This, from the latest edition of In Hope by Dr. David Timms, really convicted me:

We marvel at military technology that targets and kills by remote control, rather than grieve the loss of life. We approve government spending to produce sophisticated weaponry that can obliterate villages and cities. We justify aggression as a necessary evil to protect ourselves, our families, and our possessions.

All the while, the gospel of peace withers.

In reading this, I couldn't help but think of Michael Douglas's character in The American President, when he says, after ordering the bombing of a Libyan Intelligence building:

Leon, somewhere in Libya right now, a janitor's working the night shift at Libyan Intelligence headquarters. He's going about doing his job... because he has no idea, in about an hour he's going to die in a massive explosion. He's just going about his job, because he has no idea that about an hour ago I gave an order to have him killed. You've just seen me do the least presidential thing I do.

This convicts me not for political reasons but because the loss of life does not phase me. It convicts me because I am like Douglas' colleagues who thought nothing of the innocent lives sure to be lost in the attack. It convicts me because I am the person who reads the headlines every day who Timms writes, "accept(s) it as inevitable in our fallen world, and return to our (my) relatively safe cocoons." Suffering and death do not bother me, they should, I hope they do more in the future.