This weekend, that which is considered the center of our order - our culture - our power, will find itself occupied by the least among us - the children. Let the powers play their games and attempt to hold onto the nothingness that they assume is greatness, but in the meantime - in that time that is not yet fully available and the time that is at hand - the least will teach us - or maybe, they will simply be the artisan tools that begin to design another way. As we will see, these young ones are not there to take control - they cannot - they will never be given that power. In fact, I already can hear the voices of the skeptics - the takedowns of the critics - the violent words of those who fear visions and prophecy. For too long we have lived with the lie that parents and culture teach our children well. Well, unfortunately and too often, we teach them merely to be as we have been - self-absorbed - self-concerned - longing, like John and James, to be at the right and left of power. In the meantime, the least are left to be gunned down and prophets are eliminated for the sake of profits lustfully sought.
I am not so naive to think our country will change after this weekend of marches and speeches and masses of people calling for another way for us to be who we say we are. There has been no time in history in which the pyramid of power (that reserves room at the top for the powerful few and presses the masses to the bottom of society) has been toppled. Yes, revolts and revolutions attempt such a move - but their history becomes the history of a new order - culture - power - that simply switches the seating on the pyramid. And yet, order does not need to mean the order of that which has been - that which controls - that which uses violence to fool everyone that things will be fine. Order can take on another character. I'm living in hope here - so hang with me.
‘Let the children come to me’ is a line of thought that can lead to mere sentimentality. Sentimentality - for as much as it may offer us a warm feeling for the moment at hand - is often nothing more than the the drink we are offered to keep us unaware of the violence in which we all participate to keep things just as they are. I do not want this weekend to be filled with words and images that offer nothing more than a sentimental journey into a few moments of reflection that never leads to that which is needed to change the order of the day. That kind of change - will take repentance. I don’t mean the ‘Forgive me, O Lordy, Lord, so I can continue on my way.’ Here I am wondering more about the reversal that is to happen as forgiveness reigns. A repentance that leads away from ‘but it’s my right, we have to protect ourselves and stay in control’ to ‘how do we embrace the creative, peaceable power of an ongoing creation.’ I find having the children placed at the center is an image of that which one writer noted as being - ‘eccentric and thus nonviolent.’ They have no power - they are out of their minds - they are standing out in the open like lambs about to be slaughter by the slings and arrows of the orders of the day. Yet, they do not move.
So If we have time this weekend, don’t send out thoughts and prayers to those who are gathered across the country. Rather, go stand in the middle of the circle with our children. I do not want us to go to stand with them to defend them - but, to be with them - to be fools - to be the subject of the scorn thrown out by cowards whose trust lies only in the power of a culture we hold sacred even as it offers its children to the vendors of death. Then, when this weekend is over - continue to be a bit eccentric and wander into the rest of our days acting out - yes, acting out.
TRRR
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