On Change.

Change for the better, change for the worse, change for the sake of change. All worldly enterprises are immersed in suffering, say the Buddhists: change, good, bad or indifferent, is suffering. The cause of suffering is also desire, aka greed, even desire for suffering to end.

            How many great historical changes have I seen? Looking back on my years as a history text I see major disruptions, wars, famines, genocides, massive alterations in political maps. Going over the map of Europe from the Roman Empire to the present is like viewing a flickering lantern show, borders floating forward and back across a screen. Walls, such as Hadrian’s Wall, have been built. Walls, like the Berlin Wall, have been destroyed.

            In Rome lies Monte Testaccio, a huge hill of broken pottery, a record of ancient taxes in kind. Money and markets change greatly. Inspired adventures, collapsed economies, magnificent empires, crumbled civilisations: all change. Seeking The Golden Age anywhere in the past ignores the truth of change. 

            Heaven and earth indeed will change, says the Psalmist. They wear out, they are changed like clothing: ‘Thou shalt change them like vesture, and they shall be changed.’ God alone is unchanging. Always only God.

ON THE VIOLENT MAN

Composer Benjamin Britten never used the word ‘gay’ of himself, because, he said, it’s not a gay position to be in. For most of his life his relationship with Peter Pears was illegal; he wore insults continually; he was aware of shadows of ruin, blackmail, murder, suicide. Not so gay.

            ‘Preserve me from the violent man,’ says the Psalmist of the Jews. The murder of fifty individuals at the gay nightclub Pulse — their individual deaths — is part of the history of terrorism not least by violent religion’s ability to cloak crimes, and indeed the dregs of religion, both Christian and Muslim, have rejoiced. And America’s infamous availability of military weapons to the unstable is the direct cause. But those who died at Pulse were murdered because they were there, in that specific, gay place, within a straight culture drenched in intolerance and self-congratulation.

            The Psalmist sees the wicked, bending the bow, arrow on string, ready to shoot. ‘Deliver me, O God, out of the hand of the wicked.’ The Psalms never mince words. The wicked are the wicked; the violent man is to be feared.

            Good heart may be taken in the outpouring of grief across the globe, Tel Aviv’s rainbow lights of solidarity, the Muslim Mayor of London in vigil, displays of lights, prayers, ribbons, memes, blogs. Inconceivable in Benjamin Britten’s time.

            It’s not over. Culture is us. I want an apology from hierophants and churches. At the highest level. Lord, let me live so long to see it.

On Justice

Justice is the virtue willing to give to others what belongs to them. Where a Stanford student was convicted of three felony counts of sexual assault upon a stranger, the issue isn’t the judge’s sentence (punishment) but the victim’s plea for justice, in a statement read by millions.

What was taken from the victim has three parts: her good name, her bodily integrity, her spiritual and mental wholeness and peace. The moral instability of her attacker compounds with that of his father, who complained his son took only 20 minutes to accomplish the crime, and so shouldn’t suffer. This speaks of a society devoid of justice.

How to restore good name and reputation? Confession clarifies responsibility: someone who admits wrongdoing takes to himself what belongs to him, instead of passing it on to his victim.

Loss of bodily integrity requires purification. In the case of murder, for example, purification is part of the meaning of the funeral. What’s the purification ritual for violated women?

Repentance leads to salvation. Spiritual healing requires it; the victim must observe it. ‘We indeed have been condemned justly,’ says the thief in Luke, ‘but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Repentance is differs from remorse displayed to convince a judge. Repentance stands before God and declares who and what I am.

A prison sentence is merely the currency by which a society measures value. Women are valued less here than elite men, surely. But spiritual harm is lasting. Confession, purification, repentance: a trinity.