If you bomb a place, think about how you clear up the armaments afterwards - Photos from Libya

There was a report today on the radio about how some of the construction work in Germany is being held up because of old bombs and munitions from the second world war. Part of the pornographic lie of war is that it is a quick, "surgical" solution - bomb them, get in, get out, mission over. It's such a lie. Not far from where we used to live in Dunkerque are the battlefields of the First World War. Still today farmers turn up spent and unspent cartridges and munitions as they plough the fields. The harvest of war can continue for many generations.
The picture here is from Misrata, Libya, taken just a couple of days ago by Paul Jeffrey for the ACTalliance. ACT have put together a powerful and moving photo gallery of the photos from Libya. Sandra Cox writes:
Macabre museums of unexploded shells, warheads and mines have ready sprung up around the city, and a deadly new hobby of arms tourism is in vogue. Children are using the battle zones as life-size playgrounds, where they risk losing limbs or their lives ...
The next job of ACT’s de-mining team is clearing Misrata's so-called museums of mass-destruction – ad hoc collections of live and dead munitions that have appeared in homes and businesses throughout the city in the last couple of weeks.
I've spent lots of time thinking about, reflecting on, writing about and celebrating "justpeace" in recent weeks and months. Pictures like these really bring the destruction of war home. How many millions went into buying these weapons? Is a similar amount being put into demining and reconstruction? More and more I understand Paul Oestreicher's call for an abolition of war.
In the meantime I wish my colleagues at ACT and all working with them the utmost safety as they carry out this risky and painstaking task, no surgical quick fix talk at this end of the story. The aftermath of war takes many lifetimes to clear up. We forget so easily.

You can also view the photos in the Independent.

Vulnerability and celebration

Today has been a day of vulnerabilty and celebration. The new ACT alliance was launched at lunchtime with a simple service focusing on the Magnificat and then a screening of the new ACT video (which is fabulous). At the service Olav Fykse Tveit preached on the Magnificat, you can read the sermon here, here's an extract.

The Magnificat has a strong message to us: In the lowest we find the highest. In the smallest we find the greatest. In the most vulnerable we find the power of God. We are called to magnify, for the benefit of those who need it, for the glory of God.
Some of us have had the experience and some of us can experience the great miracle of magnifying the Creator by carrying the life of another person into life. In these days, nine months before the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we sing the words of Mary with joy and with trembling awe. The vulnerability of life comes so close to us. This was also the reality of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In this vulnerability is the power of life. Here is God the Creator, here is the promise for the future, inside the body of a woman.

Personal tragedy touched members of staff today and we have wept and prayed and sought to find meaning even as we continued with our work ... it has been hard, we have worked and prayed and cried and hugged and celebrated and supported one another, that has been a celebration of the essential vulnerability which is at the heart of our faith but also somehow part of our work and professionalism. Expressing incompression at life's cruelty and tragedy has to be part of faith. I end the day giving thanks yet with tears still falling, knowing deeply that this is how life is ... joy and sorrow, pride and incomprehension, rage and rejoicing, fear and faith.

one rhythm one world for the launch of the ACT Alliance

Communications colleagues over at Act alliance are busy with the launch of the new alliance and have made this great video as part of the launch. There's one rhythm, one world and we're all in it together. Better get the beat!