history
It's not always easy to separate my real life, whatever that is, from whatever goes on in my head, whatever that may be at the time. At this beginning of Holy Week each year (Lent is not over, Holy Week is the dramatic ending of Lent, is part of the forty days ((count them, begin with Ash Wednesday and count one to forty leaving out the Sundays)) of Lent before Easter) even though fully realizing it's Heilsgeschichte, holy history, as different from but not necessarily opposed to recorded history, real life and what goes on in my mind merge somehow, devastatingly somehow.
I remember as a little boy, after hearing read the Gospel of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, leaving church, going outside and wondering why the world around me was going on as usual, as though nothing had happened. It was the same, I was eleven years old, the afternoon and weeks that followed, of January 23, 1947, coming home from school and being told that my grandmother had died, was dead. Not simply had "passed," an intended euphemism that not in the least eased my intense grief, but the most comforting lap of my life had died, was dead and would never again hold me as we sat in her rocking chair. And there was no comfort, no assurance, no words - - and, like the Christian passion narrative, I went outside and wondered how could it be that the world around me was going on the same as ever when everything was so changed, so different now, and would never be the same again.
I remember, which means that in my mind I can fully reassemble it, put all parts, all members of the story, back together, re-member and feel the pain even to this day, seventy-one years later.
What's going on here? Like hearing the Christian passion narrative, which will be read in churches today, Palm Sunday, this week I will again watch at least once again, Mel Gibson's 2004 drama The Passion of the Christ. It will not stun me as it did the first time I saw it, a state of shock, but it will put the story back together in my mind. And I will better understand the power of story that at various times of "Christian history" drove stunned, enraged "Christians" out of their churches into the streets to scream "Christ killer" and commit far, far worse mob violence against innocent Jews, Jewish neighbors and residents. There was a time, maybe still is, in "Christian" countries, when Jews feared Good Friday precisely because it drove their "Christian" neighbors into murderous mob frenzy. It evidences the power of story on our psyche. We can go crazy, temporary insanity, perhaps not unlike the road-rage of otherwise decent human beings. The human mind is a powerful, proven dangerous and destructive thing.
We are watching the "Z Generation" flex their muscles in huge assemblies protesting the horrifying selfishness of our gun-crazed society that values self over the lives of other people's children. They have had well more than enough of us, seen our unforgivable failure to take action to corral gun violence. They are coming of age and their cry is "We will vote you out." God help them make it so, because we are too paralyzed by fear of offending the gun crowd to make it so. The notion of training and arming teachers to kill shooters is horrifying, insane, as though we have become a nation of idiots who have watched too many cowboy movies of shootouts in barrooms and the good guys always win. Jesus Christ, a nation gone mad. To where can we escape these maniacs? Do the Z-Gens have it right: at the ballot box. At the risk of alienating friends, neighbors and loved ones whom I hold dear, I am on the side of the Z-Gen anger and disgust.
Still there, wherever my mind is, Congress of Bought and Paid-For Cowards and WH of Madmen with the likes of Bolton replacing balanced and measured intellects, we are about to be led by a chaos of war criminals who will instigate crimes against humanity, and for which their fate should be precisely the same as those tried at Nuremberg. And us as well: in the American people today, I see the same frenzied supporters, men and women, as in early 20th century newsreels, wild-eyed humans with right arm and hand at stiff salute and shouting "Victory" as the parade cars roll by. A horrifying era in which to be American: we have forgotten history.
DThos+
I remember as a little boy, after hearing read the Gospel of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, leaving church, going outside and wondering why the world around me was going on as usual, as though nothing had happened. It was the same, I was eleven years old, the afternoon and weeks that followed, of January 23, 1947, coming home from school and being told that my grandmother had died, was dead. Not simply had "passed," an intended euphemism that not in the least eased my intense grief, but the most comforting lap of my life had died, was dead and would never again hold me as we sat in her rocking chair. And there was no comfort, no assurance, no words - - and, like the Christian passion narrative, I went outside and wondered how could it be that the world around me was going on the same as ever when everything was so changed, so different now, and would never be the same again.
I remember, which means that in my mind I can fully reassemble it, put all parts, all members of the story, back together, re-member and feel the pain even to this day, seventy-one years later.
What's going on here? Like hearing the Christian passion narrative, which will be read in churches today, Palm Sunday, this week I will again watch at least once again, Mel Gibson's 2004 drama The Passion of the Christ. It will not stun me as it did the first time I saw it, a state of shock, but it will put the story back together in my mind. And I will better understand the power of story that at various times of "Christian history" drove stunned, enraged "Christians" out of their churches into the streets to scream "Christ killer" and commit far, far worse mob violence against innocent Jews, Jewish neighbors and residents. There was a time, maybe still is, in "Christian" countries, when Jews feared Good Friday precisely because it drove their "Christian" neighbors into murderous mob frenzy. It evidences the power of story on our psyche. We can go crazy, temporary insanity, perhaps not unlike the road-rage of otherwise decent human beings. The human mind is a powerful, proven dangerous and destructive thing.
We are watching the "Z Generation" flex their muscles in huge assemblies protesting the horrifying selfishness of our gun-crazed society that values self over the lives of other people's children. They have had well more than enough of us, seen our unforgivable failure to take action to corral gun violence. They are coming of age and their cry is "We will vote you out." God help them make it so, because we are too paralyzed by fear of offending the gun crowd to make it so. The notion of training and arming teachers to kill shooters is horrifying, insane, as though we have become a nation of idiots who have watched too many cowboy movies of shootouts in barrooms and the good guys always win. Jesus Christ, a nation gone mad. To where can we escape these maniacs? Do the Z-Gens have it right: at the ballot box. At the risk of alienating friends, neighbors and loved ones whom I hold dear, I am on the side of the Z-Gen anger and disgust.
Still there, wherever my mind is, Congress of Bought and Paid-For Cowards and WH of Madmen with the likes of Bolton replacing balanced and measured intellects, we are about to be led by a chaos of war criminals who will instigate crimes against humanity, and for which their fate should be precisely the same as those tried at Nuremberg. And us as well: in the American people today, I see the same frenzied supporters, men and women, as in early 20th century newsreels, wild-eyed humans with right arm and hand at stiff salute and shouting "Victory" as the parade cars roll by. A horrifying era in which to be American: we have forgotten history.
DThos+