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Can The Chain of Violence Be Broken?
Years ago, when I was a small child, my mother would sit with my sister and me in the evening before bedtime and read us a story from our family Bible. It was one of those big, heavy Bibles with lots of illustrative art work to accompany the narratives. One evening, as we were paging through the Gospel according to Matthew, my eye caught an artist's rendition of King Herod's killing of the children under the age of two in and around Bethlehem in response to his failure to find the Christ child. In the Roman Catholic tradition, this act has become known as the "killing of the Holy Innocents." I asked my mother to read that story. As she read, and I gazed at that picture, I began to tremble and cry. These were children, just like me, who, for no fault of their own, were being slaughtered in a senseless act of violence. The scene of that night has never left my mind. Now, I understand that as I trembled and cried that night, God remembered, and cried with me.
Although this heinous act occurred two thousand years ago, Herod's actions are not alien to our contemporary society. Herod and his advisors reacted to something they perceived as a threat to the social order they had become accustomed to. Killing was their only response to something they had no understanding of. Ironically, this response was targeted at snuffing out the Light of the World, although they had no idea of the consequences of their ill-thought decision. Such is the way of violence, a thoughtless reaction to something which is often completely misunderstood. Its inherent tragedy comes in the form of senseless destruction and waste of life. In light of the steady flow of school massacres, hate crimes, drive-by shootings, and countless acts of brutal domestic violence we have come to witness over recent times, I would say that we have not changed much in the last two thousand years. Can the chain be broken?
As we have come to know, violence begets violence, fostering destruction throughout generations. To adapt an image from Proverbs 4, the "bread of wickedness" is a dish served best with the "wine of violence." and, surely, this steady diet will result only in death. I believe that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. profoundly captured this truth as he said, "returning violence with violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." How much death and destruction will we, as a society, have to endure before we understand? How much more will it take before the chain is broken and the madness comes to an end? To these questions, I have no answers, only tears and trembling as I watch the news each day.
As I wrote these reflections, I was drawn to the text of Deuteronomy 30: 19-20 where we find the following words:
"I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him..."
Perhaps, the answer rests in something very basic and fundamental, a reverence and sanctity for the precious gift of life which God has placed in our hands. The power to rise to the full height of our humanity is within our reach. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
Grace and peace,
Joe
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