Since I got up this morning, I have read emails and Facebook postings that have included a request to sign a petition to free a political prisoner, to contribute money to offset the onslaught of negative ads and attacks financed by the Koch brothers $125,000,000 (think of that!) to ensure that Democrats lose all over this election, to watch the grief of Mr. Martinez whose son died in the Santa Barbara shooting and to respond with a contribution, and to join with all those who are celebrating Memorial Day because I owe my life and liberty to those who fought to keep me free. I also had a note from a desperate mother whose mentally ill son is a patent risk to himself and to others, whose state government seems unable to provide the means and support to make sure he is removed from possible danger through evaluation and appropriate confinement. There is nothing in particular tying all these things together. Except that there is. In the broadest sense, each of these things is illustrative of the pervasive power of evil. Our society pays millions to see the epic story of evil versus good in Star Wars, and little kids dress up as Jedi knights warring against the evil Empire; but hosts of intelligent people will debate endlessly whether evil exists anywhere outside the human mind. One does not need to posit a Devil to believe that something is massively wrong with the world, at least the world of human experience. And wrong is too mild a world. We continue to wreak grief upon each other, and we celebrate the very instruments of that grief: ignorance, violence, militarism, greed, hatred, divisiveness, anger, deceit, self-centeredness. We tell ourselves lies and believe them to be true, either because we are the victims of vast delusions or because we are unwilling to face the Truth of which we are already aware. We abhor the practices of confession and repentance, telling ourselves that they militate against a positive self-image. We humans are pathetically run by profound fear. My own sin is sloth. I have grown lazy and unresponsive, throwing in the towel too many times, failing to believe that I can make any difference at all, believing that the world is too far damned to matter. I concede arguments to those who are themselves the happy agents of evil, wrapping themselves in the garb of piety and goodness, chanting the slogans of religion to justify their hatred and thirst for violence. I withdraw into the darkness of my heart, shutting out the banging of the storm around me, fixing upon some mantra that will put the craziness beneath me and the Truth above me. I shake my head and not my fist and mutter, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. It is not wisdom. It is resignation. Shall I remain stuck? Take up arms against a sea of troubles? Stand some safe distance away and gaze upon the folly all around me? Protect my once solid persona of being helpful and kind, offending very few, dodging disagreements and making nice? I will fight, by God. But a different kind of fight it will have to be. I begin by owning the evil in myself. The pride, hypocrisy and impatience of my life; my tendency to project my own inadequacies onto those who differ from me; my penchant for blaming others for the ills that warp and distort my own idealized world. I realize how little I love when I simply walk down the street glancing at others saying, I love you. Im sorry. Forgive me. Thank you. It is an action that puts me squarely in front of the fact that I feel no such thing. I am too much absorbed in my own dream of a quiet and peaceful world to embrace those who I know are destroying it, and I fail to understand that my very distance from them is the root of the problem in my own heart. I cannot change nor can I fix the world. But I can engage it. I can call out those who perpetrate injustice, while acknowledging my own. I can speak what I believe to be True without denying that I am myself captive of lies and deceit despite my conscious intentions. I can live in the present, not deferring my hope to a future world beyond this one, but realizing that eternity is as close to me as my heartbeat and that Love is the only flame that will never die. Not in condescension but in compassion can I learn to look upon the Old Enemy (who makes his camp in me, stealthy parasite!) and say, Father, forgive him, her, them: they know not what they do. I have no art but words, no medium but expression. I am left hoping that what I say (which is what I do) will somehow encourage others to find their own way to do their repenting, that we may all stand with faces unashamed and hearts unafraid in the end.
Posted on: Wed, 28 May 2014 12:54:58 +0000
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