[Dialogue] Interesting Article

[Jack Gilles]

Dear All,

The following article was sent to me by my friend Marguerite
Theophil.  I thought it was a fine thought and that many of you would
enjoy reading it.

Grace & Peace,

Jack


Hope Against Darkness (Richard Rohr)

What is the darkness and what is the light? Richard Rohr, OFM
"If the light inside you is, in fact, darkness, what darkness that  
will be" Matthew 6:23
I was taping a TV show in Budapest when the cameramen received the  
word of events in America. Everything stopped and just like here  
everything was refocused and redirected. For the rest of the European  
tour, all of my talks had to be related to this one event, especially  
since I was an American and a Franciscan. Suddenly, it was both very  
easy and also very hard to preach about things like non-violence,  
scapegoating, the shadow, and Biblical faith. In fact, nothing else  
sufficed or was of any interest to anybody.

The depth, the universality, and the "religious" nature of the  
responses to the September 11 events, tell me that we are dealing  
with something more than crisis as usual here. We are not just  
dealing with a few new startling events, but I think we are  
struggling with ancient and ruling images in the human psyche. C.G.  
Jung called them "archetypes". They perhaps determine human history  
much more than we realized. The Greeks and most mythologies quite  
simply called them "gods". When we are in the thralldom of an  
archetypal image, reason, logic, and normal measured responses tend  
to be lost. When Mars and Athena reign, there will be war. At that  
point we are dealing with monumental memories, and language quickly  
becomes awesome, absolute, and scary. Songs and movies become both  
heroic and sentimental. Hearts become both soft and very hard. When  
these gods are on stage, we have tremendous need for wisdom and  
perspective, because the shadow is not allowed to show itself. The  
drama is all or nothing.

Archetypal images force consciousness to utterly new questions and  
configurations. The realignments are in all directions. For a while,  
we are not sure what good is and what evil is, what matters, and what  
will last. Suddenly the big questions are askable, and peoples'  
behavior becomes quite unpredictable and sometimes unexplainable.  
Both church attendance and depression have suddenly risen. Most folks  
understandably circle their wagons around old absolutes and old  
securities for some sense of control. Logically speaking, I am not  
sure why so many bumper stickers suddenly say "I am proud to be an  
American" or "United We Stand" just because we were attacked. The  
conclusion does not follow from the premise. Remember, unity is  
created by the Spirit, not by fear. Now we are united like never  
before without really doing anything. We are in a place of non-logic  
and archetypal possession. Almost all ancients would have called it  
being possessed by a bad spirit. It is real. Education, age, or  
religion has little to do with how we feel. People stopped driving,  
staying in motels, or attending the opera. Exactly why, no one is  
sure, not even the people refraining from these things.

Surely, we could start by saying that Americans have been in an  
extremely rare and secure situation for their 200 years compared to  
almost all of human history.. We are not used to living under any  
kind of threat. War and insecurity is always elsewhere for us. Yet, I  
know that the depth of the response was also in Europe and other  
continents, so we cannot just blame it on soft and spoiled Americans.  
My job, however, is to preach the prophetic word, what we call "the  
third way", not to anybody else but to ourselves. It is we Americans  
who must somehow find our ground and center, "one God before us", in  
the midst of this swirl of lesser gods. It is America that must find  
its Reference Point outside of itself, and not get blinded by the  
darkness of so many compelling and seductive images. It is America  
that most needs a very good pair of glasses. Why?, Because we not  
only play in the global card game, but we are dealing the cards as  
far as the rest of the world is concerned. It is we, therefore, who  
must be most cognizant, humble, and self-critical. Unfortunately, I  
heard these cautious voices much more in Europe than I have since I  
returned to the USA. So, let's look at why these images are so  
enticing and perhaps so blinding to us in America today.

First of all, there was the question of an absolutely global and  
common drama that the whole world watched almost as it happened. This  
is big stuff and sweeps one into the ultimate Nielsen ratings. The  
feelings that it engenders are literally larger than life and larger  
than death. Grand theater at its best, with images right out of the  
best science fiction movies any of us have seen. And most of the  
world watched the images many times, because it was both incredible  
and utterly fascinating.
Secondly, it had all the character of David against Goliath, and  
David won! This was a repeat of the Titanic experience, a ship that  
could not be sunk was not just sunk but sunk by a minor player, a  
hidden iceberg, a new form of warfare that reframed the entire  
history of war in a few moments. Our two centers of power, market and  
military, were successfully attacked out of nowhere. Suddenly, for  
the first time, the great America is able to play the role of victim.  
We have no practice at doing this, but have suddenly seen its  
advantages in the political theater. We like being the oppressed  
underdog for a change. It gives us a new kind of power, a new kind of  
sympathy, and a new kind of unity that we have been longing for since  
the 1960's. Actually, it feels good. All kinds of internal social  
squabbles have been resolved.

For those of us educated in Biblical images, they were all there:  
Tower of Babel, Fall of the Temple, Armageddon, the Scapegoat,  
martyrdom, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, even the highest teaching  
of Jesus being used against us "No greater love hath any man than to  
lay down his life for his friends". But now it is kamikaze pilots  
laying down their lives against us! No wonder our moral compass is  
still spinning. We quickly and rightfully recognized our own heroes  
who laid down their lives, like my Franciscan brother, Fr. Mychal  
Judge, who was the very first to be buried. I had only walked with  
him two months earlier for a late night stroll-and we stood looking  
at the great towers from the Brooklyn Bridge. Little did I-or he- 
imagine that he would die there at that very spot.
The emergence of genuine heroes and stories of bravery from New York  
only further added to the moral confusion. We must, indeed, be loyal  
to their memory and the lives that were so wrongly taken from them.  
Yet, logically speaking, more than 5000 people die every day of  
hunger and starvation. In the truly cosmic picture, this scenario of  
tragedy is a common event. It is just that now it struck us, here,  
unprepared, everybody watching, and of course, pushed all the buttons  
of war, terrorism, injustice, stealth, death, sadness, and tragedy.  
It was the daily cosmic event distilled and displayed for all of our  
emotions to feed upon. Truly sad, but also a part of the one sadness  
that God endures daily. The political sadness that most of the world  
has always known has now reached our shores. We have been drawn into  
the paschal mystery and it is already producing both darkness and  
light in each of us.

It is not just archetypal and Biblical images that are confronting  
us, but even popular movie images like War of the Worlds, King Kong,  
the Towering Inferno, and even Frankenstein where the monster one has  
created comes back to attack you. It is not easy for us Americans to  
admit that Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, and now Ossama bin Laden  
were all terrorists of our own making. Is this historical truth  
something we are ready to look at? Is there any connection in this  
mysterious web of evil or is America totally above the evil that it  
says it hates?

Is America ready to examine its rather one sided policy toward  
Israel? Why do they receive more foreign aid than any other country,  
and are often treated as if they were a 51st state? Only Israel is  
allowed to disregard their promises to us, violate the human rights  
of the Palestinians on a massive scale, and snub their nose at  
America whenever they wish. It is really quite amazing to all the  
world. We must know that there are understandable reasons why much of  
the Islamic and Arab world hates and mistrusts America. They are not  
stupid people. They are not angry without some real provocation, and  
this anger will not go away soon.
And just one more piece of shadow self that we must look at- 
fundamentalist religion. The very form of religion which attacked us  
is the same form that is growing most quickly in America. It is a  
religion almost entirely based on the human need for certitude,  
order, and control. It looks real good from inside because it holds  
the group together in a moral and seemingly religious way, but it is  
often "belief for the sake of belief" and for the sake of a  
reassuring community. It is not enough to believe, but one must  
believe in a good thing! It is not enough to belong, but one must  
belong to a group that is also self-critical. But in fundamentalist  
religion, all one needs is sincerity, "morality", and fervent  
devotion. Christian fundamentalists must recognize that these are the  
very qualities that they often teach and admire in our country, and  
yet hate in the Taliban-- only the god figure is different. Just as  
the Taliban can corrupt Mohammad, so we have been able to corrupt and  
use Jesus for our own cultural needs.

How then do we become light and hope against such archetypal and  
irrational forms of evil? [See Richard's timely book Hope Against  
Darkness, published by St. Anthony Messenger Press and available  
through Radical Grace] First of all, we must deny terrorists their  
victory by refusing to mirror them and do the same thing in  
reactionary and disguised form. This is the only true moral victory.  
We must not transmit and continue our human pain but must somehow  
transform it into a new kind of humanity, a new mind, a different  
society. "No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that  
caused it", said Albert Einstein.
We must find a new consciousness. Here at the Center we call it the  
contemplative stance. At Folsom Prison, where I taught recently, they  
call it Centering Prayer, and it is the most effective rehabilitative  
program there to date! It is the mind that produces Third Way  
responses. It is the way that God gets into the psyche and the  
solution. Most ordinary believers just say, "God will do it" or  
"pray" and they are absolutely right. The Third Way emerges when our  
ways have been tried and found wanting, and we look elsewhere for  
guidance. The Third Way happens when we get out of the way.

Since we are dealing with such awesome images of good and evil, we  
must make sure that "the light within us is not darkness", as Jesus  
said. We must make sure that our light is, in fact, light, and not  
just disguised forms of vengeance, fear, political expediency, or  
knee jerk political reaction. And by that, I mean both "knee jerk  
pacificism as much as knee jerk patriotism", to quote Judy Bierbaum  
an activist involved at our Center. Neither of them are the unique  
and well honed Third Way of the Gospel. Neither of them is "from God".

My deep trust and belief is that when you move from within that third  
place, when you move from a God given place of true light, from a  
Reference Point outside and beyond the private ego or the cultural  
mood, you will do the right and the wise thing. I do not expect  
governments to ever be able to operate with that kind of freedom or  
truth, but I do know that once we attain a critical mass among people  
things begin to change. It happens through us and yet is totally  
bigger than us at the same time.

All Jesus asked us to be was "leaven", "salt", and "light". He never  
expected us to be the whole enchilada. It is a very modest  
proposition, not idealism or utopian at all. A realism that is just  
enough to keep the system from its inevitable and predictable dance  
toward death, violence, and vengeance. Jesus' plan for social  
transformation is to free people from the system and thus unlock it  
inevitably from inside. I believe it is just such people who have  
always kept humanity and institutions from a history of total  
violence. They are indeed the light of the world without even knowing  
it.

Only a small quorum seems necessary. The bible called it a remnant,  
Jews called it a minion, physicists call it a stable core or critical  
mass. As God said to Abraham, "For the sake of the ten just people, I  
will spare the whole city" (Genesis 18:32). All it takes is for a  
small minority to stop believing the lie, and the lie will eventually  
die. All it takes is for a committed minority to believe in Love, and  
Love will use them as a channel into the whole world. God never seems  
to enter the scene uninvited. It appears that God wants us to get  
some of the credit for the redemption of the world. Remember, the  
Christ was first conceived in the flesh by the simple Yes of one woman.

More information about Richard's book: Hope Against Darkness : The  
Transforming Vision of Saint Francis of Assisi in an Age of Anxiety
If you would like to purchase a copy through the CAC, the cost is $17  
for a hardback copy. Please call the CAC, (505)242-9588, for shipping  
costs.
Book Description Richard Rohr offers hope to us in a confusing time.  
"Our age has been called the age of anxiety," he writes in Chapter  
Two of Hope Against Darkness. "Yet," he explains, "to be a good  
leader...you have to be able...to hold patiently a certain degree of  
anxiety...Leaders who cannot hold anxiety will never lead you to  
anyplace new." Saint Francis, he says, can lead us to that new place.

…………………….

  
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