[Oe List ...] Fwd: Good Friday

Wed Apr 4 01:27:38 EDT 2012

We took the whole week off.

j'aime la vie

-----Original Message-----
From: jrvergarajr2031 <jrvergarajr2031 at aol.com>
To: editor <editor at saipantribune.com>; Mark_Rabago <Mark_Rabago at saipantribune.com>; jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera at saipantribune.com>
Cc: NAFAUM <NAFAUM at Yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, Apr 4, 2012 1:19 pm
Subject: Good Friday

Forgive.

The Culture of Death

The Passover feast is a commemoration of the liberation ofthe Jewish people from their enslavement in the quarries of Egypt.  Save for the Babylonian captivity, theenslavement was by default, almost like bonded servitude experienced by manycontract workers around the world. Contracted service is a quantifiably monetized value, assessing laborfor its marketability, not its intrinsic human worth.

The New Testament witness has Paul testifying that "sinabounds, but grace abounds much more." The history of Christendom missed that crucial testimony.  Much of Christianity leaves a trail ofwarring factions in the ravages of war. As late as Georgie Bush's Presidency and his retinue of Armageddonwarriors mapping foreign and defense policies, we heard articulated thejustification of the preemptive offense as a military strategy.  Most recently, we heard the Obamaadministration tick off the conditions when it was justifiable to 'salvage' anAmerican!

All these in the name of security, which has become ourGod!  It is no comfort to haul thepacific Jesus of the anti-war movement. Jesus did not shy away from recognizing the ways of violence when hetold followers that his message divides kin from the same household.  As with the poor, violence will always bewith us.  The facticity is not thecontradiction; designation of cause, and the accountability of blame, is.  

The culture of death was enshrined when Augustine tracedhuman depravity to genesis in the garden by Mesopotamia.  The theistic creator of the Universe condemnedbut sustained human degradation itself. Such force had to be appeased, and the theology of salvation was not toofar behind.  Jesus was thesubstitutionary son in the Abrahamic tradition, save the older story spared thechild.  In the Golgotha story, the childis sacrificed as befitting the requirements of a vengeful sovereign. 

Ah, but the images we hold in our imagination determines thetexture and direction of our behavior. We miss out on the true nature of education when we insists on studentspassing tests of memorized data rather than wringing them through the rigors ofself-consciously confronting the images they live by.

The "hoodie" in the Martin Trayvon case has sincecome to fore as an example of our delving in the devil of the details ratherthan confronting the import of the image in the big picture.  Gerardo made the mistake of airing advice toparents not to let their kids be off with their hoodies (a popular hooded sweatshirt).  Even the White House promo onhoodies got withdrawn after the Florida incident, yet no one seems ready to confrontthe climate of fear has shrouded our living arrangements as evidenced in ourgated neighborhoods.  The volunteerwatchman gunman Zimmerman himself admitted that it was already dark and it wasraining, so Martin had his hood up.  

America sadly has become the biggest importer of the cultureof death in our time.  Our self-story hasbeen that we were dragged kicking into the two World Wars.  Not so, our historians now note.  The Civil War was conducted with wide-openeyes.  Our track record on non-Europeanimmigrants is not a rosy one.  Ourduplicity from the Maine at the Havana harbor, and on to the Gulf of Tonkinresolution is now a matter of record, and the forgiving Filipinos mired intheir theistic fatalism have all but forgotten Dewey's betrayal at Manila Bay(but now claim an unofficial seat around American hearths as the 51stState of the Union).

We hesitate to use the word "forgiveness" to applyto a case in a culture where revenge is all but sanctioned.  But I heard the word used in China's CCTV9lexicon, its English news station, in the recent account of Zhang Yanwei,mother of Zhang Meng, her 25-yr old son who 6 years ago was senselessly stabbedeight times by a gang of eight young man until he bled to death.  A dispute arose over a girl the young Zhangwas walking home.

To lose a child in a one-child society can be the mosttragic thing to happen to a mother. Yanwei kept a journal of her "conversations" with her sonwhile the case was on trial.  The verdictwas the death penalty to be implemented immediately for the primary crimeperpetrator and life sentences to the remaining seven.  The family of the convicts appealed, sent afeeler to Yanwei for a conference of reconciliation, a procedure allowed in theChinese judicial system that affects verdicts. 

Zhang Yanwei's "conversations" with her son ledher to realize that her son was the "forgiving" kind.  She consented to a verdict of suspendedimplementation of the death penalty.  Thenews focused on the lifting of a heavy burden off Yanwei's shoulders as her kinwere adamant in following the vengeful dictates of their hearts, while hers inhonor of her son went the path less traveled.

The Gospel accounts on Jesus' Friday have Mark and Matthewcrying the Psalmist's anguish, Eloi,Eloi, lama sabachthani!  Luke offeredwords of forgiveness, and John, chronologically the last to be written,affirmed Jesus' finitude and the almost Islamic abject surrender of thecompleted life.

It is the reality of forgiveness that is the antidote to theculture of death.  Once a divineprerogative, it is now a human choice. Alas, Jesus still remains crucified.

 Jaime R Vergara

All of yesterday, thanks; all of tomorrow, yes; all of today, let it be!

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