strange days

Father Burt is rummaging around through the cabinets in the kitchen. He says he's looking for something to put holy water in. I almost joke "doing an exorcism?" then stop myself. Why is he looking for something to put holy water in, if not for a purpose along those lines? We find an old pepper jar, and put the pepper in the salt shaker. (If we used the salt shaker, it would be more of an aspergeres!). He wipes it out, gets some holy water from the font, gives it to the woman who is waiting then leaves. He sits down by my desk. "Whew." She is from Venezuela, and her ex-husband has joined a Santeria cult. She said that she and her daughter are "seeing things" around their house. "Things? Like tokens or dead animals?" "No," he says, "like Spirits." "Oooh, cool." Of course, the Holy Water was rather an afterthought: she had originally signed up to speak to a priest for financial help, and seeing as we had no grocery gift cards, asked for this instead. Pray for her!

Still Dualistic

Perhaps the two sides in America (liberal/conservative) can better be framed in terms of whether one finds it more compelling to draw one's identity from a sense of battling power, or from a sense of being a part of a positive force.

Those who see themselves as battling power tend to automatically respond to claims of victimization, and to see governments as necessarily evil, and all oppositional groups as necessarily justified. This view can be supported from the Christian perspective by reference to Jesus' identification with the poor, and his victimization on the cross, and it is a corrective to earlier views which used Christ's missionary mandate as an excuse for imperialistic conquest. However, it tends to idealize the position of victim to the point of neglecting the concept of Christ's ultimate triumph.

Those who see themselves as aligned with a positive force for good tend to belittle claims of victimization, and see the government as deserving unwavering support, thus leaning towards blind patriotism.

What is the solution? How can we draw our understanding of who we are from a balanced perspective of Christians who follow an Almighty God who was willing to become weak? Can we recognize that not all claims of victimhood are equally legitimate? That some, are in fact, simply grabs for power? Can we live in paradox?

When it changed

I snagged the Rector's copy of Theology Today when it came in, and glanced through it before passing it on. I came across this interesting and timely statement by William Cavanaugh:

“This is not an exceptional nation and we do not live in exceptional times, at least as the world describes it. Everything did not change on 9/11; for Christians, everything changed on 12/25. When the Word of God became incarnate in human history, when he was tortured to death by the powers of this world, and when he rose to give us new life—it was then that everything changed. Christ is the exception that becomes the rule of history. We are made capable of loving our enemies, of treating the other as a member of our own body, the body of Christ.”

Cavanaugh, William. “Making Enemies.” Theology Today. Vol. 63, no. 3, October 2006. 307-323.

It caught my attention because I had read something else recently (in Christian Century?) that spoke of the concept of American exceptionalism and I thought that this might be an interesting concept to work with in the American Literature course, which I'll be teaching later in the fall. I think Cavanaugh makes an excellent point that helps us put into perspective the feeling that Americans between the ages of 20-60 felt about the terrorist attacks. Unlike older Americans who remembered Pearl Harbor, we had never experienced an assault on our own land before. (I discount younger people because, as far as I can tell from the kids I know, they were not particularly affected by the images of the towers falling, not being able to distinguish between them and the familiar images of destruction they see in their favorite games and movies). When I read this statement at first I thought it was a shame that Cavanaugh had to use the artificial construct of 12/25 to build the symmetry to make his point. After all, we smart Christians know that Christ wasn't born on that specific day. We could pinpoint an actual date for the Resurrection, why didn't he use that? But then I got to thinking, well, whether or not it was 12/25 (and it certainly wouldn't have been called that then) it was a specific day. And that number symbolizes that. And contemplating how numeric symbol functions, and letting its meaning sink in, in the same way that the numbers 9/11 have sunk in, helps make his statement even stronger and makes me find a source of hope.