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In last night’s posting I spent a lot of time putting an email into web page form. What a waste! The purpose of these postings is not to relay information like an email but for observations and reflections. I could have, and will now, spend the time saying how the two issues, stop the teaching of killing at a Catholic university and providing beds, stoves and refrigerators for those in need with money a church inherited are really two sides of the same coin.
Teaching killing, killing without conscience is a violation of the basic message of Christianity, that we are all brothers and sisters and should love one another as ourselves and not kill each other. This is the dark side of the coin. On the other side of the coin is the positive message of the Gospel of how to make the Kingdom of God on Earth by giving special and preferential treatment to those who live in poverty, suffer, marginalized and segregated. This is the light side of the coin.
If we ignore both sides of the coin, ignore and be silent on senseless killing and the treatment of those in need and disenfranchised we are double loosers and have no coin and not much of spiritual life. On the other hand if we speak and act to stop the violence and to treat those in need with human dignity then we own the coin and through our sacrifice and suffering are the winners in the game of life.
When I hear about a soldier who cannot forgive himself for the killing he did in war, hear the voice of a young child crying for his mother and sister killed by a USA drone in Pakistan or visit with a family in North Central Milwaukee that does not have beds to sleep on, a refrigerator to keep food and drink and a stove to cook on, I am ashamed. How can this happen by and in a great country like ours, so powerful and rich?
I realize that both sides of the coin, the violent and killing side and the side of providing a bed to sleep on or appliances to prepare food are really two sides of the same coin. We can choose the side of death and destruction, crimes against humanity or we can choose the side of compassion and human dignity. If, on the other hand, we choose neither side, just go on talk and talk about things with no actions and compassion we are just sleep walkers in life. We live in a world of make believe where there is no choice between evil and good. We are like sleep walkers in life.
We need to wake up and choose the Works of Mercy or the Works of War.
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