, so we find someone to blame.

Remember when it used to happen at home? Usually my mother could see through the situation immediately. We always got whatever was coming to us for what we did wrong, but there was always more. She would hold us and let us cry it out. In the end we felt kinda foolish for what we'd done, safe to be that way in the loving care of our mother.

Perhaps what we need along with all the military stuff is a place to "cry it out." Perhaps that place is already available to us...go find your clergy and say what needs to be said, and do what needs to be done. In the Bible it's called metanoia, otherwise known as repentance.

In almost nine years living in the back yard of Fort Hood, Texas, it has become apparent to me that the business of war is not family friendly. It just isn't, has never been and won't ever be. It serves families by protecting them, but those engaged in the business of war have always struggled to actually have one. The higher up on the ladder you are the easier it is, but if you're one of the "grunts" it's a hard row to hoe.

According to the Killeen Daily Heald, General Cone, current III Corps Commander, is continuing an initiative put in place by his predecessor, General Lynch, called "Family First." It requires that soldiers be home by 6 p.m. on workdays except Thursday when they get off at 3, and no work on weekends. The tension in households around the greater Fort Hood area is tangibly lower with moms and dads home with families...until they deploy. Then the old sense of abandonment sets in again, the haunting feeling among spouses that they live with a partner who has a sanctioned mistress about which they can do very little.

In the article, however, General Cone referenced something very important. I quote the article in today's edition of the paper: "...holistic care of [families] and their soldiers is 'exactly what needs to be done.'" Holistic care will eventually filter up to the philosophy of military action in the life of a nation. How do you take care of people you are training to put their lives on the line for us? We can and ought to do whatever we can to help our soldiers be fit mentally, physically, morally and spiritually, (and I applaud the Family First concept on these grounds) because they tend to come home healthier than when they are distracted, sick and feeling beaten down. But there is ultimately a limit on what care the army is willing to take of families and still do its work as the military, Family First program notwithstanding. Perhaps the most significant initiative is one to decentralize authority. It sounds counter-intuitive for the military to decentralize authority, but soldiers who can make responsible and meaningful decisions at their levels, and who then have the authority to carry those decisions out are, according to numerous studies of effectiveness in the workplace, happier and more motivated to do well than those whose jobs are seen as arbitrary and meaningless. Ironically, according to General Cone (and my own observations from soldiers who have returned) soldiers tend to be given more discretionary authority in theater than at home. He is pushing to change that.

Obviously, Family First is not without its limits, and rightly so. No one should protect our soldiers from every danger or they would not be soldiers. Likewise, the Holy Spirit does not protect us from all temptation, or we would not be believers. Calculated risk is an inherent part of making responsible and meaningful decisions. Developing our moral and intellectual strength to be able to make those decisions well is not only part of psychological development, but spiritual development as well. God made us in God's own image and likeness, and when we use the gifts that God has given us and the mental capacity God has instilled in us to make honest, meaningful and responsible decisions that work for peace and the good of our neighbors then we have been, in a very small way, a little bit like God.

In the 16th century a Carmelite monk died in relative dishonor shortly after getting out of a monastic prison (yes, there were such things.) He was 49 years old. After his death the popularity of his strikingly profound poetry drew a large following, and most of his body was removed to Segovia where it joined a collection of relics including a sliver from the cross and a charred twig from Moses' burning bush.

Strange as it sounds to our ears, the practice of venerating relics had a logic behind it. The saints from whom these artifacts trace their history were believed to have built up a surplus of merit with God, and those who in true faith venerated the relics could tap into that great storehouse of holiness to help cover some of their own lack.

This Sunday Leslie Hindman Auctioneers of Chicago will sell a bunch of hair purported to have been clipped from the head of Elvis Presley during his time in the military went to auction, along with a host of other elvis paraphenalia. They came from the collection of Elvis' friend and Gary Pepper, who died without heir and left it to his nurse.

The bids will tell whether we do not still believe in relics!

15 years in jail and Richard Miles is out of jail--on the recommendation of the judge that the convicted man's trail was flawed. It leaves me with tremendously conflicting feelings.

On one hand, I am so grateful for the work of groups like Centurion Ministries who watchdog the courts try to free the wrongfully convicted, and for judges humble enough to look back and say out loud that there might have been a mistake.

I'm also horrified at the flawed justice system we have. In the case of Mr. Miles if he is eventually declared innocent the State will reward him hansomely for the time lost, he will be a wealthy man, but at what cost? We put a lot of stake in our justice system, and the legislative and executive controls on it are not commensurate to the control the justice system has on the other two branches of government. But in our flawed and sinful state nothing is perfect.

And perhaps that is precisely the issue. Nothing is perfect. Everything, even my own heart, is a mixture of good and evil. On the one hand, our system makes mistakes, but on the other hand, I would much rather stand before our justice system than the vast majority of other systems on our planet. We do the best we can do, we try to be humble and admit and correct our mistakes, and we ask forgiveness for those things of which we are unaware.