The Accuser - at the fence

From the moment a woman or a couple open their car doors until they are behind the closed doors of the clinic - the accuser is at hand. The voice is often loud. The voice is one laced with the tone of condemnation even when they attempt to use words of sound like those of care and concern. The care and concern is only if - if people turn to their way of seeing - nothing else.

The accuser at the fence finds it appropriate - even vital - that they have the voice to define the lives of any and all who approach the clinic. You see, they see themselves as god's children. I used the small letter for God here because in their role as the accuser - they are the children of the one who is really a rival with God. The accuser always wants to have the power of God - offer the voice of God -  claim to know the judgment of God. And yet, the accuser is nothing like God - never has been and never will be. The accuser would have the world and all that is - live within the rule of its well defined boundaries - and to hell with the rule breakers - let them be damned and expelled from the vision of the accuser's life.

Oh, I forgot. I should - out of respect, I guess - capitalize that name. The Accuser walks along the fence line -The Accuser operates through the power of shaming - The Accuser is filled with the illusion that it knows what is good and what is evil and that it can act upon that power it claims. Ah, the Accuser has been lingering around cultures since the beginning of time - defining and creating the rules that make much  of some of us and less of others of us - even deciding who must be eliminated and who can be saved. The Accuser can be any of us - yet at the fence there is a strong, vile representation at hand.

The Accuser is dressed in the words and clothing and voices of religious people. Therefore, their accusations that condemn others are able to hit many folks especially deep - wound without consideration for the welfare of others - crucify any who do not follow their vision of how life is to be. Now, I must say that when I call the Accuser, religious people, I do not mean gracious people - loving people - self-sacrificing people - forgiving people - merciful people. No, the Accuser is embodied by people who find the love of God for all to be - too burdensome - too out-of-control - too expansive - too unconditional. The Accuser despises people and actions that appear to be too much like the God-that-lets-no-one-go rather than the god who picks and chooses who can be in and who must be out.

The Accuser lives to condemn although it often sounds like the Accuser is trying to save the world and rescue humanity from others who are corrupt and vile. Therefore the message of the Accuser is often twisted. There is condemnation in order to bring about deliverance. Say what!? Yet that is one piece of the powerful dynamic of the Accuser - shaming people - lying to people - so that they forget that they are already eternally beloved - without condition - even without observable proof. The Accuser tells folks they can only be beloved if they change into something else - change into a character with the likes of the Accuser - become a part of a holy mechanism of accusation and condemnation - one that is not holy at all.

 I am not claiming that the people in the parking lot or at the door are not a part of the games of the Accuser. I think we all play those games - sometimes with a subtlety that is more deadly than loud voices. And yet, the Accuser at the fence defiles the words and images of God's Reign by twisting those images and words into something far less than the unbounded availability of God's love. Instead, the Accuser offers death. This is a death as in - a life of utter conformity to rules that must be followed in order to called inside and not outside - saved rather than condemned. The Accuser only knows how to deal in death. That may be why another name for the Accuser is Father of Lies - content to bring to life one thing - a host of liars.  Therefore, we let them continue their lies. But in the meantime - we never leave the side of those they seek to shame and condemn - though we be shamed and condemned along with them.
TRRR