Lenten Reflection 3/5

 

There's a top story in the NY Times this morning about a recent drone strike in Pakistan.  The U.S. is denying that this strike, which occurred in February, was carried out by the U.S. military.  The suggestion is that Pakistan itself committed the strike, which killed up to 9 people including two senior commanders of Al Qaeda.  American officials conjecture that the Pakistanis are blaming the CIA to avoid criticism from the Pakistani public.  Either way, when it comes to drone strikes, there's something shady going on that involves secrecy, power and killing.

I'm going to admit that secret drone strikes are something in the news that I simply don't like to think about.  This kind of targeted assassination seems unreal and, to me, unbelievable.  It just doesn't compute in my mind that our country participates in such things.  So I admit that I put reports about drone strikes into their own untouched folder in a back corner of my mind.  Such things just don't seem congruent with the world and the society I think I live in.  But whenever I hear news about this "new kind of war" it is always a reminder to me that there is a dark underbelly to our world and to our nation.  And I know there's also a dark underbelly in each of us.  This stark reality is hard to face.

Jeremiah wanted his listeners to start listening to stark reality.  Jeremiah recounts long lists of examples of the people's refusal to listen to God's decrees and to live in God's righteousness.  He repeatedly points out that the people are not living a life congruent with their covenant with God and that while they continued to declare that they were God's chosen people they were not acting like God's chosen people.  He warns them that this will not end up well.  He wants them to face their own dark underbellies.

This morning I'm realizing that I hear quite regularly about our acts of targeted attack with drones and special forces in the news.  But I realize how few voices like Jeremiah's I hear.  Few seem to be speaking out about it.  Do we all really think this kind of government sponsored killing is ok?  Do others, like me, just shove this news into the dark recesses of our underbellies and ignore it?  All's fair in war, I've heard, and I've also got to admit that I know practically nothing about the realities of war.  But I've got to wonder - is this really a war?  Or is it some other kind of policing?  My gut tells me something is amiss and it makes me wonder: Are we living a life congruent with our most basic beliefs when we participate in and condone such things?


Today's readings:  Jer. 7:21-34; Rom. 4:13-25; John 7:37-52
Elsa is praying the daily readings and praying the news and blogging about it on the weekdays of Lent.
She is reading The Message translation this year.

Lenten Reflection 2/26

There's an article in the top news section of the NY Times this morning about a woman who discovered that her husband, a NYC police officer, had been visiting many fetish websites and was involved in online chats in which he and others fantasized repeatedly about brutally torturing and killing women.  In their conversations they would fantasize about real women they actually knew, including the wife.  The wife obviously felt threatened by these chats and reported her husband to the authorities, and now the officer is on trial for plotting to kill a number of women.  There is no evidence that any of the women that this man was accused of plotting to kill were actually kidnapped or harmed.  So at his trial the question being explored is, "When does a fantasized crime become an actual crime?"

One outside expert was quoted as saying that this case "highlights the fact that there are 'dark corners' of the Internet 'where a whole range of illegal and immoral conduct takes place, and the general public has only a vague and fleeting knowledge that these places exist.'  He noted that the Internet, as a medium of expression and communication, also makes it possible for people with interests as benign as stamp collecting or as grisly as cannibalism to find and validate one another in community forums."

In his letter to the Romans this morning, Paul says people often "trade the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand."  The image of worshiping a carved idol, a man-made statue of a personal God instead of bowing down to the one beyond-all-time-and-space-and-knowledge God is a familiar Old Testament image.  Paul reframes it a bit by calling this choice "trading the true God for a fake God," and "worshiping the God you make yourself instead of the God who made you."  Paul says that when you go rogue like that, it is not long before you'll find yourself living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out.

I can't wrap my mind around whether that officer's real conversations with other real men about hurting real women they knew are a real crime or not.  But I think I can quite confidently say that he had certainly gone off to 'worship' a God he'd created himself, rather than honoring the one, unifying God that created and loves us all. 

Today's readings:  Jer. 2:1-13; Rom. 1:16-25; John 4:43-54
Elsa is reading The Message translation this year.