woke up thinking about . . .

whenever i am tempted to start with that line, the beginning of bruce cockburn's "get up jonah" jumps into my head:

woke up thinking about turkish drummers
didn't take long -- i don't know much about turkish drummers . . .

~~~

sorry i've been non-blogging for several days. on the trip to nyc, i met a law professor who'd just returned from rwanda, and the conversation got me waking up thinking about the genocide there, a subject which has fascinated me since i read philip gourevitch's we wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families ten years ago. (rwanda is neighbor to the congo, where i lived for a few years as a child, so i think this is part of the pull for me.)

i've spent all my writing time this week wrestling with the importance of genocide in the debate about pacifism and peacemaking. one reason it is important is that genocide gives us a character in the story with whom we can easily identify (the neighbor), and i think this may offer some interesting perspectives.

the essay is way too long for a blog post, so i'll probably post random thoughts from it here this week.