Getting to the Point: evil

Showing posts with label evil. Show all posts

Friday, May 27, 2016

Living Peacefully in a Kakocracy

Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For they have no pain; their bodies are sound and sleek.

They are not in trouble as others are; they are not plagued like other people.

Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them like a garment.

Their eyes swell out with fatness; their hearts overflow with follies…

Such are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.

All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

For all day long I have been plagued, and am punished every morning.

If I had said, “I will talk on in this way,”

I would have been untrue to the circle of your children.

But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,

until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end.

Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.

How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!

They are like a dream when one awakes; on awaking you despise their phantoms.

When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart,

I was stupid and ignorant; I was like a brute beast toward you.

Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me with honor.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Indeed, those who are far from you will perish;

you put an end to those who are false to you.

But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge,

to tell of all your works.

Psalm 73

Reflection – We have a great love for this psalm in Madonna House. The latter verses of it were set to music by one of our talented members, and we customarily use that piece on June 8, our Promises Day, the sentiments therein being so fitting for that occasion: ‘What else have I in heaven but you – apart from you I want nothing on earth, my body and my heart faint, but God is my possession forever…’

It is significant, though, that all of this rapturous acclamation of faith comes after a fairly grim depiction of life in this world. This is a psalm about things being as they should not be, a world that is unjust. The wicked prosper and grow fat; the righteous languish and die. Innocents suffer (although unlike the psalmist we may hesitate to glibly count ourselves among those innocent), while the arrogant and proud, the evildoers go their seemingly merry way unpunished.

And the psalmist is utterly perplexed at this. As are we, aren’t we? The world has not changed all that much in the past 2500 years or so since this psalm got written. Surveying the landscape of political and economic life in the year 2016, it is hard to avoid the impression that we are living more and more in a kakocracy (that’s fancy Greek talk for ‘rule by the worst’).

Psalm 73 calls us to make a deep act of faith in the face of such realities. When the world goes awry, as it is wont to do, when all the tings that should not happen, happen, and what really should happen never does, it is meant to be a powerful reminder to us, a goad to our hearts and minds, that in fact we are not meant for this world.

We are made for God, and the happiness of the human person does not lie in riches and power, in pleasures and vanities, but rather, ‘for me it is good to be near God.’ We leave the rich and the powerful, those who do evil in high places, to the judgment of God. I for one hope that He judges them with mercy, and that all of us can find our true home in the kingdom of heaven together.

For us who have faith now, though, we have to be utterly clear about it—happiness is found not in the goods of the world, but in the goodness of God and our intimacy with Him. That is the final answer to injustice and, shall we say, ‘income disparity’ in this world. Yes, we should work for a socially just order if and as we can, but let’s not get confused about this. We’re not trying to build the kingdom of heaven on earth. We’re trying to make a world, as Dorothy Day put it, in which it is easier for people to be good.

But this goodness, this beatitude that is our true goal, is not found in any economic calculus—everyone getting exactly the piece of the pie they deserve. It is found in the embrace of God and the intimate communion we have with Him, which far exceeds anything the psalmist could have imagined. It is our sharing in the very life of the Trinity, made possible for us in Jesus Christ, that is the portion and inheritance of all who believe in Him and who seek refuge in Him. And that must always be our perspective and our purpose as we move through this unjust and at time crazily confused world.

Friday, April 29, 2016

The God We Have Been Given, Not The One We Would Make

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold;

I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.

I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched.

My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God…

It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;

the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me…

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.

At an acceptable time, O God,

in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me.

With your faithful help rescue me from sinking in the mire;

let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.

Do not let the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up,

or the Pit close its mouth over me.

Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;

according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.

Do not hide your face from your servant,

for I am in distress—make haste to answer me…

I looked for pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.

They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Let their table be a trap for them, a snare for their allies…

I will praise the name of God with a song;

I will magnify him with thanksgiving.

This will please the Lord more than an ox

or a bull with horns and hoofs.

Let the oppressed see it and be glad;

you who seek God, let your hearts revive.

For the Lord hears the needy, and does not despise his own that are in bonds.

Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them.

For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah;

and his servants shall live there and possess it;

the children of his servants shall inherit it,

and those who love his name shall live in it.

Psalm 69

Reflection – Well, the psalms are back at it today with lamentation and cries of distress! This is actually only about half of Psalm 69; I have edited it for brevity.

This psalm is distinguished, though, for being one of the psalms applied to Christ in His passion. First there is the ‘zeal for you house has consumed me’, which is quoted in connection with his cleansing of the Temple (John 2: 17), and then the ‘for their thirst they gave me vinegar to drink’ of course recalls his sufferings on the Cross.

It is significant that we see in these very human, very plaintive and poignant cries of human suffering and distress, something of the anguish of God expressed in Jesus Christ. It is always the tragic tendency of human beings, in the face of this or that calamity or affliction, of this death or that illness, this impoverishment or that terrible injustice, to conclude that ‘God doesn’t care.’ It is, in its own way, a logical conclusion—if God cares so much about humanity, and about me, then why did He allow this to happen?

This psalm—but more importantly, the real historical event to which it points of the suffering and death of God in Jesus Christ—is the answer of God to the question of ‘do you care?’ It is not the answer we were looking for. We wanted God to say, “Well, of course I care, and so now I am going to instantly take all your sufferings away.”

He will in the end (such is our Christian faith) do just that (cf Rev 22), but for reasons of his own inscrutable Divine Wisdom, here and now He chooses to show His caring not by removing our sufferings but by entering into them Himself in the only way He could—by becoming a human being with a human body and a human soul—and transforming suffering from within.

Why He went this route, He has not really chosen to explain to us Himself. Philosophers and theologians have done yeoman’s service on His behalf, but I’m not sure He ever asked them to do it, to be honest. In my own personal spiritual life, whenever I have asked God plainly why this or that suffering has come to me or to those who I love, the only real answer I get from Him is ‘Trust me’, and I think that is the best one of all.

At any rate, and I say this with all reverence and faith, this is the God we have been given, not the God we would make up for ourselves. A God who does indeed fully intend to end human suffering, to wipe every tear away in the final state of things, but who here and now does not do that, but rather enters into it to share it and shape it and make it the royal road to the kingdom. Psalm 69 and the other psalms that are taken up into the Passion narratives bear witness to this, and this is their abiding value in our Christian tradition.

Friday, January 22, 2016

Not Fade Away

Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint;

preserve my life from the dread enemy.

Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked,

from the scheming of evildoers,

who whet their tongues like swords,

who aim bitter words like arrows,

shooting from ambush at the blameless;

they shoot suddenly and without fear.

They hold fast to their evil purpose;

they talk of laying snares secretly, thinking, “Who can see us?

Who can search out our crimes?

We have thought out a cunningly conceived plot.”

For the human heart and mind are deep.

But God will shoot his arrow at them;

they will be wounded suddenly.

Because of their tongue he will bring them to ruin;

all who see them will shake with horror.

Then everyone will fear;

they will tell what God has brought about,

and ponder what he has done.

Let the righteous rejoice in the Lord

and take refuge in him.

Let all the upright in heart glory.

Psalm 64

Reflection – Well, another Friday, another psalm about our enemies attacking us and God destroying them. I must say that, while I am fully committed to doing this sequential commentary on the psalms, I will be really happy when we get a little bit further on in the psalter and other themes begin to predominate over this one. If for no other reason than that it is getting hard to think of something different to say about this particular subject, week upon week.

I would point out this time around, though, that this psalm features the whole reality of God quickly bringing to naught those who seem to have so much power in this world, those who are so very clever, so very Machiavellian in their plotting and scheming, those who are so sure that their wits and their malice will bring them the victory they seek.

And… they fail. They fail all the time. Or they enjoy some limited success for some time, and then, well, they just fade away. This is not only in the psalms; it is the way of the world, truly. Politicians, opinion makers and shapers, movers and shakers, peddlers of influence—all of these are people who for the most part do not in the end matter nearly as much as they seem to in the short run.

Do not fear, then, Trump and Clinton, Sanders and Cruz, Trudeau and Wynne (for my Canadian readers), and the whole lot of schemers and spin doctors, lackeys and toadies and backroom boys and girls who attend them, and all the other proud players strutting the stage in January 2016—by January 2017 a good few of the will have faded away, and by January 2036 most of them will be forgotten and the world will keep spinning around serenely on its course.

I am convinced that the people who make a lasting mark on the world, the people whose efforts and labors do not fade away when they fade away, are the people I wrote about yesterday—the saints of God. And while I suppose we have to put some energy towards resisting the truly wicked people doing truly wicked things in this world—be it ISIS or whatever politician you find most appalling at the moment, this can never become the main focus of our concern.

If it does, we will become like them—power brokers and manipulators, doomed to fade away when our power fades. If our primary concern is to become the saints God made us to be, to love God and to love neighbor, to do God’s will and dedicate ourselves to works of mercy according to that will, then our lives will leave a permanent legacy in this world of light and truth, peace and joy, even if we are the most hidden and unknown of people.

Psalm 64 and all the related psalms essentially tell us not to worry too much about all the sound and fury of the mighty ones of the world, but to dedicate ourselves to serving God and living righteous good lives in this world, so as to be happy with Him in the next one. So… let’s aim for that, today.

Friday, December 18, 2015

Sheltering In Place

Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.

From the end of the earth I call to you,

when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I;

for you are my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.

Let me abide in your tent forever,

find refuge under the shelter of your wings.

For you, O God, have heard my vows;

you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.

Prolong the life of the king;

may his years endure to all generations!

May he be enthroned forever before God;

appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over him!

So I will always sing praises to your name,

as I pay my vows day after day.

Psalm 61

Reflection – A friend and neighbor of mine who is an avid reader of the blog, and particularly of this running series on the psalms, pointed out to me that my commentary on the ‘gloomy 50s’ has missed an important beat.

Namely, that the cry of the psalmist in distress has to be understood as principally (in our Christian reading of it) to refer to the cry of Christ, to the sufferings of Jesus on behalf of all humanity. That while the original and immediate occasion of these psalms’ composition was the suffering of the psalmists’ own lives, now we hear the voice of God Himself, made man in Jesus, in them.

Well, this is profound stuff. And we see the depth of it in the very first line of this psalm: ‘From the end of the earth I call to you’. How can a single individual be crying ‘from the end of the earth’? This implies something bigger than the sufferings of one man. And indeed the Church has read this psalm as referring to Christ, and because of Christ, of His Body on earth, the Church—an expression of the whole Church, which is Christ and is also redeemed humanity, crying out to God.

And in this psalm the cry of distress immediately yields to expressions of intimacy, trust, confidence. This whole business of ‘refuge’ looms large here. And we need to take this to heart, don’t we? Sometimes we can get a bit silly about this notion of seeking refuge, as if strong independent mature adult Christians shouldn’t be looking for such things.

We have to live in the real world! We can’t retreat into our safe space! Down with refuge! Up with going out there and being with the people! And so on and so forth. All of which is fine enough, so long as we know that God Himself has provided us with a refuge, and that in fact we do need said refuge, and it is no part of a real adult faith to eschew it.

That refuge is the Church Herself, but within that refuge we find ourselves delivered into the real refuge which is the Heart of Jesus. His merciful love which carves out for us on earth the only ‘safe space’ we need, and out of which safe space we can indeed traverse the rough waters and fiery passages of life in this world.

Psalm 61 is a really mystical psalm—after this expression of confidence and trust in God Our Refuge, there is all this business of the king and his long life. Again, in the original composition, this would be the actual king in Jerusalem; for us, it is again Christ and His enduring life on earth in the life of the Church.

There are fundamental matters here of good spiritual order, good spiritual foundation and grounding. We live in a world that seems to us to be a dangerous place. Fear and anger are the common lot of the day. Those of us who are Catholic Christians need to safeguard our communion with Christ, with His Church, and from this with one another, to weather the storms of the world as it is.

Of course this is challenging, since the Church itself is made up of a bunch of sinners who screw up a lot, and so life in the Church can be a fairly stormy affair much of the time, and it doesn’t necessarily ‘feel’ like much of a refuge. But as we determine that God’s plan is for us to ‘shelter in place’, so to speak—to stay with the Church and find refuge within its confines, even if the other people doing likewise are an obstreperous bunch of miscreants—we do indeed find ourselves mysteriously delivered over to the refuge within the refuge, which is Christ’s own mysterious life in the Church and in the world. And this is the surest, safest, and most secure way to live in our times and in all times.