Seeing Clearly

I found this picture yesterday and thought it would be a good one to share.

My sons and I were exploring the northern California coast a few years ago, and as I recall a huge fire was burning somewhere in Central America. The smoke drifted all the way across to California, creating some tough conditions for photography, to be sure.

I'm in the center right of the frame - working to get a good position for landscape photography. Most of my images from that day weren't worth keeping - but this one is special to me.

I think I'm roughly in the same place today as I was in that photograph. Conditions are tough. The way ahead is uncertain. And at the end of the day, I'm not at all sure that what I'm doing is going to amount to anything at all. The world is grey and dim - its as if the pigment's been drained out of everything around me.

But then, of course, there's the sun. It's starting to break through in places - though quickly obscured again. "Come on! Can we please get through this? Blow, wind - blow this fog out of here and let the full light of day shine bright and clear."

And like that day on the coast, maybe those following behind me will have the best perspective and the most useful picture of the landscape we're traveling through.

That'd be fine too.

"And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light
of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and
they will reign forever and ever." - Rev. 22:5

Father, thank you for the moments of peace and light in these grey days. Bring your kingdom in fullness on the earth, and your light that outshines all others.

Passive Evil

As far as I can tell, two categories of evil are manifesting in my situation.

First and most obvious is the active-aggressive evil that I spoke about in the last few posts. This kind of evil is fairly easy to identify, both in ourselves and in others. It's the kind that makes headlines - the kind that makes for a better-than-average movie of the week.

But the second is a less obvious form - the passive-aggressive evil. This kind of evil is harder to identify because it's couched in calm words, it's exercised with a smile and the victim often feels quite comfortable as the deed is being done.

To me, movies about passive evil are bland. If I had it my way, they'd never appear in theaters - they'd go straight to the Lifetime channel, bypassing even DVD.

Oldtime preachers, by the way, distinguished between these two forms of evil as "sins of commission" and "sins of omission".

So I've been piecing together data on the filthy river and those floating downstream in it - linking comments and actions to complete a jigsaw puzzle of human behavior. The script might actually make a decent B-grade movie.

I see plenty of active-aggressive activity. It's the kind that's been so obviously hurtful. And in fact, this is the kind of evil I'm most tempted by - like the retribution I spoke of earlier. It's the main reason for the prayer in my last post.

But I've found that passive evil is even more well represented. One example is the nasty little accusation posed as a "question" or a "concern".

I think the antagonists have learned by experience that an initial direct assault on another person's character often fails. It's much easier to sell an aggressive lie later if you pave the way first with a few passive accusations. For maximum effect, pose them as questions.

Or even better yet, why not humbly suggest praying about a "concern for someone's welfare". It's a sure-fire way to paint yourself as benign and benevolent. It puts the antagonist, regardless of their proven history of bad behavior, in a position to be trusted.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer did serious theology work in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. He is famous for wrestling with the issue of the German church committing passive evil by neglecting to address the torrent of aggressive evil rushing across Europe from the bowels of Hitler's regime.

Bonhoeffer was ultimately killed by Hitler just a week or so before the German demoniac took his own life.

Ethics, yet unfinished at the time of his death, is perhaps the most challenging thing I've ever read on dealing with evil.

And now that I've written this far, I realize there's no way I can adequately summarize Ethics in a blog post. So I'll deal quickly with just one point.

It appears the German church justified its lack of confrontation with evil by holding to the belief that spiritual things were spiritual things and earthly things were earthly things.

So when Hitler skinned a Jew and sewed the resulting birthday suit into a lampshade - that gruesome evil was, for the church, an "earthly" thing that the church shouldn't involve itself in.

Bonhoeffer spent alot of ink convincing the German church that the universe exists not in two realms, but in just one. He said that when God became flesh in Jesus Christ - God engulfed the carnal and the spiritual in Jesus. God thus made it clear that His concerns are with the profane, the holy, and everything in between.

As a result, Bonhoeffer argued that the Church must actively engage in exposing and defeating evil, because defeating evil is the passion of God Himself. If we don't expose the evil, Bonhoeffer argues strongly that we become part of it ourselves. In my metaphor, we jump in the river by default.

Let's note Paul's words in Ephesians 5:

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as
children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness,
righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have
nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose
them."

Exactly how to expose evil in particular situations is a topic for another day.

Father, "search me and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me". Give me strength to face and reject my own evil, and the courage to lovingly expose it in those around me - so that your glory may be evident to all.

Evil and the Justice of God

I read N.T. Wright's Evil and the Justice of God a few months ago. I have to admit - at the time I wasn't as impressed with the book as I've been with Mr. Wright's other works.

At the time I read it, I was trying to reconcile my understanding of the present and coming kingdom of God with America's struggle against terrorism in the wake of 9/11. I was left wanting a more comprehensive solution than Wright proposes. And so, the book took its place alongside the many others in my library and I moved on.

But over the past week, the evil surrounding the otherwise victorious death of my mother has brought several insights given in the book to the forefront. I'll deal with only one of them here.

In the recent events - as the title of my last post hints - I've received a particularly vivid understanding of where evil is and how evil works. Also, no less important, I have a particularly deep feeling of the effects of evil.

First, to the questions, "Where is evil and how does it work?". Wright masterfully points out that evil is not a problem of me (the good guy) versus them (the bad guys).

Rather, evil is a problem that runs like a polluted river right through me, you, Mother Theresa, Adolf Hitler and everyone in between.

But for now, let's take the focus off me for a bit and use you as an example.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you are slandered. Let's say that heinous lies are perpetuated about you for the benefit of the slanderers. What is your "natural" reaction? Well, if you're anything like me, and you have similar skills, you'll likely want to use those skills to systematically destroy those slandering your good name.

And "why not?", you might ask yourself, "they're doing the slandering, they're doing the lying!". Then, if you're like me, you can actually plan and visualize the retribution. What's more, you know that you're capable of taking that retribution to shocking and debilitating levels.

But if - and this is a big "if" - if your moral compass still works, you realize that evil is "crouching at the door", to use a phrase from a particularly ugly family situation in Genesis 4.

So where, then, is evil? That filthy river is indeed running right there next to you. The antagonists are swimming in it, for sure. In fact, they've found a way to channel it right through them, through their thoughts, words and actions. It runs out of their mouths.

And the temptation for you to do the same is almost beyond resistance. You dip your toe in and much to your surprise, the water's warm. Sure, there's rot and feces and every manner of vile putrefaction floating by - but strangely, you don't retch.

That's how close evil is to you, to me, to the antagonists and even to the heroes.

How does it feel to be in such proximity to evil? Well, in this case, I have two very strong sensations. The first is utter loneliness, brought on I think by the shape of this particular evil.

Truth is, I deeply enjoy a certain kind of loneliness, the kind I recently felt for 6 days spent solo backpacking in a remote section of the Rocky Mountains. But this is not that kind of loneliness - evil this close to home does indeed hurt.

But the second sensation is unexpected. It is that of pity - pity for the antagonists.

Not a self-righteous pity born of a "me-good, they-bad" mentality, but a deep, slow sigh born from the knowledge that I was able by the power of the Spirit to pull my toe out of the river, yet the antagonists were not. For whatever reason, they surrendered themselves to its current.

It's just really, really sad.

Wright reminds us that one day Jesus will set the world fully straight. His kingdom will come, for real, on the earth - and he will rule with utter justice.

In fact, there's a very different river in store for those of us that can keep from being overcome. In the last chapter of the Bible the Apostle says:

"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great
street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing
twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the
tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse."

Father, give me strength to stay ever farther from the filthy river so that I may enter your coming kingdom, and experience that river which waters the tree of life.

Mom's Death and the Nature of Evil

I've been away from here for some time - dealing with the downward spiral and eventual death of my mother last Tuesday. My brother and I spoke at her funeral yesterday. And I have to say this experience is unlike anything I've ever been involved in.

It's not the stress - reorganizing major chunks of AT&T's information technology space was far more stressful.

It's not death itself - I've been preparing for my mom's death in one way or another since I was 8 years old.

It's not even giving that sermon at her funeral - it felt like the most natural and appropriate thing I could possibly do in the situation.

Mom was well prepared both spiritually and emotionally for her death. I'm quite proud of her handling of the whole thing. She's suffered stage 4 cancer since the summer of 2005 with as much dignity as one could ever expect given the horrors of treatment that she's gone through.

And now I believe she's taken the next step toward the resurrection, and the eventual coming kingdom of God on earth. So in and of itself, Mom's death is a really beautiful story.

Nah, I'm not shocked at any of the above.

Rather, what I am taken quite aback by is the way that evil expresses itself even in the midst of triumphs like Mom's - through those of us in the periphery, through words and actions - through the hidden thoughts and intents of the heart that are brought to the surface under this particular kind of pressure.

Father, give me strength to pursue a path of both peace and justice in this dim and dry place.