"terror is easier to face than confusion", he said

i’ve been reading the analysis of dick cheney’s speech to the AEI last week. wondering at the horror of the torture committed in afghanistan, abu ghraib and guantanamo. at the attempts to justify it, deny it.

and feeling powerless despair. we call it inhumane. but it was humans who did it. authourised it. legal-eased it. and there seems nothing but silence with which to respond. wordless in the face of images indicting us with just how far we humans will go to prove our might, our power, our authority, our triumph over the will of another. and as we rob the other of their dignity, strip it, beat it, break it, we lose our own…

i think of my infant nephew and feel the conflict of welcoming him into this world. for there is goodness and beauty but there is so much else besides. so many whose lives are marked by sadness, pain, suffering, horror. for whom this place is hell. i see the images of naked men, hooded, taunted by dogs, leashed, bound, and i think of this tiny boy starting out on his journey and wonder at what he will make of this world. wondering at what his life will be for… and if we can only tell him and his sister that we are present to a kingdom of beauty if we look the other way….

i think of the persisting scandal in the british parliament threatening to topple a government and i think of the abuse of so many at the hands of the irish church, of mass rape and mutilation of girls in Africa, which ilke enhanced interrogation appears to threaten no one. i can’t help but wonder that the expenses scandal is but distraction. and matters more to people because it came out of their pocket but does not affect their conscience. it’s perhaps not ethic that drives us but (love of) money. ethic should not be found on a sliding scale but this seems disproportionately scandalous… perhaps we choose our outrage by what we are willing to face. by what we are willing to pay attention to.

and in truth i fear all this is little more than a distraction from other things more personal that are pressing in unexpectedly and rubbing at wounds i thought i’d moved past. i feel the all too familiar claustrophobia setting in and i’ve been struggling not to resort to counting the hours ’til i can run. retreat to safer soil and be away from the triggers currently setting off tiny explosions of grief. it’s not funny how the total degradation of strangers never cuts quite as sharp as the mere slights of others against us. even the words and actions we choose to see as slights, whether intended as such or not. and usually not.

but it feels upsetting to feel oneself regressing and in need of retreat. especially when surrounded by lovely, beautiful people. and then grace comes in and i don’t know what to do with it either. feeling close to the brink, with it all caught up in my chest, trying to mask the twist of feelings keeping me from breathing easy…

i got to be at tuesday group last night. the unexpected chance to see mo and lynn’s soft smiles was balm. we sat and read tobit chapters 3 and 4. tobit and sarah both pray to YHWH to have their lives taken from them, believing it better to be dead than bear the insults of others. both pushed to the brink by scorn and shame. and like them, i pray. in tears. because sometimes tears are the best prayers we have next to silence. i pray perhaps not for death, but for release from shame and anger and hurt.

when i touch the tiny wooden cross at my throat, i think, this is what we do… and i am no different than the rest…

LB

lots of dark, tiny signs of light

bit of laundry list this. stuff that caught my eye and ear inbetween to-ing and fro-ing… i’d write more on what i’ve been thinking on all of this but the tops of my fore and middle fingers on my left hand had an accidental encounter with a razor blade and so typing is proving awkward.

from the daily dish:
i’ve gone back to this video several times. an arresting juxtaposition of happy people and angry voices…

li wei‘s amazing *not photoshopped* images:

After Wars, Mass Rape Exists an important highlighting of an issue that has had pitifully little attention given its severity. and a not uncontroversial report by Nicholas Kristof in the NYT of the same – the comments are provocative.

it’s been a troubling week for being part of Christendom on this part of the world…
there’s good coverage of the ‘gay debate’ at the Church of Scotland’s general asssembly over at sunday sequence and william’s blog, including the big question that now hangs over CofS’s daughter church, the presbyterian church in ireland. none of it entices me to return to the fold of the denomination.

sunday sequence yesterday gave most of the programme, unsurprisingly, to the 3000 page report on child abuse in the Catholic church in ireland published last week. the debate: will there be justice for victims? made for powerful and at times deeply uncomfortable listening.

i had a job a few years back typing up statements from victims of abuse in church run institutions. i’m not sure there’s ever going to be anything to say as adequate response to the horrific history brought unequivocally into the light. the challenge lies in what should be done, rather than said, in response. with two more reports yet to come this summer, the role of, and extent of power given to, the roman catholic church in irish society is now severely under question.

on a (perhaps, slightly) more positive note, william had a very interesting conversation with susie orbach last Sunday about her new book, Bodies. the interview is no longer there but there’s an Observer review here.

LB

everything was beautiful & nothing hurt*

2 pieces of video…

first, the footage of a girl being flogged by Taliban fighters in Pakistan, which left me this morning in horror and feeling speechless. i had no idea what words to respond with and still don’t now. and certainly not any that are non-violent in spirit right at this moment.

second is this, over at the daily dish. andrew sullivan is bringing up to the minute coverage today of the extremely important iowa and vermont rulings on gay marriage. but this video stands out, as does his commentary.

it’s all got something to do with rights and human dignity and justice. but the world keeps turning…

:: and so it goes :: *

LB

*slaughterhouse-five tattoos