Posts filed under 'Violence'
November 19th, 2007
Saturday, at the cabin, I listened to two Blue jays argue. They broke off only to fly to a new tree and a new perch where they took up the quarrel anew. Blue jays, or Western-scrub jays, which these could have been, are territorial and so I considered their argument exactly that. Eventually, on one tree, the argument resolved itself. A bilateral agreement was birdally enacted.
I share this little patch of ground with occupants I didn’t invite but were here long before I was. I take comfort in knowing they are welcomed here. I take comfort in the growing squirrel midden under the spruce and beside the old wooden-spoked wagon wheel. I take comfort and am warmed by the circle of fire built from the Black poplar that have changed form and now lie on the floor of the woods.
The smallest of arachnids as landed on my page. Smaller than print, the brown spider fits nicely inside a lower-case “o.” I lower my book and let her float to the ground.
It’s hard to imagine from my chair by the embers that the world is bleeding over unresolved territorial quarrels. But then, perhaps not. I have blood on my own hands. How often have I peered through hooded eyes to reach out and grasp a centrepiece or a moment not meant for me?
But somewhere there is liberty. Somewhere there is a fascinating freedom. But it is not within my self. It is in another. I am only and always set free by another. Someone outside of my rivalrous self. Someone moving beyond rivalry.
The Blue jays’ migration remains a mystery. One will stay far north and another will fly. Some will stay one year and leave the next. One will migrate on que–in season, and another will arrive. I like to imagine the jays’ migration mystery an elaborate system to keep themselves free of damaging ongoing territorial disputes.
November 13th, 2007
Since I mentioned Siegfried Sassoon in the last post as a kind of “anti-Flanders” poet, it’s only right I post a poem.
Survivors
No doubt they’ll soon get well;
the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’ —
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.
They’ll soon forget their haunted nights;
their cowed Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,—
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they’ll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter’d all their pride…
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.
Soaked in sarcasm…but he did have the right.
He was full of heady idealism when he enlisted at the outbreak of the first world war. And his early poetry pictures war as a noble enterprise. But when he got to the front, got to the trenches, saw the limbs and smelled the stench of violent death, and when his comrades and some of his family became casualties, he began to examine his adopted idealism and his poetry turned from a romanticization of the war to its portrayal in language with razor-edge reality.
His friend, Robert Nichols, another poet and soldier, quotes him as follows:
“Let no one ever, from henceforth say one word in any way countenancing war. It is dangerous even to speak of how here and there the individual may gain some hardship of soul by it. For war is hell, and those who institute it are criminals. Were there even anything to say for it, it should not be said; for its spiritual disasters far outweigh any of its advantages.”
November 11th, 2007
Perhaps I wasn’t really listening, perhaps I too was caught up in a kind of collective amnesia over the evil of war that seems is at its height this time of year. Perhaps I was too caught up in the spirit of the poppy that sees any kind of detraction from the geist of this commemoration, or ritual, as treasonous.
But this year, upon listening to a reading of “In Flanders Field” I was repelled. Please understand, I hold no disdain, only sympathy, for the veteran who read it and I have only sincere sadness for the war dead the poem regards. And for the Canadian poet of “In Flanders Fields,” Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, (1872-1918), I hold no aversion, only a grievous sort of empathy.
Not so for the poem. It’s a disaster. It’s terminal message, a message we have enduringly embraced perpetuates our plague. (Just for the record John McCrae, for reasons known only to himself, threw the poem away. It was retrieved by a fellow officer.) It reads:
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
While the living fight the wars, it is the dead that sustain war. Always the dead. We are manacled to the dead through errant patriotism, through a kind of Don Cherry vindicatory vision of justice, and through our inability to see our enemy as human.
The poem cries out…humans on our side have died, and they were not like those who killed them, they were like us, they loved and experienced beauty. And now, slaughtered in war, it is up to us to avenge them; up to us to “hold high the torch” and to “take up the quarrel.” (Quarrel?) And if we fail, “break faith,” the dead will have no peace.
The poem is mythologized blackmail. And we will always succumb to the lure of war as justified revenge no matter what the original “quarrel,” unless we begin to forget.
It is time for some selective forgetting. It is time to forget the spirit and message of this poem and insert some poetry from Siegfried Sassoon. Sasoon, also a decorated WW I veteran, exposed not merely the horror of war, but its meaninglessness.
Is it possible to have the dexterity of heart and mind to compassionately remember the war dead, without in any way honouring and legitimizing war? Well, not if we adhere to the message of ” In Flanders Fields.”
Unless we wish to remember war’s pointless destruction, the epithet, “Lest we Forget,” perpetually serves war. An open-eyed “lest we remember,” must be our new commemoration.
September 28th, 2007
This morning I found this posted on a couple of Myanmar/Burmese Blogs.
BaganNet, Myanmar’s main ISP has been shut down for so-called “maintenance reasons” and most of the telecommunication services have been cut off or tapped. Information flow out of the country has been strictly monitored and even the amateur photographers are warned to be very careful as the Junta is hunting down the sources.
Numbers of blog posts have been reduced tremendously these days; nevertheless it’s very encouraging to see that some freedom bloggers are still in contact with the outside world and are working their best to keep the world up-to-date with latest Myanmar news.
The marches begun by monks and nuns, are still going on even as the crackdown has begun. That the telecommunication links are being cut is an ominous sign.
Small things still count. You can sign a petition to support the people of Burma here. The petition will be sent to United Nations Security Council members (including the dictatorship’s main backer China) and to media at the UN, while also alerting the Burmese to our support:
September 18th, 2007
While initially heartened by Iraq’s cancellation of Blackwater’s licence to do “business” in Iraq–the revocation coming because of the killing of 11 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad–the on-second-thought came quick enough. Second thought: Since when does Iraq tell an American firm what to do?
And sure enough, today, Iraq appears to be backing down from it’s resolve to withdraw Blackwater’s “business” the license.
My interest in Blackwater however is over its founder. You see, Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL, and a multi-millionaire right-wing fundamentalist Christian from a powerful Michigan Republican family. His wealth came from his father, Edgar Prince, who headed Prince Automotive, an auto parts and machinery manufacturer.
Prince shares Bush’s Christian views and not surprisingly is a major Republican contributor. His social circle includes Gary Bauer, who, with help from his father, started the Family Research Council.
Whether Blackwater is the most powerful mercenary army in the world, with a blank cheque from the Bush administration, as Jeremy Scahill claims in his book, or whether it is just a private security firm operating in a war zone, and other zones–like protecting corporate holdings during the New Orleans flood–one thing is clear; it has become the most successful security organization, and the richest, in the history of security firms (a.k.a. mercenary armies).
And why? Well, probably because Blackwater does have something like a blank cheque from the Bush administration.
September 13th, 2007
I have no doubt that Dr. Charles Stanley is sincere in his desire to encourage the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq. But his “Messenger” struck me as, well, a garish idea.
It’s not so much the smack of self-promotion in the guise of “filling a great need” by providing the army with “spiritual nourishment.” It’s the aura of pronouncement, of the square-toed Sunday school teacher who tells you what it’s like, what you need, when you know he has never been where you’ve been.That is, it’s “In Touch’s” envelope of safe and willing ignorance of what really goes on and what happens to the psyche of soldiers in war, specifically this sad and detestable war. (Here I would implore Charles Stanley’s ”In Touch” readers to go out and pick up Chris Hedges’, “War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.”)
Now, I’ve disagreed sharply with Stanley on a couple of previous posts–over his Biblical justifications for war, which in effect is a Christian sacralizing of war–so maybe I’m over-reacting, or maybe I’m reacting to him, personally. I’ll let you decide. If you’ve a moment (to squander) here’s what’s on his site:
Thousands of U.S. troops are now stationed around the world. Far from their families, friends, and churches, they have a tremendous need for encouragement and truth from the Scriptures. But their missions often carry them far from a chapel and chaplain.
Understanding the need for spiritual instruction that men and women in combat areas have, Dr. Charles Stanley said, “In Touch wants to help military chaplains share the love of Jesus with U.S. soldiers. Today’s technology is providing amazing ways to share the gospel with people around the world.”
The In Touch Ministries Messenger is a nearly indestructible solar-powered audio device designed specifically for the American soldier. It holds more than 70 hours of messages from the ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, including these powerful series:
-Facing Life’s Obstacles
-Living the Extraordinary Life
-The Ways of God
-How to Release Your Burdens
-Living in the Power of the Holy Spirit
The need is great, and the Messenger will be a vital tool to provide spiritual nourishment to members of the U.S. military. Its lightweight construction, earphone jack, and solar panels for recharging make it the ideal audio player for troops in the field.
In Touch Ministries is committed to delivering 20,000 Messengers to U.S. troops in August 2007. This initiative is powered by Dr. Stanley’s desire to share the Word of God with military men and women everywhere. But its level of success will be a direct result of the support we receive from In Touch partners.
The good news here is that this is something you can feel good about not supporting.
Just one more thing Dr. Stanley. While your helping the strafed and hunkered troops to “Face Life’s Obstacles,” and “Live the Extraordinary Life,” perhaps you take a couple minutes of those seventy hours to explain how their President, with supporters such as yourself, concluded that their lives were necessarily expendable for the illusion of containment of a terrorist element that will only grow as a result of the war and ongoing occupation, and how, again, the war has nothing to do with the control of a diminishing natural resource. And again, how the gospel endorses all this. Or is everything explained in your new book , Landmine’s in the Path of the Believer? (Yes that’s the title.)
August 27th, 2007
…righteousness and peace will kiss each other. (Psalm 85)
Righteousness is a word that probably needs a reclamation project behind it. But here’s a start: Righteousness is relaxing into God. It’s relaxing into the giver of creation, the giver of earth, body and soul. It’s the kind of relaxing that you might call love. And just maybe, you do love, because you find that God is the kind of God who wants to recline with you.
Peace is a word we have a decent handle on. But let me try this for a definition: Peace is the pain you feel when you see some misguided brothers strap on bombs and walk into marketplaces. Peace is the sadness you feel for people who hate each other.Peace is the anguish you experience for both victimizer and victim, because both are your neighbours. Peace is the unexpected experience of inner travail over violence of any type. Peace is a kind of fatal freedom that dizzies you because you’ve been relaxing with God.
Righteousness and peace kiss each other in those times we love God and neighbour intently and equally. Maybe, with any luck, and a visit from grace and mercy, we might experience this kiss once or twice in our lives.
August 21st, 2007
I’ve wondered sometimes, how much I contribute to keeping war alive. Does the steam of my half-conscious half-baked desires rise and add to the ethane that war breathes? Does war seep out of our my pours in my grasping after never-enough. Do I breath war into the atmosphere through my impatience; impatience that can set me off envisaging the infliction of wounds on the head of some mere place-stealer.
And what about resentment? How free am I from this time bomb?
Can I liberate myself from resentment without the sense that I am absolving someone who harmed me? A sidestep that misdirects energy and creates no new possibility. Can I keep an experience of being hurt, slighted, snubbed, overlooked or worse, from hardening into resentment? which will always lead to some kind of retaliation.
I’m convinced that resentment holds within itself any and all forms of conflict and the combustive capacity to set off all kinds of wars. And resentment always sustains wars, because while wars are fought by the living, or at least, the still existing, it’s the dead on each side that fuel them.
But this much I’ve contemplated and now believe. That when the dry vapours of resentment, anger and ill intent become saturated by disarmed hearts, peace will condense and rain down and wash over our faces.
This is the dew point of peace. Enough disarmed hearts to soak and quench resentment and hatred.
From where will these hearts come? How do we demilitarize our hearts to where they are innocent of retaliation and free of resentment?
Imagine the imagination of a disarmed heart. The kind of imagination that sees possibility in laying weapons aside, that sees defeat as being an opening, that understands that being killed is not nearly the final word.
June 14th, 2007
This morning as I walked, I was witness to an instance of road rage. A man in a van, honking. Smashing the heel of his hand into his steering wheel. Pounding his fists on the dash. Yelling.
The air inside the van was finally too full to contain the tinder-dry rage and he opened his window to let it out. And out it came.
Everything–all of it venomous–all directed at one lady in a small blue car who misjudged the traffic light change and the line of vehicles ahead of her and wound up in the middle of the intersection preventing the van from pulling out.
The lady, wisely, stared straight ahead, not acknowledging the tantrum. Much the way, I’m guessing, she would refuse to acknowledge the tantrums of her preadolescent. But an adult male having a tantrum is a frightful thing.
I walked between the van and the car with some misgiving. The green stream carried on and finally tapered off a red light interval later. The intersection cleared and the van pulled away and left me wondering what this added and took away from his day.
What it is that sets us off?
Last evening over supper my son Mark told us about a construction site supervisor who perpetually speaks with a raised voice. It’s like he’s in a perpetual argument. Anger subsiding only in sleep. And perhaps not even then.
We are an angry bunch. This is an angry generation. We seethe. We hate spasmodically. We have scorn seizures. We curse within and we murmur audibly and beneath our breath.
We mouth breath in short gulps, the oxygen only reaching the top of our lungs, and the bile stays in our blood.
We conceal most of it, but occasionally–for some more often–it catches us in an instant and we find ourselves in the grip of an incendiary fit. The place for healthy venting having been lost.
Our desires twist us around their fingers. Our communal experiences are shallow. Violence is contagious, air-born, even recreational.
We have few models to counter all this. Certainly, for example, none in parliament. Question period produces enraged doubles. Everyone mirroring and mimicking each other–the object of debate being the debate. Any real dialogue is swallowed up and the issues long forgotten. We need to find our models beyond our "leaders."
![P1030359 [1024x768]](http://growmercy.org/wp-content/uploads/p1030359-1024x768.jpg)
We need refuge from our fear. We need a fortress from our miserly desires. Better, we need a mercy-light, and we need a love-light, held for us by someone with no axe to grind and nothing to prove.
We need to receive our lives back through a renewing of our desires…a reordering of desire through the eyes of someone without envy or rivalry. We need to open ourselves to someone with lots of time to wait at intersections.
Technorati Tags: Road Rage, Anger, Violence, Parliament, Question period, Father James, Beauty, Peace
June 8th, 2007
David Silverman / Getty Images
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Before reading scripture non-sacrificially, that is, before coming to the place of reading all of scripture through the lens of the gospel, I was a "just war" advocate. In a way, reading the Bible through the Gospels instead of the other way around is the only way to read it against yourself, instead of for yourself, an admonition, I believe, of Karl Barth.
Anyway, before this kind of slow organic existential realization, I reckoned the best a Christian can do in the face of conflicting biblical messages about violence and about God, and in the face of practical realities of human rivalry, is to accept Augustine’s "just war" theory.
The criteria for Just War is:
the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
there must be serious prospects of success;
the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
Hattem Mousa / AP
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Now, if there is an attractive aspect of "just war" it’s this: If administrations agreed upon these criteria, almost all of the wars over the centuries could not have been justly waged.
But then, it makes one wonder if there has ever been a "just war" and wonder, even, if there can ever be one…especially considering the last condition. So even as a pacifist, "just war" in this strict sense, seems somewhat attractive.
Of course WWII and the Nazi Holocaust is always used as the lynch-pin to support "just war" and to dismiss pacifism out of hand. However, while entry into WWII might pass the "just war" test, the argument would be on much better footing without the two nuclear strikes upon Japan. But that’s what happens in war; that is the ’spirit’ of war. Restraint becomes impossible. Violence blinds us and war becomes it’s own reason. (This is one of the lessons in Chris Hedges’ book, "War is a Force that gives us Meaning.")
Jamal Saidi / Reuters
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As well, there’s also the historical scholarship that says that if Germany wasn’t so demoralized by the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler would never have risen to power in the first place. That we help create Stalin’s Hitler’s, Hussein’s, Khomeini’s, and Bin Laden’s, through our exploitive policies and scapegoating violence, not to mention our inability to "wage just war," is evident enough. The Middle East is too clear an example.
I may be wrong but I don’t see Jesus endorsing "just war." I see Jesus as peace-giver. But I also see Jesus as angry at injustice, and as actively putting himself in the way of oppression, but always in a non-violent way. Jesus was a pacifist, but he was never passive.
Technorati Tags: Jesus, Just War, Nazi Holocaust WWII, Chris Hedges, Stalin, Bin Laden, Christianity, Peace, Violence
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It’s hard to imagine from my chair by the embers that the world is bleeding over unresolved territorial quarrels. But then, perhaps not. I have blood on my own hands. How often have I peered through hooded eyes to reach out and grasp a centrepiece or a moment not meant for me?
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