Last week Thomas Merton led us through thoughts about the irreversibility of evil and how it can lead to fanaticism. We continue today.
This is the familiar mental machinery of tyrannical oppression. By reducing necessities to simple and irreversible forms it simplifies existence, eliminating questions that tend to embarrass minds and slaken the "progress" of the relentless and intolerant apparatus. Sin is thus prevented from entering into the living dialectic of society. And yet a dialectic that ignores the presence of evil is itself dead because it is untrue.
The machine will keep on moving. It moves on by making sure that anything that is different or calls for reflection or review or reconsideration, is removed - eliminated. "Sin is thus prevented from entering into the living dialectic of society." If it is not a part of the discussion...if it is not acknowledged...if we try to make sure it is not within our conversation...isn't everything we do a lie? Lies do not allow the whole truth to surface. Full truthfulness is necessary...even when it disturbs our "version" of the truth. Without it, how can we claim to be people who bring new life to the world.
Connection: We are always being invited to live within the mix of people who make up our society and world. To refuse to enter the mix is to refuse to live fully.
Come, Lord God, and shine among us. Open up our hearts and encourage us to face all who may be excluded and denied life among us for many and various reasons. We need the wideness of your love to bring us into the truthfulness of your Reign. Amen.
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