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Thursday, August 04, 2005

A Framework is Cracking...

Today's (Aug 4, 2005) Daily Dig from the Bruderhof community smashed right into me. I am reeling from the blow. It is a quote from a catholic priest who blessed the pilots who dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I wanted, I am ashamed now to say, to fight his presenting a "nonviolent Jesus". I wanted to insist that there are times when we have to stand against evil... and yet... I can not think of any thing that Christ did that was violent, except, maybe, turning over the tables in the temple... I am not sure where I land on this issue yet... I am TERRIFIED of being utterly nonviolent...

But there are some details that are resonating... disturbing me... cracking things within me... waking me up... beliefs I have accepted without thinking are suspect...

1) Three orders of catholic nuns and children were wiped out from the bombs on Nagasaki. (If you follow the links to keep reading more, you will see a picture of the destroyed cathedral) Reading the writings of this catholic priest and the impact on his life of doing an "about face" and following a nonviolent Jesus smells hugely like Kingdom to me. He was the catholic priest in charge of the soldiers whose mission was to release the bombs. I can not diminish the impact of realizing that the bombs destroyed those of the priest's own church. It, to me, screams... wake up!!! We are ALL God's children!! He does not see Baptist or Catholic... American or Japanese. I want to pray as Mother Teresa, "God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in."

2) I grew up in Tokyo, Japan.

Suddenly two compartments in my soul have crashed into each other. There is a cut-offness about my living in Japan, because now I live in the States. But suddenly, that little girl is real again. I spent years there...

3) I just finished listening to the story "Rilla of Inglewood" by L.M. Montgomery. It is about Anne (Shirley) Blythe's daughter and her growing up during WW1. Listening to that story, I was all for fighting and standing against abominations... and I can't quite think it was wrong... I am so confused.

This dig has dug up my deadness and there is a mess in my garden.

posted by Jaime G @ 2:35 PM   2 comments

2 Comments:

At 9:33 PM, Blogger jeffmacsimus said...

Digging up deadness is always good... often messy, but...

I can't imagine the collision. I'm reading a novel that's post-war Japan right now and I'm not sure I can begin to let this interweave with that.

Seems like many of us are in a nostalgic season... hmm...

 
At 7:08 AM, Blogger gloria said...

I'll pray that the deadness decomposes and that new and beautiful things are fertilized from that death.

 

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