On hardness of heart, and contempt of God's Word and Commandment.

From the time of Matthew Brady, during the American Civil War, photographs of war dead have been choreographed to affect the public mind. We run out of words to express the horrors of the wars, invasions, and destructions of our times, although Euripides, Shakespeare, and the Bible have told it all before.

            What is hardness of heart? Are our hearts in danger of being hardened by exposure to such demonic images? Or are we instead to be awakened?

            I was amazed last week to have a conversation with someone who claimed in all seriousness that evil does not exist. Everything takes place on a personal level. Everyone is misunderstood. To see all is to forgive all.

            I take strong exception to this view. If we live at peace for generations, we may forget the devastation, cruelty, violence and degradation: the common coin of war. Most of what we see today, we have seen before, only now we see it faster, and infinitely reproducible.

            In The Trojan Women, Euripides gives us Cassandra, who speaks for women raped, sent into slavery, and murdered; Hecuba, whose poignant farewell to her little grandson as he is handed over to be thrown from a cliff to his death tells unbearably of all children relentlessly slain; Andromache, defenceless after her husband’s death in battle. The piteous anxiety of those awaiting their fate when their men have all been slaughtered is left to the chorus to sing.

            Photojournalists capture many, but not all, the images of war and destruction. Some films and photographs are made by the violent themselves: the recording of their deeds is part of their pride in them, and part of the punishment of their victims. (Such film may have further purposes also.) When journalists go into danger to secure these images their motivation is often to awaken the world, not to let us rest but to put into remembrance what has happened and what is happening. To be witnesses.

            A martyr is a witness: that’s the meaning of the word. And so many journalists have been and are being martyrs for the truth. They witness to the contempt of God’s Word and Commandment — to love, and not to hate — that we pray to be delivered from in the Litany. God commands love: love for God first, and then for humankind, God’s living image. The images of violence depict the desecration of the image of God. And this is evil. I think it’s a good, if limited and partial definition of evil: desecration. What God makes holy you must not profane.

            For those who repent, forgiveness is possible. For those who take pride in their violent deeds, God is their judge. For ourselves, we pray to be delivered from hardness of heart. To heed the martyrs, to be awakened, for our hearts to be broken, broken open and shared with our tears.