Growing up as I did, nothing was safe or predictable. The only thing I could rely on was my church and it was there that I found sanity, if only for a few hours, in an insane world. I often wondered why God "allowed" such things to happen, but I realize very well now that generally any evil that enters our lives is a direct result of our own choices. And I think, perhaps, the evil that survives is really of our own creation, a consequence of the choices we make. I recall a Phil Donahue episode on racism and a three year old boy dressed in a KKK hooded white gown and how it turned my stomach. I recall the man I met at TAMU that I really thought I wanted to marry and he walked into my apt one morning and told me about how he had a flat tire and some nice n*gg*r helped him fix it. All my love for him seemed to disappear with that word. I met a man just a few years ago, seemed nice enough, even had a masters degree in theology and told me "we were destined for each other" and then took me out on his boat and proceeded to make fun of all the "poor slobs" on the lake in boats that were less impressive.
Many of our ways, and our sins are so deeply embedded in us we don't even know they are sins. They are the way we were raised, they are how we were conditioned to live. So it is very hard to know what is right and what is wrong sometimes.
In the mess of contradictions in which I was required to live, I went to church as often as I could. I celebrate the fact that I get the privilege to go to Mass everyday now. It is one of the greatest blessings I have received. But before that, I relied on Star Trek as my moral compass. I happened onto the show one night and was hooked.
During my last year in Catholic school, I would write on the chalkboard before our teacher arrived, "Star Trek tonight, 7:30 p.m. Channel 4" and the class would laugh. Even then, I was evangelizing. My best friend, Ellen, a Jew, would call me at the end of every show and we would discuss at length the theological and political aspects of what we had just seen. She was a genius and I was lucky enough to ride along for awhile.
I've learned enough to know I don't know much. I have also lived long enough to know that no one else has all the answers either. I'm struggling right now with my wonderful friends who are much better at following the rules than I am. Sometimes the wounds are so deep, trusting "authority" is impossible. Or at best, a very slow process. Such are the consequences of sin. It would be very hard for me to not love the people who are in prison or have committed heinous crimes. I know that they did not get there on their own. Someone trained them to think the way they do. Sin is everywhere. We are our brother's keeper and we are commanded to love everyone, not just the ones who agree with us.
So having people not able to hear me in my own struggles is difficult. Yet I am immediately reminded that I walked out of a Bible study last Saturday because there was a long drawn out discussion on a woman who murdered her children. Since I don't have 'television' I was not aware of the story, or all the opinions being floated out there. I thought the discussion of why she did it was fruitless. I don't care why she did it. The point, to me, is to love her now...to give her a way out of hell. And since I don't have the chance to speak to her personally, I didn't see any purpose for the discussion at all.
I don't see the purpose for talking about things so that we can feel superior or righteous or satisfied that we know what's right and someone else does not. That's why television bores me so much. All these vicarious feelings about something for which we cannot change. Platitudes are of no help to me. And rarely do they help others. "Just say no." Yeah, right. If it was that easy, no one would sin.
So quoting "what the Magisterium" says brings me absolutely no solace at all. My faith, for better or worse, is defined by my constant wrestling with God. Oh, it would be nice to just take comfort that the Church is thinking for me, trying to make my life easier...but I was born in strife and abandoned at a early age. Trusting authority is just not that easy and damn near impossible.
But now and then, God sends me a priest who understands that struggle. I met one this morning. A beautiful, retired priest, who knew "my priest," the one from my childhood that kept me from turning myself completely over to the dark side. One or two of those in our lives and it is just about enough to make it through this life in some light. I needed to see that light again today. Only a month ago, I was told pretty much that everything I believed was a lie. It is good to know that his word is not the final word, at least, for me and my struggle.
We have so many wounds, all of us, and we so very much want to be healed. These healings must occur in fear and trembling...for the patterns of force continue to haunt us. The Balance of Terror is always present. Our fear keeps us from loving one another. The risk is always before us, the risk to love and thus be wounded by that love. Fear is always ready and willing to stop us, to kill love and maintain the balance of terror that consumes us.
That's why Jesus' death on the cross was so necessary. We took His love and tried to kill it because we were afraid of it. We thought He was attempting to gain power over us, some kind of political victory, in which only a few people would benefit. Only the 'chosen race' would be blessed. He preached love and forgiveness...what an outrage and insult...to forgive people who have wronged us...when we are legally entitled to a blood-letting for our benefit...that pound of flesh that Shylock speaks of in Merchant of Venice. We must get what we deserve. We have earned it. We are right and the whole world needs to know we are right.
So we killed love. We put thorns on its head and nailed its hands and feet to a tree. And that scandal, that consequence of our own sin, finally horrifies us enough to say, "Enough!" Either we love now or we will all die in our sins, the righteous and the unrighteous alike...that's how it really works. It is scandalous to receive an infidel into our heart, but that is what is required for us to live eternally with God.
At the end of the Balance of Terror, Capt. Kirk offers the Klingon refuge, but the Klingon capt. refuses. He says, "I regret we had to meet this way. You and I are a kind, in a different reality I could have called you friend."
"Why must you die?"
"We are creatures of Duty Captain, we must live by it. Just one more duty to perform..."
Star Trek got away with a lot back in the '60s, when the world was in a nightmare state of change. It was fiction, Rodenberry placed it 200 years in the future, so that no one would think he was making a political statement about the current crises of the time. It was a place to speak of things no one else would discuss.
Excerpt from I John 4, but read the whole thing...aloud.
We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God 5 whom he has not seen.This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
At the beginning of the episode, Kirk performs a marriage of a young couple. The show concludes with the new wife in the chapel, crying because her husband was killed in the battle. "Never makes any sense," he tells her, "You have to know that there was a reason."
Yes, there is a reason. We forgot to love.
I guess I'll stop here.
Love, Cindy
No comments:
Post a Comment