Here are some typical newspaper headlines from last week’s New York Times:
Issis Sent Groups to Brussels
Violence Surges in Chicago
Fatal Bombing in Pakistan
Police at U.S. Capitol Shoot Man with Gun
Rev. Acree, a Chicago minister speaking of the latest Chicago shootings stated “unless something radical takes place, it’s going to be a bloodbath this summer.”
I read in the Times on Thursday:
Facebook Groups Act as Bazaars for Militias
While writing this piece I caught this headline:
Boko Haram Trains Abducted Women and Girls to be Suicide Bombers
Media stories are disturbingly similar. We live in a world of confused values that are being reflected in increasing violence.
War and violence! Most everyone would say war is terrible, violence is abhorrent. How then does it always continue? What makes it so intractable if everyone claims to loathe it so? I believe the darker side of that question is the one nobody is comfortable talking about: how stories and images of war and violence fascinate and titillate us.
The cultural myth guiding America today is consumerism. In a consumerist society one is valued primarily as a commodity to be marketed. As a result, many Americans live in a spiritual vacuum. This creates what’s called, ennui, an inner discontent and emptiness that feels like boredom. Depression in America is also epidemic.
Shop until you drop is America’s ultimate analgesic. More feels better. Violence is the other anodyne. Don’t we say that what energizes us we get a bang out of? Violence temporarily mitigates the pain of inner emptiness. The titillation in reading or viewing bloody encounters whether in video games, the media, movies, crime novels or the press, fills that void, producing a kind of simulated excitement: violence has the perverse effect of making people feel, although anxious and endangered, at least alive. There’s action! Violence, as much as it may produce fear, is also an elixir, particularly welcomed among a depressed population with confused values. I suspect some of Donald Trump’s volatile braggadocio provides a similar relief from some of America’s spiritual emptiness.
Years ago a minister colleague of mine, a Vietnam veteran, commented on how, despite the fear, the adrenalin high of engaging the enemy has no parallel. “It’s intoxicating, like a junkie’s rush” he said. In the film Patton, while General Patton reviews a carnage-filled battlefield, he says: “God help me, I do love it so. I love it more than my life.” Could Homer may have been right, when in the eighth century B.C. he wrote, “Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing sooner than of war?”
A front-page article appearing Sunday in The Star Democrat highlighted the little known, but inspiring work of PEACE (Peace, Education, And Community Effort,) an organization advocating non-violence. I thank them for keeping the hope for peace alive for twenty years in the consciousness of Talbot County’s residents. The present leadership includes, Bill Chilton, Ralph Young, Ed Simonoff, Nancy Sajda, Bruce Butler and John Hutchison.
How odd that those who strive to champion what everyone claims to want most of all – the cessation of violence and establishment of peace – are known only to a small number of our community. The military, on the other hand, always has high national visibility. Some may have seen PEACE activists holding Vigils on Thursday evenings, standing from 5:00-6:00 in front of the Easton courthouse. Their numbers are few. Some passersbys beep horns in support and not infrequently shake fists in contempt. The vigil goes on. On our behalf, indeed, on the world’s behalf, these advocates although few, remain quietly faithful to the vision of peace.
Over fifty years ago, shortly after I was ordained, I read “The Last of the Just,” a book by Andre Schwarz-Bart. It moved me such that I’ve never forgotten it. In a mystical tradition of Judaism, there’s a belief that there have always been thirty-six “Just Men,” each called a Lamed Vov, whose presence in the world justifies the existence of humankind to God. The book traces the violence visited on Jews from the eighth century in York, England, to Auschwitz today. I find it deeply moving that in the relentless madness and violence, there are always some people of essential goodness, although known to few if any, keeping the world from spinning out of control and going completely mad. PEACE’s membership consists of roughly nine people.
I was not a faithful participant in PEACE’s courthouse vigils, but I occasionally stood with them. I remember it was shortly after the Iraqi war started. I stood vigil next to George McManus, whom I’d just met. He was a tall, lean, aristocratic looking man with a courtly way about him. We stood and chatted while occasionally drivers would honk horns in solidarity – or shout insults. I saw a woman not far from us. She carried a sign that said ‘War Now.’ She looked apprehensive. I went over and politely asked why she felt the war was necessary. She said to the effect that if we didn’t defeat Iraqis now they would invade us later. She was sincere, clearly afraid. War could make her feel secure.
I went back and stood next to George and told him what the woman said. He looked kindly and just shrugged his soldiers. “You know, he said, “I was a young marine when we invaded the Pacific Islands. I fought on Okinawa.” He looked sad and said, “You simply can’t imagine the slaughter. Neither side took prisoners.” I knew little of the Pacific campaign. Years later, I read William Manchester’s memoir, Goodbye Darkness. He writes about his wartime experience as a marine in the Pacific. He was wounded and for a while left for dead. His descriptions of the unending slaughter are horrifying. George had seen it all. Now, tall and alive, here at Easton’s Courthouse, he stood in the public square for PEACE.
Do you suppose that perhaps one among PEACE’s number may be a Lamed Vov here in our own midst? I find the thought comforting.
Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.
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