Unfinished Business

The following meditation comes from an Episcopal publication Day by Day dated July 26, 2010. The meditation was originally printed in 1941. As the back cover of the current issue of the (printed) magazine explains, "… To commemorate the 75^th Anniversary … Forward Movement is reproducing timeless and inspiring meditations from past issues." The choice of the word timeless is indeed (sadly) accurate. The three "fundamental objectives" have not been achieved today 65 years after these words were originally written. We still have our work cut out for us.

Forward Day By Day

MONDAY, July 26 Saint James (tr)

Matthew 20:20-28.
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.

If Christianity is to win the world, Christians must unite upon certain fundamental objectives and seek to discover practical means for their attainment.

One is the elimination of war.

A second is a social order which gives to able and competent human beings the opportunity to work and earn a living wage.

A third is the elimination of the selfish exploitation by the strong of the weaker members of society.

Not only must we make Christianity more vital and telling by strengthening our own faith and by translating our faith into action, but also each separate individual follower of Christ must learn to live in closer comradeship with him. This will mean assuming the form of servant, letting go of our own prerogatives and claims. Our love of Christ makes this possible. It is only as we come to know and love Christ passionately that we can through our lives make his spirit irradiate this dark world. (1941)

This and other meditations may be found at: http://forwardmovement.org/

An excellent book that explores the issues raised by the above meditation is Jesus:Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary by Marcus J. Borg.

Patriotic Lie

As this Fourth of July winds down and many of us complete our celebration with another beer or one last hot dog and the fog of patriotic celebration settles in we often hear eulogies or remembrances about our country's brave soldiers who have gloriously given their lives for their country. This "celebration" had added intensity in our city today as a young 19 year old soldier who recently died in Afghanistan was buried with all of the panoply this city could muster. As my wife and I talked about this she was reminded of a poem written by a soldier in WW I that spoke to the myth of the "glorious" death of another soldier. The poem follows that puts the lie to that concept of "glory".

Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggers under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And toward our distant rest began the trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that drop behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man on fire or lime. --
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
the old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori. *

* It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.