One target of a US Drone
killing 12 civilians in Wedding
Caravan in Yemen

I ran across a picture quote today from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Thinking about it, there is lot of this kind of faith called for in scriptures and everyday life. We often do not know what the end, outcome or results, of actions will be so we take the first step without seeing the whole staircase. This is why it is so important that our first and each step, the means be the same as our end. This seems simple enough to understand, violence begets violence and history has taught us over and over again that the “means do not justify the end”.

Yet we continue to do it, use means we do not believe in to accomplish another end. “I voted for the “lesser of two evils” my friends often tell me. Why vote for any evil. We need to go to war to prevent war? We need to kill these people to set them free.

Killer drones, unmanned planes, are a good example of evil means, even though using for a good reason, bring evil results. Each week the President of the United States approves a “kill list” of suspected terrorist to be killed by drones and other means. On Dec. 12, 2013 a Yemeni wedding convoy of 11 cars was hit by four missiles from a USA drone. What or why this tragedy killing 12 persons happened we may never know. But we do know that senseless killings like this one do radical people against the USA.

We do know that Al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, a leading terrorist’s organization, has grown quickly in Yemen. “Whatever we do, they will never look at us as human beings,” said Dahabiya, the elderly mother of one victim, a cousin of the groom, who left a wife and six children. “We end up with wounds they cannot see.”

So evil and violent means only make for more evil and violence. Our first step, even in faith, should be through the eyes of faith and be what we want to see. We need to see with the eyes of faith the first and each step of the Way.

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