the person in the mirror

I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
After that I liked jazz music.
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this ever happened.

I'm currently reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I'm really enjoying the book so far. I've found myself thinking that's me often as i flip through the pages.

As i looked at a news article on Fox, i couldn't help but wonder how these things were actually happening. How could anyone do that?

-Texas Man Gets 25 Years in Jail for Burning Infant Daughter in Microwave Oven
-Man Claims to Speak 'Australian' After Allegedly Being Raped by Wombat
-Physics Teacher Allegedly Gets Student Pregnant, Takes Her to Get Abortion
-Woman Who Sat on Toilet for Two Years Still 'Very Sick'
-Two Snipers Sought in Six-Car Shootings Along Virginia's Interstate 64, More State Troopers on Patrol
-Lawsuit: Female Tigers Fans Unknowingly Starred in 'Soft Core' Videos
-Report: Spitzer Linked to Second Prostitution Ring
-Reward Offered for Ohio Woman Accused of Sex With 14-Year-Old Girl
-Police Shut Down Italian Circus After Woman Forced to Swim in Piranha Tank
-Woman Involved in University of Louisville Hostage Situation Charged With Killing Her 2 Children
-Oregon Woman Who Said She Had Sex Change Now Claims 'He's' Pregnant

Some of the stories are more weird than disturbing... but my question is- who could do these things?
Could you?

So i've been watching Nightline with Ted Koppel lately. He isn't as smart as Ray Swarez but he tries, and that counts. He's been in the Congo, in Africa, and it has been terrible. I mean the show is fine, but the Congo isn't doing so well. More than 2.5 million people have been killed in the last three years. Each of eight tribes is at war with the other seven. Genocide. As the images moved across the screen I would lie in bed feeling so American and safe, as if the Congo were something in a book or a movie. It is nearly impossible for me to process the idea that such a place exists outside of Portland. I met with Tony the Beat Poet the other day at Horse Brass and told him about the stuff on Nightline.

“I knew that was taking place over there,” Tony said. “But I didn’t know it was that bad.” I call Tony a beat poet because he is always wearing loose European shirts, the ones that lace up the chest with shoestring. His head is shaved, and he has a long soul patch that stretches a good inch beneath his chin. He isn’t actually a poet.

“It’s terrible,” I told him. “Two and a half million people, dead. In one village they interviewed about fifty or so women. All of there had been raped, most of them numerous times.”

Tony shook his head. “That is amazing. It is so difficult to even process how things like that can happen.”

“I know. I can’t get my mind around it. I keep wondering how people could do things like that.”

“Do you think you could do something like that, Don?” Tony looked at me pretty seriously. I honestly couldn’t believe he was asking the question.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Are you capable of murder or rape or any of the stuff that is taking place over there?”

“No.”

“So you are not capable of any of those things?” he asked again. He packed his pipe and looked at me to confirm my answer,

“No, I couldn’t,” I told him. “What are you getting at?”

I just want to know what makes those guys over there any dif ferent from you and me. They are human. We are human. Why are we any better than them, you know?”

Tony had me on this one. If I answered his question by saying yes, I could commit those atrocities, that would make me evil, but if I answered no, it would suggest I believed I am better evolved than some of the men in the Congo. And then I would have some explaining to do.

“You believe we are capable of those things, don’t you, Tony?”

He lit his pipe and breathed in until the tobacco glowed orange and let out a cloud of smoke. “I think so, Don. I don’t know how else to answer the question.”

...I realize this sounds very Christian, very fundamentalist and browbeating, but I want to tell you this part of what the Christians are saying is true. I think Jesus feels strongly about communicating the idea of our brokenness, and I think it is worth reflection. Nothing is going to change in the Congo until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror.

i know that was long. i don't know if anyone will read it... But i hope that at least one person besides me does.
Also those quotes were taken from Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz and i have no rights to that text. :)