Die! Primitive!
One of the major problems in trying to live a life of Faith is the fact that shit happens. And because it happens, religious people feel compelled to attempt an explanation of ‘how could a loving God could allow this to happen?’ Most of the answers aren’t helpful. Some are just plain wrong.
A life of Faith is almost entirely an ongoing metaphor; and religious people want to make that life literal. Literal doesn’t work very well.
“A metaphor is a figure of speech that directly refers to one thing by mentioning another for rhetorical effect.[1] It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas… One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature is the “All the world’s a stage” monologue from As You Like It:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances…”
—William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2/7[3] Wikipedia
The world isn’t a stage, in spite of all the time we in the Developed World spent looking at digital stages on video screens. Technology is such that we illustrators can create images that look so much like reality that one can forget they are watching a story; a play… We can learn from these stages, but we must not allow an imaginary ‘life’ to replace the actual life we have—even though there are many who dive into an imaginary world as a shelter from the world they live in.
All one needs to do is read the news agency headlines [most of it isn’t fake] for an hour or so and read occasional articles; do this in order to realize that humans treat each other horribly all the time. Individuals killing other people for some of the most absurd reasons; governments persecuting their own citizens, because the government doesn’t like what they do, or where their parents came from.
When I take a few steps back, so that I can look at the human race in a larger perspective, I can’t imagine why the Creator allows us to live. We humans are in the process of killing all of the life on this planet; without regard to the warnings being given to us by scientists of all kinds. In the ‘Developed World’, we mostly kill off this planet for our own convenience. When I look at the world my granddaughter is growing up in, I feel ashamed. I feel appalled that so many in this country [America—the only one I know] want to hide their heads in the sand.
This is not the world I grew up in. Were the people in that world more enlightened than we are now? I don’t think so. We knew far less about the world. People acted from cherished beliefs [some of them wrong] rather than media instructions. I mean, does it really matter what Kim and all of the other celebrities with opinions do with their lives? Do have a direct connection to their lives?
In an Emergency Room recently, I was talking with a nurse that grew up in Sandy, Oregon, when Sandy was tiny. Like me, her family had a cabin near Brightwood. She was the nurse that brought in all the Consent forms. She said, “I grew up rural. With rural people you had a handshake, a look in the eye, and that was enough. They knew who they were.”
My comment to her was that maybe the problems today are largely because people don’t know who they are.
The question about ‘why does this happen?’ needs to be re-framed—how could the Creator of the entire Universe possibly love one individual on this ‘little blue dot’ of a planet, located in a bad neighborhood in the Milky Way galaxy? How could the Creator of the entire Universe possibly love one individual in this mass of people so prone to violence and hatred? It’s absolutely absurd. On the order of picking up a large rock in the yard and looking at the squiggly things under the rock; and deciding that one of them is so worthy of Divine Love and Concern that the Creator of the Universe would choose to become one of those squiggly things.
Which is exactly what happened. The Creator of the Universe implanted one cell into the womb of a teenager; that cell fertilized another cell, and nine months later Jesus was born.
Thirty-some years later that same Jesus began a ministry that was almost entirely metaphor. He taught by telling stories; He did not teach by dropping sound bites. The Gospels were written decades after His death; His stories were remembered. There wasn’t a reporter following Him around to capture every word. There were people who dedicated their lives to remembering. There were no pencils and notepads. In order to write something down for posterity, one needed pen, ink, parchment, and something like a table to hold everything.
Literal does not work very well, especially in English; but that doesn’t stop some people. Jesus certainly did not speak King James English. Jesus spoke in First Century Aramaic, a dialect that most likely didn’t exist when the New Testament was compiled in the 2nd or 3rd Century. The dates are always under dispute.
It is generally agreed by historians that Jesus and his disciples primarily spoke Aramaic (Jewish Palestinian Aramaic), the common language of Judea in the first century AD, most likely a Galilean dialect distinguishable from that of Jerusalem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_of_Jesus
Jesus was tortured, executed and placed into a hole in a hillside. Three days later Jesus returned. He promised that this could happen to everyone. Jesus didn’t die to save you from your sin; Jesus died that you might enter into Eternity with Him.
The story is about Redemption.
The story is always about redemption and nothing more.
“Following the tragic Amish school shooting of 10 young schoolgirls in a one-room Amish school in October 2006, reporters from throughout the world invaded Lancaster County, PA to cover the story. (You can read the full story of the Amish school shooting here.) However, in the hours and days following the shooting a different, an unexpected story developed.
In the midst of their grief over this shocking loss, the Amish community didn’t cast blame, they didn’t point fingers, they didn’t hold a press conference with attorneys at their sides. Instead, they reached out with grace and compassion toward the killer’s family.
The afternoon of the shooting an Amish grandfather of one of the girls who was killed expressed forgiveness toward the killer, Charles Roberts. That same day Amish neighbors visited the Roberts family to comfort them in their sorrow and pain.
Later that week the Roberts family was invited to the funeral of one of the Amish girls who had been killed. And Amish mourners outnumbered the non-Amish at Charles Roberts’ funeral.
It’s ironic that the killer was tormented for nine years by the premature death of his young daughter. He never forgave God for her death. Yet, after he cold-bloodedly shot 10 innocent Amish school girls, the Amish almost immediately forgave him and showed compassion toward his family.
In a world at war and in a society that often points fingers and blames others, this reaction was unheard of. Many reporters and interested followers of the story asked, “How could they forgive such a terrible, unprovoked act of violence against innocent lives?”
The Amish culture closely follows the teachings of Jesus, who taught his followers to forgive one another, to place the needs of others before themselves, and to rest in the knowledge that God is still in control and can bring good out of any situation. Love and compassion toward others is to be life’s theme. Vengeance and revenge is to be left to God. https://lancasterpa.com/amish/amish-forgiveness/
So, what…are we all supposed to become Amish?
No. The answer is to stop hating. Stop hating the totally unlovable.
Give every person a shot at redemption; especially those who deserve it least.
Like me.
Your message has been sent
Chronicles in Ordinary Time 