We can't stop terror

Tomorrow is the second of the four Sundays in Advent. It is also St. Nicholas Day, and tonight millions of children throughout the German speaking world will be putting out their shoes in hopes he'll stop by with treats. It should be a day of peace, reflection, joy, and togetherness, but it won't be in much of the so-called "Christian West", for the simple reason that the terrorists are winning the fight for our hearts and minds. How sad is that?

Sure, we feel for all those who were ripped out of life in the attacks in Paris. Sure, we feel for those who were killed by the shooters in Colorado Springs, Savannah, and San Bernadino. We find ourselves asking "why" again and again, but we simply refuse to acknowledge what we all know is the answer to our question: we've become what we hate; we're complicit. And that's why we can't stop the terror.

Oh sure, we like to point to the turmoil in the Middle East and look down upon those uncivilized souls who simply can't stop fighting with one another and the world. We love to point our fingers in disgust at those who our misconceived religious fanaticism says we're justified in despising. And we overreact, both blindly and wildly, to the least bit of provocation from "them", whereas in truth we know that we are not one bit better.

Our reaction to 9/11, an alleged attack on our freedom? The Patriot Acts and more restricting and even eliminating many of those freedoms which had been attacked. Our reaction to the Paris attack, the latest attack on our freedom? Declaring a state of quasi-martial law and placing unrelated, environmental activists under house arrest during the recent climate summit; that is, restrictions on those freedoms (free speech, assembly) that had been attacked.

What do we abhor about terrorist attacks and mass shootings (which are, whether we want to own up to it or not, acts of terror)? The killing, the bloodshed, the violence. But how do we react? With even more violence. We started an illegal war in Iraq which directly and indirectly has caused the death of over a million innocent civilians. We aided and abetted terrorist organizations when they suited our purposes. After 14 years of violence, bombing, and killing in Afghanistan, the Taliban (a CIA creation) holds more territory and has more supporters than when we started. ISIS is a product of CIA intervention and years of funding and supplying by our so-called allies (Saudia Arabia, Qatar, Turkey), yet we say we are fighting them. We're supporting other "moderate terrorists" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) to oust a legitimate head of government in Syria, even though no one can explain to me how we acquired the right to decide who other nations select as their leaders. By what right do we inflict such violence on others? Imagine for a moment some foreign country would be doing this to us? There would be fanatic violence from every corner as every gun-owning American and others would be violently reacting to the violence inflicted from without.

Of course, when that same violence comes from within (the attackers in Paris were European citizens) but they fit our propagandized profile (Middle-Eastern names will suffice) it's terror and the reaction is more violence to "them". When the same violence come from within but they're more like us, they are mere individual psychopaths. But, they aren't. They are the products of the veil of violence that covers all our actions and reactions. All we know anymore is violence, be it in sports, competitions of any kind, politics and political campaigns, family disputes, communal security or foreign policy.

We've become what we hate. We can't stop the terror. We could, if we changed, but we won't.

You become what you hate

This is a special time of year in many regards. We're between holidays that are not so important anymore and perhaps the biggest American holiday and the universally Christian holiday of Christmas which is right around the corner. It is fitting, I think, that these all occur when they do, here at the end of the solar year, after the harvest, and in preparation for the retreat before the winter. This is a time of turning inward -- or it should be -- a time of reflection upon who we are, what we believe, and what we are doing.

There's an old mystic's adage that is particularly appropriate given all that I've been posting about lately: "You become what you hate."

Yes, speaking of hate at this time of year seems a bit incongruous, but only at first glance. The world seems to be full of hate these days. It's directed toward all kinds of "others": immigrants, political opponents, particular lifestyles, adherents of other religions ... you name it, there is a good number of people ready, willing, and able to stand up and decry just how evil all those others are, even if loudly decrying, and hating generally, are values we (and more often our religion) proclaim not to have.

Hate -- and it is actual hate in most cases -- is a dangerous emotion, not only because it is inherently destructive, but because of its insidious power to change us in such a fundamental, essential way. Someone who hates invests a lot of time and energy (and given the short spans of our lives, rare and precious resources) in that hate. The object of one's hate plays an essential and central role in our thought, speech, and actions. We are offended by the slightest of details which we come to see as ever more proof of the rightness of our hate. We end up knowing more about what we hate than we know about ourselves.

In the wake of WW2, it was the Communists who reaped our ire. Those God-hating, atheist oppressors and suppressors of freedom. But who is it these days turning on whistleblowers, passing legislation to rescind basic rights and persecuting dissenters? Oh, we still claim to love God and can't reaffirm enough our religious values, but ignore every precept which that rebellious Nazarene carpenter put so much trust in. We hate Muslims, those bellicose terrorists who want to turn the clocks back to the Middle Ages. But who is it that places religious values above so-called democratic ones and who worship a constitution that is centuries old itself? In place of the KGB which we held high as the prime example of suppression of freedom, we have the NSA and CIA who can't pry broadly and deeply enough into our own lives. In the place of humane values of community and cooperation, we have raised the values of competition and money to religious ideals.

It's not surprising, at least not to me, that we have come this far. And, it is even less surprising that most people I know would argue that I couldn't possibly be speaking to them. But I am. The change from one to the other is slow and subtle, but it's apparent nonetheless. The mystics were right then, and they're still right today: you become what you hate.

Valentine's Day interlude

It's that day again: the biggest holiday that isn't. The absolute most deceptively devastating self-image and self-confidence destroyer known in the US of A. Valentine's Day. This is the day that simply makes losers of us all.

First of all, we don't even really know who St. Valentine was or what he was good for. Second of all, it was the greeting card industry that marketed it, like so many other faux holidays, to increase sales; and yes, we fell for it ... again. And, third, and finally, of it all, how depraved and degraded do you have to be to single out one day a year to allegedly honor "Love". If you have to do that, you don't know what it is to begin with. You're just another loser who bought into the fad.

There was a time, and there have been cultures which have taken the notion of LOVE seriously. No, America isn't one of them: it doesn't know how to take anything that is serious seriously. Let's take the Ancient Greeks ... now there was a love culture. Why? Well, they recognized that there are simply different kinds of "love" and lumping them all together under one "word" is, well, a bit short-sighted. They had and understood different kinds of love, like eros (sexual love or attraction/desire), philea (brotherly love), or patria (love of the fatherland; yes, they were masculine oriented in that one), or agape (divine or transcendental love). But us, we English speakers, what have we got? Nothing really.

We're one of those poor, unfortunate cultures that has one central, therefore rather diluted notion of something -- in this case, "love" -- that needs to be further specified by adding some kind of descriptor, an adjective, if you will, so we end up with all kinds of phrases, like "platonic love", "sexual love", "brotherly love", "love of country", "love of self", but even though we use different words to describe them, they aren't all the same. Love is simply not love. But we've lost sight of that.

So what is it, really, that we celebrate on Valentine's Day. Well, let's examine the prototypical scenario for the day. Mr. I-hope-I-get-lucky BUYS flowers, candy, a card (or any combination, mix-and-match, variations or augmentations (I'm thinking balloons here) of those things, and these are the context for the GIFT (too often, depending on the intimacy of the relationship, something from not-too-serious, but noticeably firmly priced jewelry to intimate attire, or even -- gasp -- an engagement ring ... and tell me that's not tacky on Valentine's Day), and this will all be presented either throughout the day or at, yes, a special, intimate, romantic dinner at a restaurant that is one (or if you're particularly anxious or horny (if there is in fact a difference) at best two) price-class(es) above your usual dinner-date place. Commercialism has never been so venerated. But what does any of this have to do with love?

If you are together with someone and every day is not some kind of Valentine's Day, you've missed the whole point. Love, in particular the love between two individuals, is not expressed through goods and gifts and fancy meals. Love is expressed through sacrifice, most often self-sacrifice; through dedication and stick-to-it-ness when things are tough; through being there when you don't want to be, or even better, when you think you can't anymore; through pain and tears and heartbreak and sickness and building "the other" up when the world is coming down around them.

Yeah, I LOVE Valentine's Day, for it's the perfect day to let your significant other know that you haven't the slightest clue about "love" at all. And what's even better, how many of those "others" expect all that nonsense?

It's that time of year, again

The Church Year has run its course; the calendar year is approaching its end. And although time has passed far too quickly (at least as far as I'm concerned), we're not a bit better off than we were the last time I found myself reflecting on "the season", what it means or could mean, and why it would be to all our benefit if more people would reflect with me. Maybe it's because I'm getting older (aren't we all?) but there are times when I wonder how often you have to say something before another actually hears what you're saying.

Oh sure, most readers/listeners are well intentioned. And while I appreciate that for what it's worth, you'd think that after so many years and so much effort, you'd see a bit of a change somewhere, but there's none as far as the eye can see in any direction.

As this is a season of rejoicing, you can all rejoice that you're not going to get any uplifting or (hopefully) thought-provoking, Christmasy, or spiritual, lectures. If you're interested, there are almost 40 posts in the December blogs of the past three years where you can get your dose of that if you need it. For those of you who have read them, or most of them, or even some of them, you'll know that I don't care so much what you believe as long as you believe in something; I really don't care about what you do as long as it's not harmful or destructive; and I could care less if you are offended by others who believe differently than you. Get over it and get over yourself.

We need to face up to the fact that we use the "joy of the season" to distract us from things that matter and things that could make a difference. We who can are going to eat too much, party too much, buy too many things we don't really need with money we don't really have to impress people we probably only marginally like in the hopes of getting a bunch of useless stuff ourselves. We're going to drive more, have the lights on more and more lights on, we're going to spend a lot of time and energy trying to one-up a lot of others, and as a result, we're going to increase are carbon footprints significantly, produce tons of waste and refuse that has no where to go, pollute the steams, rivers and oceans, and ensure that we're not a bit better off than we were before the whole diversionary delusion started. Yes, we can certainly be proud of ourselves.

Meanwhile, the poor are getting poorer - around the globe; the numbers of the poor are growing too as are those of the homeless and incarcerated. The hungry are going hungry; the sick are not getting healed. The strangers are being shown no hospitality, rather are being shown the door. Although crime in general is decreasing, violence is increasing, often institutionalized and authorized violence in fact. The threat of terror and epidemics is thrown in our face every day. We are bombarded by advertising every moment of our waking lives. No, if we were to be truthful with ourselves, we'd admit that things aren't getting better, they are slowly and steadily getting worse.

But, hey, we've got a whole lot of celebrating to do. We wouldn't want to get all sad and depressed just because others don't know how to have a good time, do we? No, I suppose we don't. It's that time of year, again.

Who are we dealing with?

Before you get the wrong idea that I'm going to get all sappy-sentimental on you, you can forget it. I'm not proselytizing either. I don't count myself a member of that particular club ... there are too many in it that I'd prefer not to have to associate with. It's nothing personal, don't get me wrong, but there are just too many who have such little idea of what any of it is about that I'd prefer to settle my accounts on my own terms, if you don't mind. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean there isn't something to be learned from what they at least purport to believe in, even if they don't practice it.

I actually think that Kris Kristofferson (who might have been - and I believe most likely was - inspired by John Prine) put it best:

Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic food.
He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes.
Long hair, beard and sandals, and a funky bunch of friends,
Betcha they'd just nail him up, if he came down again.

OK, apart from the Capricorn thing, it's not a bad summary, and a little poetic license has to be tolerated to at least acknowledge that the choice of his birthday was something less than arbitrary. Nevertheless, we like to think that actions speak louder than words, and if we look at the actions of this particular individual, the "love and peace" idea isn't all that far-fetched at all. I mean, mass-feeding hungry people, healing the sick, forgiving your torturers. These, be they literally true or not, are big-ticket items. The intents that are being conveyed by the narrative are moving, inspiring, and, if you ask me, make for pretty big sandals to fill. Maybe that's why so many folks don't even try.

Yes, I know, he was also a troublemaker. Lord knows we shouldn't be hanging around with people like that, but just what kind of a troublemaker was he? Certainly not violent (if you forgive him the money-changer thing), certainly not subversive - he insisted one should pay one's taxes (Mat 22:21, Mk 12:17) - but he still managed to rub the establishment the wrong way. Have you ever really asked yourself why? I have.

My current theory is quite simple, actually: there is one thing about him we can agree on independent of any theological or religious sentiments we may harbor, namely, he was damn good at holding up a mirror and asking, what do you think of how that person you see is behaving? That'll get us every time.