The Martyrdom We Seek; or, Why Voting for Peace Has Become So Bloody Hard

I find it funny how, in many quarters, the world today is said to be awash in selfishness. Perhaps as never before. Rather as if our biggest societal challenges all boiled down to a sort of pervasive, consuming apathy. And that, of course, regarding anything beyond our most immediate (and self-gratifying) individual concerns.

Yet ask yourself, as you look about this churning Great Global World: Do you really find any shortage, not just of altruism, but of literal martyrs, and martyrdoms? And these often of the most costly and and sacrificial kinds? (To say nothing of blood-sacrificing.) Notice, too, how they seem to run the very widest spiritual gamut: everything from Hamasian diabolism, to Ukrainean "sanctity," to world-class nations gambling their economic futures for some chimera of Armageddon-like "total victory." 

At all events (and however much or little each side reflects Real Differences of Light and Darkness), what they seem to have most saliently in common is a blithe determination to count almost no cost whatsoever. And least of all to "their own" side, or among "their own" kind.  Maybe the assumption is that any harm I risk to myself is worth whatever piecemeal, "by-a-thousand-cuts" damage I can inflict on you. Almost as if I were confident, even at point of total collapse, of some assured relief or deliverance - maybe one that's supposed to come, science-fiction-style, from out of an alien realm. Or perhaps from another dimension? Or other side of eternity?

(Which, if so, in turn makes me wonder just what sort of bubble we're actually living in.)

Might I suggest, then, that the problem with our present, 21st-century world is not that it flees suffering, or hardship, or sacrifice. That may have been a fair enough diagnosis of, say, America and American popular culture in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. But it's an extremely poor and misleading description, either of America or of our Americanized, globalized world - including both mainland China and Saudi Arabia - since roughly AD 2000. The trouble with today's world is not that it doesn't know how to seek and pursue suffering. Along with, in a twisted sort of way, reveling in it, self-martyring by it, using it as a way of building one's own side up and putting the other side down (presumably for not being "sacrificial," or "dedicated," or "compassionate" - or even progressive - enough). Our global 21st-century world has no problem whatever doing and celebrating any of those things. The trouble with us today - and what may give us every deceptive appearance of "conventional" seflishness - is that we don't know how to accept suffering. Certainly none, in any case, that's not of our direct and express making. Or adversity, for that matter. Or difficulty. Or sometimes even the slightest inconvenience. But in particular, may I suggest, when it "comes from God"?

Speaking of Whom, what was it our parents used to say, once upon a time? "DON'T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE"?

Why I am a Lay Franciscan

1) In a world growing more and more addicted to scale and complexity, Franciscans learn that small, simple acts of kindness and care may sometimes be both more pleasing to God, and more helpful to real (as opposed to projected, or imaginary) human creatures. 

2) In a world where one can never have enough, Franciscans learn that having less somehow gives us not only more time and energy, but also more awareness and compassion for the needs of others (both human and non-human).

3) In an asteroid-filled universe (not to mention a drone-puzzled Pentagon)  that can seem every day more terrifying and unpredictable, Franciscans learn small, simple ways, not only of making "nature" friendlier, but maybe even, by God's grace, of bringing out the friendliness that is already there (in ALL kinds of creatures)?

4) In a world where one can never be strong and secure enough, Franciscans learn that trustfulness and vulnerability often point the Way to a more God-filled security, and a more loving (because more humble) strength.  

5) In a world where things can never go fast enough, Franciscans learn that slowing down can both minimize mistakes, and multiply awareness and consideration of others.

6) In a world of "service with a strain" - where one should never quite be oneself - Franciscans learn that being who we are is sometimes the best hospitality, and that one's own nature is usually the amplest foundation for the fulness of God's grace.

Think of it! A love that actually FREES!

Yes, actually frees.

As opposed to, you know, those modern-design modes of big, ambitious, DYNAMIC love, of which we find no little evidence in the Great Global World today. The sort of bold, take-charge loves - whether erotic/sexual, interpersonal, operational, economic, political, progressive, global, etc - wherein we find ourselves so drivenly invested in, say, the progress, or the transformation, or even the perfection of the beloved, that we seem to be offering them just about everything they could ever . . .  not want. Or, to put it more directly: everything they could ever want, except freedom. And in particular the freedom to be just themselves. And nothing but themselves. So help us God.

Which aggressive charity also, by coincidence, just happens to be the kind of love that makes Us Knowing Ones more emotionally secure and self-assured. And persuaded of our own rightness, or Right-Side-of-Historyness, or whatever. Never mind, of course, about the diminishing effects it may have on the security and confidence of those we love. Or at least try, and strain, to love. After all, if they are in some key operational sense our inferiors (at least for the provisional time being), it may be asked: What right do they have to a security and confidence even remotely on a par with ours?

Still I wonder, is it possible for anyone - even for Us - to be too confident? To be too sure of even Our Own good intentions? There are limits, after all, to the power (or even the benevolence) of any mere human manipulation, however superior its source. Imagine, then, if just for one day we took these loved ones, in whose perfection we are so drivenly invested, out of our own capable hands. And left them, say, in God's. Could we be as certain of their attaining, as quickly, that same utmost potential that's surely an ace-in-the-hole under our generous oversight? But now further imagine, we had no contact with them for one whole week. Or month. Or even for an entire year? 

And now suppose that - unthinkable though it be, and a heinous breach of responsibility on our part - we were never to see them again. Granted, God remains in ultimate charge. And no doubt He will take care of them, after His fashion. Yet wouldn't He so much the more prefer to work through Us? And if not, then why on earth has He created us in His image?? More to the point, why has He empowered Us to be so much better - at least for now - than the ones we're trying to help???

Which brings me to what I think is the pivotal question: 

Can we trust God enough to allow people their completest freedom from us - from our  expectations, urgencies and agendas? From our desires and longings and lusts? And still enjoy, marvel at, be enraptured with the end product? But in particular when all the God-indwelt fulness of that freedom entails their souls' liberty, not just from our busy minds and wills and agendas, but from their own. And all the more so, it seems to me, when those same souls' utterly natural, unlabored breathing at last opens a portal to Something barely suspected, even from within their own hearts: A Love, graciously acting upon - and yet fully consonant with - their own free will, that actually enjoys our freedom too.

The Real Price of Peace

So the markets took a real tumble early last week. And more or less globally, from what I understand (and whatever may be the real merits of the non-DJIA recoveries by week's end). 

Not, mind you, that I even begin to grasp all the different, myriad, apparently innumerable factors - both US and global - that have gone into producing this epic volatility. But what I do gather, from what seems to be the dominant narrative, is that whatever the various factors, and however much they may diverge, they are one and all intra-economic. I.e., they're all pretty much both intrinsic and confined to the economic realm, in that they're not in any significant way impinged upon by what one might call extra-economic factors. Like war, for instance. Along with the increasingly near-apocalyptic scales and stakes of our current and emerging wars. Plus the purported truth that, no matter how high-stakes and trans-worldly and potentially annihilational these wars get - why, the only rational and pragmatic (to say nothing of ethical) response is to escalate them still further, and more zealously. 

And confidently.

And that's another thing. (Don't get me started, right?)

Here I had thought that our Neojeffersonian Exceptionalist America - what with its juggernaut Empire of Liberty steamrolling across all corners of the globe, crushing every pocket of authoritarian resistance, etc - was supposed to usher in a more permanently rational, technocratic, apolitically efficient, non-ideologically productive, and profitable, but above all peaceful, world.

Oh darn, that's right: NO PEACE until every last enemy has been placed under our Messianic American feet. I.e., not till Russia, for starters, has been duly and properly attritioned, dismantled, decomposed. Followed by the ever-unpopular Iran (Ezekiel 38 and all that). Or in reverse sequence, if you like. 

And last but never least (but don't let this get out to the Evangelicals and other trusting parties) - yes, Israel. Or rather, in the latter case, no peace till Zion has been - well, not exactly crushed - but rather painted into the appropriately tight corner: one where she at last knows on whose real sufferance, and highly conditional good will, she continues to exist. Which is to say, not just those of "America" or "the West," but above all, of those benevolently disinterested middlemen mentioned in a previous post (par. 5).

In short, not till even the "Empire of Liberty" knows who's (the real) boss.

Carry on.

God's Other Face - and Ours

Nobody sensible ever said that love was easy. Much less meant to be so. But in spite of the fact that real charity requires real suffering, and sacrifice, I do continue to think that, too often, we exaggerate love's challenges: whether as a pretext for our own self-heroism and -glory, or as an excuse for letting ourselves off "love's hook." The point in the latter case being that "it's just too hard"; whereas in the former case, why, it's supposed to be hard, buddy - and should never, ever be anything else.

But especially in these busy activist times, I think we're prone to exaggerate both the hardships of love, and the ugliness, or unpleasantness, of those we are supposed to love. Or feel called upon to love. The reasons may be various, of course. But often they have something to do with the way we look at the universe. It could be our way of toughening ourselves against the perceived grittiness, or nastiness, or even malignance, of what is commonly called "real life," or the "real world."  Even as we perfunctorily continue to affirm its Creator's "goodness." Still in all, I can hardly help wondering: So far as we continually over-estimate, over-remember, over-prepare for the "war-and-conflict" aspect of life in the world, do we not also risk under-estimating, and even forgetting, the peace - let alone the love - of the God who made it?

For surely it can't be such a hard thing, to figure out how best to love the creature in front of me. It can't be so hard to be most alive to those of its characterisitics which are, one might say, most salient:  most intrinsic, if you will, or God-designed. And, of course, God-intended.

Or, to put it by way of contrast, NOT those of its traits which would likely be of most interest to a certain type of scientist, or other experimenter. Or bureaucrat. Or policy wonk. Or Amazonized manager.  I.e., NOT those traits that are, say, easiest to predict, and pigeonhole; to schematize and stereotype; to calculate or categorize; to dismiss or despise. Or be - continually - disappointed in. (Not that you expected all that much of the sorry creature in the first place.)

So of course, by salient, I don't mean any of these measurable, "scientific," "bureaucratic" traits, our sole focus upon which can make the uniqueness of any living thing that much harder to recognize and appreciate, much less love. I mean, rather, precisely those things about it that are most surprising, and in a pleasant way; that most unexpectedly exceeded our expectations, and disappointed our doubts and fears (or would, if just for once we allowed any creature a modicum of that delicious, serenely undismissive, undespising silence in which its real life could breathe.*)  

*Then again, who could afford even the mere time to do that, in this Great Operation of Life?

But in particular, I believe, any living - even human - creature would be easier to love, if only we could be alive, and alert, to something further about it. Or deeper within it. Something that's often if not nearly always hard to detect. And that sometimes can barely be sensed at all, despite our most strenuous efforts. Or at least, not apart from the Silence mentioned at the close of the previous paragraph. I mean that strange core of any creature's being in which, even more than it desires the wisdom, teaching or righteousness of its Maker, it hungers for His presence, and pleasure, and naturalness, and delightingness, and fascination, and absorption, and, indeed, all those things He most longs to be, for those who most utterly trust and delight in Him. As opposed to all those things He so often "has to be," towards those who most adamantly refuse to trust in Him (often, even while striving to serve Him), and so can find no pleasure or peace in Him.

In a nutshell? I think most people wouldn't be nearly so hard to love, if only we bothered to remember, and embrace, and (assuming it's not too hard) even love that soul in them - i.e., that core of each one of us - which is of so little interest to a certain kind of scientist, bureaucrat, manager, etc, precisely because, while it is easy enough for even our own minds and wills to oppress and boss around, it is so devilishly hard for anyone (other than God) to predict, and control.

Pray for the peace of Kyiv, etc. 

(Edited.)

The Nerve of Some People

So now Israel has the supreme gall to shut down the operations of Al Jazeera within its borders. And Progressive World Opinion, right on cue, greets the news with all the delicately calibrated, nuanced outrage we've come to expect from this Most Enlightened Point in All of Human Time. After all, why - in the name of sanity - would any decent country dream of muzzling such a fair-minded, compassionate, and meticulously balanced lover of both Israel and the Gaza Strip as Al Jazeera? And all the more so when you consider the indisputably decent country that hosts it . . . (or decent, at any rate, compared to those genocidal Israelis?)

Shall I tell you what I think is the one most revealing, and vital, and urgent hope for the entire Middle East today? (One clue: It's not the sort of hope embraced by most Hamasified Palestinians. At least not consciously.)

One day this maddening miracle called Israel is going to discover Who it is she really depends on, for everything. But most vitally for her wisdom, and real strength, and real survival. On that day she will learn also what are the real threats to that survival, in the fullest sense of the latter word: spiritually no less than economically; culturally, and Scripturally, as well as militarily and politically; in the garden, and prosperity, as well as in the desert and adversity. And that it is the former - the garden - which requires of each of us the kind of humility that is lowliest, most trustful, most solacing and gratifying. At least if we're actually to enjoy the garden, instead of just presupposing it, and taking it for granted. And so wasting and destroying it.

One day Israel is going to discover that her worst enemies are not those who are determined to destroy her no matter what the cost, to themselves or others (as bad as they are). Neither is it those who are determined to protect and preserve her no matter what the cost, to themselves or others (as misguided as they may be). One day Israel will know - hopefully not "too late" - that her deadliest enemies, both spiritually and physically, are all those who even now are saying: "Why yes, we'll let you live, and survive, and even thrive and prosper . . . on these conditions . . ."

In short, one day Israel is going to learn that her most insidiously deadly enemies are not the Washingtons and Londons, the Tehrans and Gaza Cities or even the Moscows of the drama; but rather all those sly, subtle middlemen - Dohas and Ankaras and even Beijings (plus God knows how many colluding Western entities and interests) - whose speciality it is to play both ends against the middle: who give sanctuary to, who glorify and radicalize and martyrize the one side, even as they profess to understand and intercede for - and plead with - the other. The very ones, in fact, who have done the most to foment the climate, not just of hatred and detestation of Israel, but of the smug, successionist  superiority of Islam to all things both Jewish and Western. Let no one say money doesn't talk.

On that day - just maybe, finally - the smarter Israelis (I wish I could be sure Netanyahu & Co will be numbered among them) will realize that NO implosion or collapse or breakup of Iran is going to prevent the infilling of that void by the likes of ISIS (or some yet grosser mutation). Any more than the collapse of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza prevented the rise of Hamas. 

Meanwhile pray - as never before - for the peace and sanity of Kiev. And the return to sanity of Moscow (and Macron). 

But above all, of course, pray for the peace and sanity of Jerusalem. And of all those who wish her well. Amen.

The Next Level Revisited (and then some)

"So - why do you suppose God chose to make man in His image and likeness? (Assuming there is a God, of course; though you must admit, the metaphor does have some excellent uses).

"Why else? except that from the beginning He intended man to be an infinitely self-divinizing creature, who must ever be striving to pitch his tent in places of always-ascending grades of difficulty, hardship, inhospitality. Places - such as commonly denoted by terms like 'desert,' 'wilderness,' 'wasteland,' etc - places in which, no matter how strong or even dominant you are, the struggle for life is keen. Perhaps even brutal. If not utterly grueling and exhausting. Places, in short, in which fragile creatures can be neither cherished, nor respected, nor even protected - but only despised. (Including such fragile creatures as man himself was, at the outset of his journey.)

"But not just despised, please note, but shown nothing whatever of what - well, most of us would recognize as understanding, or mercy, or love. The point being that, if man really wants to be loved, and to render himself worthy of being loved (by God or anyone else), he must be prepared to make himself always stronger, and stronger . . . (part I, pars. 5-7)

"How else, indeed, is he ever going to succeed in taking himself - not to mention everything else - to that ever-insatiable next level? How otherwise, do you suppose, is he ever going to make himself 'at home' in the near-total desert and inhospitality of outer space?

"Or perhaps you thought he was going to colonize and subdue the farthest reaches of the universe by being some meek and tender sacrificial lamb?"

Why WOULD You?

Certain highly successful and influential persons of our time (who may or may not be narcissists): 

"It's all quite simple, really: I want what I want what I want. And I also happen to be extremely good at getting it."

But that's just it: Why would you?

Why on earth would you have such confidence in the judgment of your own will as to believe you'd actually be happier, or better off, by getting everything (or even most of what) you want? Or even by getting most everything you've rationally determined that you should want? Why would you ever have such overarching confidence in the judgment and powers of your own mind, as to believe that getting what you think you want will make you happier? 

Or if you like, never mind about being happier. Especially since - as I think by now our more globally-minded rulers have amply demonstrated - this Great Global World is not about happiness, whether their own or anyone else's. So here's a suggestion: Let's do our best to leave behind, once and for all, the unedifying, unproductive, hedonistic 1960s, '70s and '80s. At least as I recall them here in America. (par. 3) And then let us proceed to be as primly, austerely altruistic as we 21st-centurily can. So - to rephrase my question: Why would you imagine that getting even what you most rationally want would somehow make you "better," or wiser? Or more righteous, or productive? Or nobler or grander or more heroic? Or even more superior?

Alright, I take that last part back. Because the truth is, getting more or less exactly what we think everyone should want has been known to make some of us vastly superior, in certain altogether measurable and quantifiable ways (wealth, votes, grants and subsidies, promotions, both occupational and sexual opportunities) over all other visible creatures of this earth. Including sometimes our fellow humans. Even if for this earthly life only.

My final question, then, is why anyone in his right mind and will would ever want that "dream come true"? That degree of, let us say, overweening advantage over practically everything else in the visible creation. Yes, that may be your dream. But in that case, perhaps you might want to take a lesson or two from the invisible creation. I mean, consider the wonderful job Satan has made of his utterly unprecedented - and unrepeatable - creaturely superiority over everything the Lord God had made. Can you honestly say you're pleased with the results? More to the point, do you honestly think you could go him one better?

Some Right-side Bearings

I don't say that this is something guaranteed to make everybody happy. 

But what I think I've learned, these past 15 or so years, is that there is no human satisfaction quite like moral superiority. Especially when you know -  I mean, you know that you know that you know - you're doing your very best to be right. Whereas, if only you could be half-as-sure about the guy next to you . . .

Except that having and holding the moral high ground these days can be quite a challenging feat. If not positively acrobatic. And all the more so, of course, when it is the politically* moral high ground you're after.

*And, seriously, is there anything authentically moral that isn't also political?

In brief, how can you be sure that the political position you held last week, and in complete good faith, will have the same morally unassailable credentials a week from now? Or next month, or next year? Indeed, if I may venture to say: If there's one safe bet anyone can make, it is that our moral progress is only sure to get more complicated with time. And Progress. 

At the same time, either there have been - across the political and geopolitical West - certain recognizable patterns and consistencies these past 20-odd years, or else I've grown completely psychotic (no comments please). And so, for all you tender souls who'd like nothing better than a map for staying on the Right Side of History, of course I don't have one. But here, I think, are some pretty solid ground rules all but guaranteed to please eve the purest, most globally-enlightened bien-pensants. But especially those of this Most Enlightened Point in All of Human Time:

1) Russia, in all she does, is never provoked by anyone (and when she is, you'd better believe she roundly deserves it); (bottom of par. 2)

2) Islam - and in particular those revanchist supremacist anti-Western modes of Sunni Islam that have grown exponentially under the favor of the US global security establishment - is never unprovoked in anything it does; plus the provocations it suffers are always unmerited (meaning even its seemingly most disproportionate  acts of retaliation are always understandable, if not completely defensible);

3) Israel, by her mere existence, is a standing and heinous act of provocation to all properly sensitive, right-thinking, rightly-discerning people (and not just to all righteous Muslims); 

4) China (aka Beijing) is the world's ultimate wise and benign provocateur, apart from whose unceasing innovations, provocations, challenges, dynamism, bio-warfare researches, etc, mankind would still be living in the 21st-century equivalent of mud huts and caves.

The Bloodiness of Knowing Too Soon

If this recent Christmas season has convinced me of anything, it is that it is possible to know too much all at once - or much too soon - for anyone's good,  including our own. And especially in the matter of doing God's will. For instance, you or I might be a veritable Saul of Tarsus of holy-and-righteous determination. To say nothing of bloody-minded indignation. Yet even then, it sometimes behooves us to be at least as patient with God, and with His time and manner of unfolding, as He is with us, and ours. Even though that Divine patience might consist, at least initially, of knocking us off a high horse or two. 

In contrast, I wonder if there are any limits to the ways in which our Maker can re-make and re-direct a soul properly teachable. As a case in point, consider the main characters of the Christmas story. Note how, unlike with our hero Saul, God never once uses a violent means to dissuade Joseph, on the return from exile in Egypt, from re-settling the Holy Family in Judaea instead of Galilee. Nor, for that matter, does He have to knock heads to discourage the Wise Men from returning to their home countries via Herod's all-welcoming Jersualem. In the same way, although Joseph was likely none too happy about the brute (and often ugly) fact of Roman occupation, he never once considered it his calling to execute judgment or revenge upon his country's occupiers - any more than the Magi regarded the assassination or other conspiratorial undermining of Herod as part of their mission. What each of them did, rather, was to understand just where his part in the execution of the Divine plan began, and where it ended. They were not out to save the world singlehanded, or even to speed up the pace and progress of the world's salvation, but merely to be its instruments.

Of course we can all be, and all have been, very different from Joseph, Mary and Jesus. We can have what we think is the completest blueprint, or game plan, or ultimate goal or end in view. So that all we have to do, having just been passed the ball, is to take and run with it. Yet notice how soon does our pending success become hostage to something we've got in our possession, yes - but that we dare not let go of. And how sometimes that Something - that all-consuming Action - in order to achieve its all-devouring object, has literally got to hack its way through thickets and jungles, not of foliage, but of human innocents of every age and description. And not just the occupier's innocents, but our own.

Again, this was not Jesus,' or Mary's, or Joseph's Way. But if you like, by way of direct contrast, picture if you can a very different Holy Family. One that was always confidently demanding to know everything up front. Imagine them being overbriefed on every minutest point and detail of an itinerary already bursting at the seams: a mission pregnant, not just with the future of Judaea or Rome or the whole world of antiquity, but with the fate of all mankind. Think of Joseph knowing all that in advance. And then wrestling with, or being tempted by, the knowledge that this mission, if done right, would in fullness of time result in the expulsion of the hated occupier (in this case not Jewish but Roman) from Palestine! Picture his anxiety, his fear of failure, the temptation to self-importance, the pressure of performance "required" to bring the Child safely back to Nazareth. The sense, in short, that pretty much everything depended on him. And then consider how that might have goaded him on towards, if not a violent, surely a more forceful acceleration and consummation of a goal known in its fullness only to his God and Father: and known by Him, not just from start to finish, but in every detail and segment and manner of unfolding. How else, indeed, except by leaning in as close as they could to Him, should the Holy Family have escaped a planned, orchestrated massacre of epic proportions - and that, again, of innocents?

The point here being, I believe, that sometimes it is enough to wait, and watch, and trust, and act trustfully and expectantly. As opposed to being sure of knowing everything right up to the end result, and then, why, simply following through. Except that, in the latter case, as you try to "rush project to completion," you very quickly find out that it's up to you to fill in the details, to try anything ("whatever works"), to probe every opening and opportunity,  in the ever more frantic effort to bring your devoutly wished consummation to pass. And in the meantime, watch - as your "progress" becomes steadily more protracted, more grueling, and far more stress- than grace-filled - how the bodies and the blood keep piling up. 

But if I may to return to the Holy Family, with its simple, stark, uncluttered faith. Ask yourself: Was there really anybody else, up to that point in time (or even up till now), who could have understood and entered into, not just the will or the command, but the very heart and longing, the inmost desire and good pleasure of the Father, and more fully - more closely and intimately - than this strange, humanly impossible human trinity? See again and again how they choose to trust in, and so experience the very presence of, the Father's unfolding heart. Rather than having to know every stage of it in advance, as if it were a mere project to be executed. God rarely speaks in blueprints. And even if He should come up with one for so wise an Age as ours, somehow I don't think even the most god-submitted Hamas, or our most globally-wise US security establishment, is likely to be stumbling on it anytime soon.