In the blink of an eye...

Last night I left Pittsfield to join Di at Michal and Winton's small farm - it is idyllic and so quiet.  Throughout this past week I've been meeting with people who were in Boston for the Marathon - or whose family and/or friends - are in Boston.  Time and again we have all said, "How quickly our lives can change... and everything is different in the blink of an eye."  In personal conversations and Wednesday Eucharist, our hearts and minds have been filled with uncertainty.

Imagine how much more startling this realities feels today given the surreal and terrifying events unfolding in the wake of the bombings?  Metro-Boston under lock down?  Assault vehicles, helicopters and shoot outs on our streets?  After the September 11th attack I read a Franciscan's reflection about about how Americans were now sadly coming to experience some of the ugly realities that so much of the rest of the world endures on a regular basis.  Once again that rings true to me as law enforcement teams hunt down young Chechen bombers and more death and fear flows through our streets.

I don't pretend to understand why these young men chose to bring murder and mayhem to the Marathon.  I do know that such anger is not born in a vacuum.  I also know that their evil has been fed and that each of us are capable of equally horrible deeds no matter how much we protest to the contrary. As the Rev. Dr. Mary Luti recently wrote:  

Boston is a ghastly commonplace, even if we insist on thinking that "things like this" don't happen to us, or they shouldn't, or when they do it's somehow worse or more meaningful than, say, a drone wreaking havoc on an Afghan wedding. Boston is one more horrific instance of what human beings do, what we're capable of, even as we're capable of selflessness and love. It's what we do, this sowing of evil, every bit as much as we sow good. It's who we are, this callous heart, this heartless strike; it is not alien to us.

No "monster" did this. A human being did it, one not as distant from us as we need to believe. We ourselves did not plant the bombs, but we could have. Another person planted them, but he might not have; he might have done good instead, because he was and still is capable of it. You may not want to hear this about that person, or about yourself. I don't like thinking of myself this way. But it's a denial we cannot afford anymore. This is a truth we need to know and build on.

It's damaging to the quest for peace to keep carving out exceptional cities, exceptional tragedies, exceptional monsters, and postures of exceptional morality and innocence. The world's healing depends in part on owning our intimate kinship with the enemy—the one out there, the one within. God speaks our names in the same breath.

Jesus said to love him. That's the heart of the gospel, but it's a lot to ask. Let's start with a confession of our own dust, and go from there.

Prayer: You know how we are made, that we are dust, with hearts faithful and frail, lives that could go either way. Keep us in your way, O God, so that we learn to do no harm, stand tenderly with the harmed, and somewhere find compassion for all out human kin, the good and the bad, on whom you send your rain, on whom your sun still shines.

In the days to come, there will most certainly be calls for retribution and some of it will once again take on an anti-Muslim tone.  People of good will must challenge this ignorance and hatred with love. Not naively, of course, but with humility and solidarity. For unless we offer clear alternatives that advance both justice and the possibilities for a measure of peace, we add fuel to the fire that causes hatred to burn out of control.

Today I grieve with my fellow Americans.  In time, however, we will be called "to go where we do not want to go and be led by one greater than ourselves" to do more than weep.  After the Cross, the Risen Christ, asked the one who had betrayed him, "Peter, do you love me?  Feed my sheep."