Day 920 – Fear The One Who Can Destroy The Soul

A Lament

I am heartbroken (who cannot be?) by the senseless and abhorrent violence against faithful worshippers in Charleston, SC. It is so reminiscent of previous violent acts against African-American and Caucasian people in the nascent civil rights era. 

No words can console. It is a time of contemplation. We can only stand in unity as Christians and exercise our power as outsiders who constantly remember Jesus’ counsel, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” This advice is also offered in Luke. Mark, of course offers his original take on this reality in his assurance to the friends of Jarius whose daughter was deathly ill.

The heartbreak and anger over this event is no different than that felt over the 16^th street bombings, the killings in Mississippi and the lynchings across America, and senseless violence in Colorado and elsewhere.

What ought to be our response? Should it change my earlier posts on racism? 

Certainly as I am doing, joining hands in prayer as many of my brothers and sisters are doing tonight is a necessary part of our grief and search for strength.

I am troubled more by the words I read in African-American and my fellow Liberal friends’ posts in Facebook and elsewhere that lean towards violence against the symbols and people whose ears are stopped against the words above of Jesus about whom to fear, rather than seek the power to forgive.

I am struck by the words of an African-American person whose link on Facebook I cannot find now, who said, more or less, “We must stand united in our faith in the face of violence. We have the power (drawing on the reversal of power against the state by non-violence that Jesus represents) to stand firm against these acts. It is our only recourse.”

I stand by my earlier posts. If we believe this evil act committed by an ever-shrinking, dysfunctional part of our society stands as a special, broad-based indictment of American racism we have not done our history lessons well.

Back in October/November, 2010, when the Shiite/Christian/Sunni conflict in Iraq was in full force, a group of Shiite militia attacked a Catholic Christian Church, Our Lady of Salvation in Bagdad. They barged in with weapons at the ready and began killing as many as they could, staining the pews with Christian blood. 
A priest gathered a few and shepherded them into a back room. The militants were outraged and went around the outside of the church until they found a window into the room where the priest led the people. The broke the window and tossed in a few grenades killing all of the people inside. 58 worshippers died that day and the blood-stained pews stood as witness to the evil humanity can pour on itself.

The New York Times carried an article on this massacre with a photo of a male relative of one of the victims outside the church building afterwards. He wore a cross on a chain around his neck, sobbing on the shoulder of another man. I wrote a reprise of an earlier poem about this powerful event. I think it is appropriate for today's violence.

Enigma (reprise) – A Prayer for Our Lady of Salvation Church, Bagdad, Nov, 2010

The numbered hours given us come and they go,

Passing into days of prayer, yet each hour stands 
as sentinel to a persistent enigma of torment.

I flounder in it. Blindly. Daily.

We all flail around about it, 
helpless it seems.

Today, this agonizing enigma of love and violence,

the irony of lust and money, pride and love of God,

brings images of meaningless death and despair.

Blood on the wooden floor. Bits of flesh on the pews.

A barrier of barbed wire garlands the front doors,

as if the veil of the temple were torn.

They said the marauders were enraged

that the priest shepherded worshippers 
into a back room and locked the door.

Blinded by rage, the men, and boys, went outside,

searched and found a window to a room.

The screams made clear who was inside.

It was an easy thing, Allah Akbar,

to pull the pin and slip the grenade,

inside, into God’s house.

Someone put roses on the steps.

Yet, putrefaction hangs fetid 
in the hot, heavy air.

Three young men stand outside the church,

one leans against a friend 
sheltered in his arms.

I think I see a silver cross round his neck,

hidden partly by his collar and his friend’s arms

whose own shirt collects the young man’s tears.

He has sobbed 
so long his face 
matches the roses.

Is his grief over death,
the fifty-eight others?

Or over life itself?

 It is both, I imagine.

Daily we struggle with this enigma,
love and grace, and inhumanity, 
and our own unbelief.

We voice prayers, not for peace,
but National victory and mockery 
of an alien world far away.

Alas, we see only the face of malevolence

from our own world so good and rosy

we abuse every threat, repay evil for evil,

falling so fast into this bottomless pit.

We should beg in those prayers, 
not for victory, but

for escape from it.

Pray to turn this pit into some boundless sea,

where we can float free,

released from the evil in a human heart

that is born of displaced desire.

I don’t know…

In this quiet moment…

Shall I ask, 
or have the humility to lament,

“Why have we so horribly rent this wonderful gift?

Will You forgive us for

turning a timeless journey 
into an endless task?”

Can we, ourselves?

All rights reserved, 2010, Henry Paris  see: (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html)

Shakespeare had it right, ”The evil dear Brutus lies not in our stars but in our hearts.”

We can make the world a better place only one person at a time leading the way into the present Kingdom of God.  Friends, listen!  Make it a better place by your own Christ-like compassion. There is no other way to defeat evil.

Grace and Peace to all. And I send compassion to All Charleston, even including that poor troubled person who found a way to let his evil leak into our world. The matter is between him and his Maker now. 

Amen.