Step forward: we hear

That you are a good man.

You cannot be bought, but the lightning 

Which strikes the house, also

Cannot be bought.

You hold to what you Said.

But what did you say?

You are honest, you say your opinion. 

Which opinion?

You are brave.

Against whom?

You are wise.

For whom?

You do not consider your personal advantages.

Whose advantages do you consider then?

You are a good friend.

Are you also a good friend of the good people?

Hear us then: we know

You are our enemy. This is why we shall

Now put you in front of a wall. But in consideration of 

           your merits and good qualities

We shall put you in front of a good wall and shoot you

With a good bullet from a good gun and bury you

With a good shovel in the good earth.

-Bertolt Brecht "The Interrogation of the Good"

Politics=Polarization

Excuse this remarkably illogical statement and allow me to qualify it. Politics in any broad context, specifically targeting capitalist democracies, has inherent in its creation the need for minority and majority, of which the majority will have a say that the minority cannot approach outside of activism and civil disobedience. It empowers a group based on a utilitarian principal that it is the most numbers voting for the most good that can be done for those numbers and those who dissent practically or ideologically are pushed to the margins.

Politics=Polarization

Global politics takes this to an extreme that encompasses all of the human community, although we can talk less here about the hegemony of the majority than the hegemony of the pocketbook. The battle lines tend to be drawn along these patterns of hegemony, and, as it has been since the advent of the Polis, according to the desires of the opposing hegemon.

What am I saying, and why the beautiful poem? In short, for I don't have enough time to be eloquent and thorough in my stance on this particular topic, I want us to question which side of the wall we are on.

In circumstances of opposing practicality and ideology there are always two sides, what tends to mark our opinion is which narrative of which side we hear. These narratives are essential to our understanding of our particular orthodoxy (for that term exists as much in the dialogue of a Capitalist Democracy as it does in the Vatican) and these narratives serve to set us on our respective side of the wall.

I find lightning to be quite an interesting metaphor for Brecht's "Interrogation" we strike violently on impulse (emotional perhaps, not electrical) and though lightning's volition can be called into question we can rest well assured that without both narratives from both sides being heard our volition is as questionable as Zeus's. Volition stems from deliberation which comes from clear reflection on opposing viewpoints and then, with all information in hand, moving forward with a course of action. But let us be clear that deliberation is essential and should be handled with a patient and prayerful diligence. 

For this to be possible there must be an honest exchange of narrative, which, if there is any practicality in these ramblings it is this; we do not know both sides when we do not make an active effort to seek these narratives in equality, nor can we expect them to be provided handily for us. Our process before volition should be careful and informed, diligent and slow, with clear grasps of all opposing narratives before moving forward.

Without the information necessary to deliberation our volition is that of a spark falling from the heavens towards a house. We know our destination, but we know not which side of the wall we're on.

On our Circumstances

Our Circumstances

Partire

 Hodie, 7:54am | Mutare Annotationem | Delere

The Lord didn't let me sleep last night, and though I find myself in that position all too often, sitting awake cursing what may very well be a developing problem, all I have found is that the words of the saints come trickling in too often in those times where I would otherwise be spinning in unconscienceness, oblivious to those revelations that the Holy Spirits inspires in our waking moments. 

Earlier this week I was sitting in the midst of seminarians looking over the word when a building inspector interrupted our bible study. He was trying to find out if the house that we were meeting in had suffered any flood damage in the rains that flooded much of this area just a week earlier. We told him no, there had been no damage, this house remained quite safe during the downpours and he stopped long enough to say this before he left. 

"I'm a believer," he began, in the voice of a working man, "and through all of this i've heard people ask 'Why did the Lord let this happen?' well, just because you love the Lord don't change the fact you live on a flood-plain." 

I have heard too many a prophetic voice from men who in no way see themselves as prophets. 

The joy of the Gospel is the joy of our accessibility to grace, the joy of a Lord who knows our experience from making himself a part of that experience. The word became flesh and dwelt among us, not just in the sense that He inhabited our world. He experienced the joy the pain the sorrow that all of us experience. He cried. He wept. He sweat blood in a garden so we could all know that he was among us. He did all this so we can know that to reach him, to encounter him we do not need to look to the Heavens and search scripture until our Greek is exhausted and our Hebrew is broken, no. To access him we look laterally, around us, in the experiences he knew then, and that we know currently.

I will never truly know what this means, but I can infer this much; we can access him. We can put our best intentions in a man who, fully human and fully divine, knows them all to well. He does not change our circumstances, but he enables us to trust in a strength that we alone CAN NOT know, and if we take that strength and squander it on useless endeavors of self fulfillment then we are not living up to the prophetic voices that surround us daily. 

On our own we are useless to our brother. We can do nothing. God made flesh expressed through our actions with HIS empathy can change circumstances. When we curse heaven we do nothing, we look outside, not at the salvation that is available in us and for us and for our brothers who need more that we are able to conceive. THAT changes circumstances, ours and our brothers.

We can die and leave everything that was useless and trivial behind as we rally a strength that we did not know, because it is not our strength. You can look around, call it the human spirit, call it the son of man, call it inspiration, call it devotion. We drink from many springs but the source is the same. 

The joy of the Gospel is that we can die, and through a strength we did not know, live again. We can live for our brothers, for this world that is consuming itself because it does not know what it needs. It does not know what it is capable of.

Call it the name that works for you, and know that we can move away from the flood plain.