Letter to Middle America
I write home to you as one who has lived with you, though no longer, in a town of 125 water hookups with 500 names in the phone book, one cafe, one garage, one saloon, and two churches. Sound familiar? Read on. I respect my friends' privacy too much to name the town, where people taught me what life is really about -- the small things, the daily details. The struggle, sometimes, just to survive.
Or perhaps you live, as I also have, in a large, prosperous city or its safe, comfortable suburbs, mainly concerned that your children grow up in safety, holding the values you treasure?
As you listen to the news lately, do you not hear the cries of the men and women, struggling as you do, and their children -- much like yours -- as they watch their beloved die in the rubble in Beirut? As they try to flee, watching their neighbors fall in the streets? Yes, they fall in Haifa, too, though perhaps not in such vast numbers.
Watch this breath, the one you take this moment, as you read this. Yes, THIS one, this breath -- as you breathe in, where does it go? Does it fill you, give you energy for one more moment? And now, letting it go, breathing out -- where does this breath go? Mixing with the breath of your children, your neighbors -- and then? And your tears, as they dry on your cheeks (you do cry sometimes, don't you?), as they evaporate into the air around you -- do they rise into the stratosphere, to be carried on the jet stream eventually over Lebanon and Israel, there to fall next winter as rain on the rotting corpses of people who at this very moment, like you, are just trying to make it through another day? But their chances of being a corpse by next winter are far higher than yours.
We are so closely connected to those we live with -- our families, our neighbors. Daily, moment by moment, we create each other, as we eat and work together, argue, plan, worship, and grieve together. And each of our neighbors is connected to someone else, and so on and on -- where does it stop? Either we are all one, or we are not at all. One family, around the globe -- living, breathing human beings born as we are, dying as we all will. Do you envision your son blown apart, dismembered by something falling unannounced out of the sky? Can you see your daughter dropping in the dusty street with your grandchild, as she runs screaming in horror from her home?
This Sunday after church, or at the grange after lunch this week, ask your most trusted friend some of these questions. See how they respond. We go to church to know God's love, don't we? How does God feel about that little girl you saw on TV last week, lying dead in a field in Lebanon? You do realize, don't you, that when bombs drop and missiles explode, they actually blow apart everything in range, including living human beings? If you have not seen any corpses or blood-soaked bodies on your screen in a while, maybe what you're watching is not actually the news. If no anguished wives or mothers appear in your home as you eat dinner with your family, you might need to find another channel. For surely it cannot be that all those beautiful explosions cause no damage, leave no dead and dismembered.
What can we do, far away as we are from all this? After all, these are only pictures on TV, right? And besides, how can we possibly have any effect on what governments and terrorist organizations are doing over there, inhuman and insane as it may appear to us? Or are we actually excited by all this? Don't our pulses beat stronger, don't we get excited, don't we feel more alive, anticipating and watching the next atrocity, bemoaning it and wringing our hands?
Don't we sometimes feel these bad guys should just be destroyed, making an end to all this? By the way, who are the bad guys? The angry terrorists launching missiles into Haifa, killing innocent civilians? Israeli Army pilots dropping American-made bombs on Beirut, killing innocent civilians? The leaders of Hezbollah, vowing to continue the violence? The leaders of Israel, promising to continue the attacks? American leaders, calling for support of "Israel's right to defend itself"? What about the rights of Lebanese people to live? Or perhaps the basic culprits are US defense corporations, profiting from the chaos and the resulting demand for their manufactured products? The CEOs? The men and women on the assembly lines, or the engineers who design and "improve" the killing power of these weapons?
Who decides who must be killed to end the violence? Or when to stop killing? How will we be able to tell when their violence has been ended by our violence?
Maybe this is why the first commandment Moses brought down from the mountain was, "Thou shalt not kill." Maybe Jesus was right when He said to turn the other cheek. Surely, "an eye for an eye" is not bringing what we all want -- peace everywhere, so we can all get on with living the best lives we can live, knowing that other people everywhere, just like us, are able to do the same.
If you agree with any of this, please, please talk with your best friends about it. If some of your friends agree with you, spread out and talk to yet more people. It may be that what you most deeply desire is what most of us want -- NOT what politicians and TV personalities keep telling us we want. Let's talk to each other and find out!
Lenore McGee Luscher
Watsonville CA
Or perhaps you live, as I also have, in a large, prosperous city or its safe, comfortable suburbs, mainly concerned that your children grow up in safety, holding the values you treasure?
As you listen to the news lately, do you not hear the cries of the men and women, struggling as you do, and their children -- much like yours -- as they watch their beloved die in the rubble in Beirut? As they try to flee, watching their neighbors fall in the streets? Yes, they fall in Haifa, too, though perhaps not in such vast numbers.
Watch this breath, the one you take this moment, as you read this. Yes, THIS one, this breath -- as you breathe in, where does it go? Does it fill you, give you energy for one more moment? And now, letting it go, breathing out -- where does this breath go? Mixing with the breath of your children, your neighbors -- and then? And your tears, as they dry on your cheeks (you do cry sometimes, don't you?), as they evaporate into the air around you -- do they rise into the stratosphere, to be carried on the jet stream eventually over Lebanon and Israel, there to fall next winter as rain on the rotting corpses of people who at this very moment, like you, are just trying to make it through another day? But their chances of being a corpse by next winter are far higher than yours.
We are so closely connected to those we live with -- our families, our neighbors. Daily, moment by moment, we create each other, as we eat and work together, argue, plan, worship, and grieve together. And each of our neighbors is connected to someone else, and so on and on -- where does it stop? Either we are all one, or we are not at all. One family, around the globe -- living, breathing human beings born as we are, dying as we all will. Do you envision your son blown apart, dismembered by something falling unannounced out of the sky? Can you see your daughter dropping in the dusty street with your grandchild, as she runs screaming in horror from her home?
This Sunday after church, or at the grange after lunch this week, ask your most trusted friend some of these questions. See how they respond. We go to church to know God's love, don't we? How does God feel about that little girl you saw on TV last week, lying dead in a field in Lebanon? You do realize, don't you, that when bombs drop and missiles explode, they actually blow apart everything in range, including living human beings? If you have not seen any corpses or blood-soaked bodies on your screen in a while, maybe what you're watching is not actually the news. If no anguished wives or mothers appear in your home as you eat dinner with your family, you might need to find another channel. For surely it cannot be that all those beautiful explosions cause no damage, leave no dead and dismembered.
What can we do, far away as we are from all this? After all, these are only pictures on TV, right? And besides, how can we possibly have any effect on what governments and terrorist organizations are doing over there, inhuman and insane as it may appear to us? Or are we actually excited by all this? Don't our pulses beat stronger, don't we get excited, don't we feel more alive, anticipating and watching the next atrocity, bemoaning it and wringing our hands?
Don't we sometimes feel these bad guys should just be destroyed, making an end to all this? By the way, who are the bad guys? The angry terrorists launching missiles into Haifa, killing innocent civilians? Israeli Army pilots dropping American-made bombs on Beirut, killing innocent civilians? The leaders of Hezbollah, vowing to continue the violence? The leaders of Israel, promising to continue the attacks? American leaders, calling for support of "Israel's right to defend itself"? What about the rights of Lebanese people to live? Or perhaps the basic culprits are US defense corporations, profiting from the chaos and the resulting demand for their manufactured products? The CEOs? The men and women on the assembly lines, or the engineers who design and "improve" the killing power of these weapons?
Who decides who must be killed to end the violence? Or when to stop killing? How will we be able to tell when their violence has been ended by our violence?
Maybe this is why the first commandment Moses brought down from the mountain was, "Thou shalt not kill." Maybe Jesus was right when He said to turn the other cheek. Surely, "an eye for an eye" is not bringing what we all want -- peace everywhere, so we can all get on with living the best lives we can live, knowing that other people everywhere, just like us, are able to do the same.
If you agree with any of this, please, please talk with your best friends about it. If some of your friends agree with you, spread out and talk to yet more people. It may be that what you most deeply desire is what most of us want -- NOT what politicians and TV personalities keep telling us we want. Let's talk to each other and find out!
"The rich and poor meet together: the LORD is the maker of them all ...July 21, 2006
"He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail ...
"Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man thou shalt not go: Lest thou learn his ways, and get a snare to thy soul."-- Proverbs 22
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."-- Galatians 6:7
Lenore McGee Luscher
Watsonville CA
posted by Lenore McGee Luscher at 13:21
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