A Kindly Hand

 

The Good Samaritan

Perhaps I’m missing the logic behind what’s going on between Russia and Ukraine, and now between the USA/Israel and Iran. Is it really only about narcissists caught up in dreams of personal greatness supported by sycophants who hope to catch some of that greatness by harnessing themselves to their coattails? Surely there’s some of that, but it’s much more, obviously,

There’s plenty of conjecture about the deep, existential meaning behind the turmoil being created. I read a defense of the American President’s actions in Venezuela as an act of God’s will; at the same time liberal Christian leaders deplored it as more nearly a manifestation of the Antichrist at work.

More immediately, I’m surprised by the postings on social media that urge Canada to purchase either the US-made F-35A or the Saab Gripen to bolster our defensive capability and align with our allies in providing military potential. The psychology of offering two alternatives to squelch debate on the much more important question of the militarizing of Canada at great expense, that I understand.  

For a small country to match the firepower of much larger neighbours is futile. Should Russia or the USA, China or India decide that they can no longer do without the resources Canada sits on, our military resistance might simply mean that the necessary killing and plundering to achieve the inevitable would be multiplied. Surely prevention of war through skilled and sincere diplomacy is a much cheaper, much more effective defense than a hanger full of muti-million dollar jets, missiles and drones.

At a time like this, it’s helpful to review the military history of Costa Rica. A small American country in a continent where the mighty USA is determined to revive the Monroe Doctrine,  making the USA the real and only America, with the remainder of the two continents its backyard, so to speak. Costa Rica abolished its standing military in 1949, the rationale being that its sovereignty vis e vis the USA could never be guaranteed militarily in any case. Also, Latin American countries had experienced the usurping of militaries by dictators as forces of oppression. Funding was diverted to domestic life enhancement; the country has found no reason to reverse the abolition decision of 1949.

Please read a short history of that choice at Why Did Costa Rica Really Abolish Its Military?

I’m loathe to raise this point, but surely the three deist religions need to re-examine themselves in the light of their own, often expressed role in peacemaking. We’re not experiencing an extension of the Crusades, per se, but  the mindsets fueling the Iran/Israel/USA War right now would probably not be happening except for the preconceptions built in by Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions, each of which appear to have created and recreated the same God/Allah in their own image. Each of which have found ways to justify their positions in the current conflict embedded in their holy books.

Perhaps trying to explain wars logically is a fool’s errand. I can’t accede to the view that “as long as human nature exists, conflict will happen.” I’ve lived long enough to have experienced the empathetic, the sympathetic, the magnanimous generosity in human nature when language, culture or religious considerations are not inserted as being the essence of the moment. So I wrote a poem:

A KINDLY HAND

I was not then— nor ever was—

expectant that a kindly hand

would reach for me from up above

to rescue me from this or that

and set me down on firmer ground

 

But yet I sent a frightened prayer

from where I lay ‘mongst rocks and thorns

in a foreign ditch where few passed by ...

All hope seemed vain as darkness fell

that god or man would hear my cry.

 

I wept in fear and agony

and slept, and woke and slept again

but when the moon arose I saw

a figure hovering over me ...

I feared the reaper had appeared.

 

But no, a turbaned head now spoke

“As-Salaa-Alaikum,” was what it said

I answered him as I’d been told

“Wa Alaikum salam wa rahmatullah.”

He grunted, nodded, turned away.

 

I heard him groan to move the rocks

that kept me prisoner, tightly bound,

Unwound his turban, bandaged me

and voiced a sing-song melody

whose tone was all I understood.

 

He gathered sticks and built a fire

that spread a glow like summer sun

He sat me up, sat down by me,

We shared some Halvah, heavenly

and held communion, silently.

 

And I am now, will ever be

expectant that a kindly hand

will reach for me—not from above—

to rescue me from this or that

and set me down on solid ground.  

NAICA

gg.epp41@gmail.com

 

How far can you count?

How come we seem able only to count to 2?

Pope Frances is visiting Albania where—CBC News tells us—half the population is Muslim, the other half Christian. Two colours. Black and white. No grays.

Comments posted on North American websites hurl accusations back and forth; the labels—you lefties or you rednecks—suggest a world with only 2 political sides. (Some imply that in Canada, the Greens, the NDP and the Liberals are all "lefties," as opposed to the Harperites who are "that blessed ONE in a world of only 2," and vice versa, of course.)

I'm pretty sure ISIL, or ISIS, sees the world as 2: us and the infidel.

I remarked on this at the dinner table the other day, ill-advisedly declaring in defense of 2 that the entire population was either male or female, and was brought up short in support of all those many who are born with gender characteristics that are ambiguous, even scary to those who tenaciously cling to the fiction of a black and white world, a world of 2.

I grew up in the Mennonite Church in a predominantly Christian community. There we learned that "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters (Luke 11:23, also found in the gospels of Matthew and Mark)." We also learned that, "Jesus answered (Thomas), 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me' (John 14:6, not recorded in the other gospels)." There's really no easy way to interpret these passages other than as a description of a world of 2—those with me and those against me.

I was diligently taught not to count past 2 in these matters.

Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair—speaking on the subject of Christian Church/Aboriginal reconciliation—said that  "Christians and their churches must demonstrate respect for Aboriginal spirituality . . . they must no longer insist that Christianity is the only way for all people."  (Esther Epp-Tiessen in INTOTEMAK, Summer 2014, Vol 43, No 2)

If Justice Sinclair is right, then the kingdom of heaven is not populated by a monochromatic white but by rainbows of colour, not 1 as against 2, but 3, 4, 5 . . . ∞ together, a myriad of persons known not by the greenness of their leaves but by the flavour and nutrition in their fruit. (See Matthew 7: 16 - 20)

I've never been to Albania, but I'm guessing there aren't only Muslims and Christians there, and among those two groups, that there are liberal thinkers and conservative thinkers and any numbers of gradations between, plus Buddhists, Unitarians, agnostics and atheists, etc. I’m also guessing that good fruit doesn’t only grow on tree 1 or tree 2.

(What a bit of irony—70+ and still learning to count!)

We do our politics, our religion, our social interactions, our very families great wrong if we can't bring ourselves to count past 2.