RBWords - Volume 28 - Number 4: April 2015
Something to Think About
A terrible earthquake in Nepal, an erupting volcano in Chile, capsizing boats filled with immigrants fleeing war and violence in the Middle East and Africa, and racial violence in our own country - it's all so sad and discouraging! Why must human kill or harm other humans at all? Since Cain and Abel, the problem has been with us. It's hard to join in conversations about what is "justifiable" when one believes none of it is justifiable or necessary, and no amounts of "What if's..." will make a difference. It gets harder when the violence is natural, such as the earthquake or the erupting volcano. Why must nature be violent?
I certainly do not subscribe to the dubious theology that concludes any natural disaster to be divine punishment for some sin or other. Some of the statements made by well-known evangelists after Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy were distressing and irresponsible. Nor do I believe that violence is justified in the name of God by one human against another. The current ISIS phenomenon is a disgrace to Islam, just as some of the behavior of Christian crusaders centuries ago was or even more horrible, the attempted genocides against Jews by the Nazis and Armenian Christians by the Turkish government of the time.
My small hope is that Pope Francis' Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which will begin next Advent, will enter violent hearts to mitigate some of the constant tragedy. I hope, too, that his forthcoming encyclical on the environment will also help us to avoid abusing nature and trying to control it. I have to look for hope wherever I can find it. The heroic efforts to help victims of violence are certainly one source of that hope. The rest is one of prayer on my part! IT'S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.
It Has Been Said
Fundamentally, human history is a struggle between myth and gospel. Literature, ias it has developed in Western culture, is neither myth nor truth; it is the textual arena in which the two struggle for the upper hand. What myth conceals, what literature alternately conceals and reveals, and what the gospel decisively reveals are the social dynamics that produce what Giraard calls "the essential complicity between violence and human culture."
from VIOENCE UNVEILED - HUMANITY AT THE CROSSROADS by Gil Bailie