From "A Story-Formed Community:Reflections on Watership Down in The Hauerwas Reader.
...a key purpose of most societies is to provide a sense of security...
Absorption into most societies is training in self-deception as we conspire with one another to keep death at bay. Ironically, the more our societies confirm this self-deception, the more dangerous our life becomes. We lose the skill of recognizing what danger is and where it lies. Deception become the breeding ground for injustice, since the necessity to hide the dangers of our world make it impossible to confront those aspects of our social order that impose unequal burdens on others. Our conspiracy for safety forces us to see our neighbor as a stranger.
And...we all know how we tend to treat strangers. They are different. They are not like us. If they are not like us, we must beware that they may be a danger to our group or society. In the movie "Bowling for Columbine" Michael Moore throws in a cartoon on the development of western civilization and it is a sad/funny commentary on fear and our ability to tell self-deceptive stories in order to maintain an order or a direction within a group of people. As Hauerwas rightly notes, "deception become the breeding ground for injustice." To maintain a dominant story or simply the story of a group of people, means that we must be very watchful of anyone who does not fit a certain profile or, at least, fit in so well within the dominant self-deception that a portion of their profile may be overlooked...for now. But the stranger among us is always a stranger...someone is always placed into that role...the outsider...the one who causes us to have to put up our walls of security. Even if those walls are manufactured by self-serving rules and pictures. I am always overwhelmed by the stories of Jesus as he does not go along with notion of "outsider" as it is defined within the security of the community. He makes the stranger a sister or brother. That is utterly foolish within the societies and groups who want to control by painting those outside the norm as a threat.
Connection: We must be a people willing to hear another version of the story. Therefore, an exercise that would be good for all of us is to ask how it can be seen differently and what might a different view do to help us have a wholesome and creative picture of the society or group in which we find ourselves.
Lord of All, your creative powers have been used to bring into existence the many people of your world. We differ so much and yet you call us out as one - a people beloved and inspired by your Holy Spirit. Where there is the possibility of division and warfare among us, grant us the wisdom to look again and see how we may set our fears aside and listen and speak as people drenched by your gracious reign. Amen
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