I wrote this morning:
The banner line reads: A World Changed. I say, Really? The figurehead may be gone, but the underlying problem, that which caused the figurehead to resort to terror, is not. Where is the problem? We need to look into the collective societal mirror. Do we honor life? Do we make peace? By our fruits, we are known. Do we really know what these are? Do we really buy into the policies that our leaders enact in our names?I wonder if we really know how we stupid and foolish we are, like five year olds on a playground who cannot share the rubber ball. The decisions we make, as adults, sometimes seem to echo the mean and selfish child. Whereas we took pride in building the sandcastle and wielding the stick then, we now take pride in destruction and death.
How sad. How unenlightened. How un-evolved.
After a similar event several years ago, while some other tyrant fell (while we crowed) and other awful events occurred, I wrote this to a friend:
We spoke of emotional pain, and wondered together how it was possible to give others excellent advice that we cannot follow for ourselves. Recalling [a] recent sermon [where it was discussed how we are each made in the image of God], I surmised that it is not possible for us to look into the mirror--we must be face to face with the true image of God in order to receive the information God has to impart, and that it is for just that reason that primarily that there is more than one being. [Individuals] are necessary reflections of the ultimate truth that a mirror can only hint at; however broad and fine the resolution, a mirror image of self fails to impart what a living, breathing person can...
The mystery lives not only on the paten and in the chalice, but within the fragile architecture of sound [and of touch and of interactions and of speech and of so many other ephemeral things]...
I must admit, the horror of the continuing carnage of the ongoing conflict/WAR, combined with the equally senseless one-off horrors of events such as those at Virginia Tech, have engulfed me in an unspeakable sorrow. I went to my church, while the twins were at their respective karate and ballet lessons, and sat with the pastor, talking and praying. It was my thought to bring the church community together in a liturgy, not just to pray, but to cherish life, living, and the lives of the departed--not an office of the dead, but an office for the life eternal, on earth and not on earth.The office is supposed to honor life, but somehow, we get stuck on the death part, and glorify that more.
Today is a New Day, the newspapers proclaim. But I sit with Jeremiah and Micah on my shoulders, and I say that we have not been honest with ourselves, and that we continue to teach war and destruction and death and oppression and might-makes-right. And we give away our authority to people who misuse it, in our names.
I shudder that I sit with Evil Under The Sun everyday, and hear it called Goodness and Righteousness. Then someone says, "hey, let's go celebrate with a drink!"
Oh, darkness, darkness, how I am surrounded by it.
The mystery lies ever beyond, however. The mystery is engulfed in light. Our vocabulary cannot ever describe the life that the mystery holds and creates, vero de vero, being light within light. The Word is God, but we have never been able to hear it the way it should be heard, and so we cannot speak the mystery.
However, if we would but shut up, for a few minute--if we could stop the endless, mindless chatter of mouths and keyboards and even archaic pencils and pens, we might let the mystery speak to us.
Speak to me, Sweet Mystery! Speak to me! Teach me about light and life! Render my actions in the image of Your brilliance and peace, and guide me!
In the midst of darkness, I can apprehend your light, Oh Mystery Divine!
And I suspect that Yours is the only revolution that will survive.
Because it is not a war; we have misidentified the whole thing.
We need to lose the "r".
It is an evolution.
