Atonement/Christianity/Peace/Religion/Violence

Scapegoating Violence Exposed

Posted on by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

(Continued from yesterday’s post) RichardLanding-l

After reading Alison’s story in "On Being Liked", the incident I described in the last post and my treatment of Colin came back to me like a swift blunt blow. More importantly, the truth and insight that the Gospels attest to regarding my (our) sacrificial ways, and how God desires to save us from all that, leapt out with a freshness that I can hardly overestimate. That said, I dedicate yesterday’s and today’s post to James Alison. (The following is a mere stencil of his thought.)

To the conclusion…

Let me revisit my experience with Colin. Imagine that when we were chasing Colin, he had run into traffic and been hit by a car and was hospitalized for a few months. It’s not hard to see that after a short time of regret, perhaps even genuine remorse, our group would be irritably off balance until we found someone else to pick on. And of course, with Colin gone, all of us on the lower levels of the prevailing power structure would be seriously worried.

But now suppose that Colin, having healed, came back to school not sullen, or angry, or vengeful; not holding on to any resentment, but entirely free and open and wanting to play with us, because he truly liked us. And what if it became apparent that he always did like us, had always wanted just to play with us, but that before our causing his injury, we just couldn’t see it.

Because the relationships in our group depended on there being an outcast, this would be hugely destabilizing. But, at the same time, Colin’s presence would now offer us a way of relating that was free from there being others who were supposedly inferior or superior to us. That is, free from structures of power.

And in this buoyant freedom we could find ourselves called into being people we had no idea we could be. Because Colin’s non-violent “liking-presence”, would be our forgiveness. In this way, Colin could become our radical counter model.

This, of course, is what is offered to us by Jesus Christ. Jesus, in allowing himself to be the ultimate scapegoat, and through his resurrection-as his forgiving and merciful return, is now our radical counter model that has nothing to do with retaliation, shame, or any sort of violence.

In his dramatic self-giving act, Jesus exploded the power of the “scapegoating mechanism” and its false unity through sacrificial violence, offering us the possibility to renounce involvement in it and embrace true peace. As Christ put it, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.”

Grow Mercy

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Atonement/Beauty/Christianity/Religion/Spirituality/Violence

My Involvement in Scapegoating

Posted on by stephen t berg / 1 Comment

When I was in grade six, there was a group of us that picked on Colin. Colin was in our class and always got better grades than everyone else. He was also ungainly and preferred sticking to himself. In short, Colin was a "natural" outcast.

I remember one day agreeing with a few of the bigger boys in our group to corner him after school and beat him up. Colin somehow smelled our plan and when the bell rang to end class he was the first one out the front doors, running as fast as he could to his house a few blocks away. But I was a fast runner. I caught and tackled him before he made it out of the school grounds. The other boys, having caught up to us, began to beat him up while I stood there watching.

The utterly detestable thing about this, besides the act itself, was that at the time, I had no remorse for Colin, only relief that it wasn’t me flailing away on the ground. I knew my action gave me a place within the group; but I remember having the vague feeling that without Colin around I might have been the target. In some twisted way I needed Colin to occupy this place.

I’ve since learned from anthropologist Rene Girard, that Colin was our "scapegoat". In some elemental way our identity was bound up by being something that Colin wasn’t. And so, while he was the "outcast" he was also the thing that unified and solidified our group. For a while at least, any conflicts in our group could be solved by a new round of bullying, or "scapegoating" Colin.

Now while we pretty much knew that abusing Colin in this way was wrong, we didn’t understand the dark dynamics of our involvement in this "scapegoating violence". We didn’t know, as Rene Girard has shown, that this "scapegoating mechanism", in all its limitless permutations, is at the bottom of all kinds of "power plays" and power structures, from schoolyard bullying to "office politics", from church splits to gang wars, and from the creation of cultures to the founding of religions.

We didn’t know because the mechanism has an uncanny ability to stay hidden when we are personally caught up in it. It’s usually only when confronted by our own deep complicity in scapegoating violence that we are able to choose another way. Mercifully, there is a story that can confront us, and begin to heal us. (Continued)

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Uncategorized

Starbucks Log: Sleepless in Edmonton

Posted on by stephen t berg / 3 Comments

Somehow the underwater nasal strains of Bob Dylan always settle me. Dylan has the voice of a sad mystic, which is hope for me. It counters the sight of fire trucks and the sound of police sirens here on 9th street.

I like that sometimes Dylan’s muse is sick and his "horse is blind". I like it because I feel it; I know what that’s like. Sometimes words don’t come. They get stuck–jammed like logs at the throat of a river. They wait there for the river to rise. A rain perhaps. Perhaps they will wait until spring after the thaw.
—
I like the man in the bright orange and yellow vest with the broom and the heavy blue bag with the long handle, that serves as dustpan. I like him because he always says hello to me. Says hello to as many people as meet his eyes. You can tell he likes saying hello. I also like him because he keeps this concrete acre clean.

Today a lady that could be his wife is working with him. What kind of life do they have? Does he say hello to his wife several times a day?
—
Lately I’ve been waking up late. 6:30-7:00 AM. The reason is that I wake up early, around 3:30-4:00, and lie awake for an hour or more before falling back to sleep. What’s that about? Certainly not the sleep-of-the-dead. Which is fine with me if that’s my alternative.

The people that are writing "spots" for Hope Mission’s Radio-thon had a story of a guy wandering the streets, not sleeping for eight days. I read someplace that after eleven days you die. Thinking that the man in their story was an anecdotal-composite-man, I told the writer that we don’t see too many people who haven’t slept for eight days and asked him to adjust the story a bit. But he came back to me and said the eight days was an actual quote.

I know street guys-I talk to them-who claim to not have slept for several days; and by the zombie-signs I believe them. But eight days? What would that be like?

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Beauty/Spirituality

Greenhouse for the Soul

Posted on by stephen t berg / 1 Comment

The lady in Starbucks this morning, who asked me whether or not I could get a weather report on my laptop computer, was wearing a loud fluffy orange scarf. One of those you would have seen on a starlet in the thirties–all wispy and feathery–hiding neck, chin and shoulders, dwarfing the rest of her body even though she wasn’t exactly petite. She talked with a lisp caused by a cleft palate.

She was genuinely intrigued by the technology and was amazed that I could, if I wanted, listen to radio and watch TV and movies all on my computer. After she had enough information to walk with she put on her long brown leatherette coat, re-wrapped her scarf and left. I looked over at the young lady reading the newspaper at the next table. I couldn’t quite make out from the turn of her mouth, whether she found the scarf-lady or our conversation slightly amusing.

I’ve spent most of my life wanting to fit in somewhere. If I’m honest, fitting-in has been the hidden quest of my life. Underneath my pursuits, from recreational to intelectual to spiritual, from John Krakauer to Nietzsche to St. Benedict, there is an intense desire in me not to be found amusing, but interesting.

I was in grade nine, on a morning break, when I turned to find myself the object of laughter by a group of classmates. The boy at the centre of the scrum was imitating me, holding up an invisible hair. And I saw myself.

I had a habit of being distracted in school and that morning I became preoccupied with a very long hair I had discovered on the knee of my jeans and had picked it off for closer examination. I didn’t know that I was being carefully examined at the same time.

Dwayne hadn’t counted on my stumbling onto his pantomime of me and when I caught his eyes, for a brief moment, we were both embarrassed. He however had the crowd guffawing and sniggering and recovered quickly, and turning his back to me went on with the show. Well, I only assumed he carried on because at that moment I dropped my head and I left the area immediately. I didn’t recover so quickly. Decades later I still remember the scene with precision.

Places of acceptance are greenhouses for the soul. But true places of acceptance are expansive, inclusive, not held together through the exclusion of some group or person or idea. True places of acceptance are places where you can wean yourself of the intense desire to fit in. When you find a place like this, return to it as often as you can.

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