Leftovers for their little ones

 

Batoche

Rise up, Lord, confront them, bring them down;
        with your sword rescue me from the wicked.
By your hand save me from such people, Lord,
        from those of this world whose reward is in this life.
May what you have stored up for the wicked fill their bellies;
        may their children gorge themselves on it,
        and may there be leftovers for their little ones. 

(Psalm 16: 13&14, NIV)

Charlottesville, Barcelona, Turku: news this past week was dominated by violence in these three places to the point where you needed only to say, “Charlottesville incident,” and people knew what you were talking about. The expression, Alt-right was still new to our vocabulary when we had to wrap our heads around Antifa, which Donald Trump mistakenly called the Alt-left, thereby giving the pundits yet another story-line.

And then the opinion editorials (op-eds) started to come out in an avalanche: where’s hatred and bigotry coming from? how bad is it really? what’s the history of intolerance? are we in danger from the hate fringes? should we counter-demonstrate or ignore xenophobia?

I heard of no one falling on his/her knees and imploring God—as King David purportedly did in the hate-filled song that is Psalm 16—“May what you have stored up for the wicked (think rat poison, or hell?) fill their bellies; may their children gorge themselves on it, and may there be leftovers for their little ones.” What we got from the week’s news, though, was a clarifying of the definition of “the good people” versus “the bad people” in the imaginations of our fellow citizens. And in any scenario where God’s created, beloved humanity divides itself into camps—whether by necessity or by some whim of superiority—the seeds of warfare, violence are being sown and the harvest will be reaped.

It’s really hard to imagine sitting across the table from ISIS or from neo-NAZIs, or from hooded KKK members and engaging in a courteous conversation that would bring us back to the consciousness of our mutual, inter-dependent humanity. A conversation in which both “sides” would have to listen carefully while the other answered very basic questions like: How would you describe the ideal world, the one toward which you’re struggling?

Surely if the longing for safety and health, for food and shelter, for love and intimacy, for self-fulfillment and dignity are universal, then their realization should make us content, peaceful. And if for some people such an expectation seems futile and absurd, then whatever appears to be responsible for denying us the amenities of contented, dignified living obviously becomes AN ENEMY.

But it ain’t that simple, is it? We all seem to need an enemy, someone to deride and castigate, someone than whom we are better. Alt-right or Antifa (anti-fascist) as we may be, it’s hard to understand how the world we Westerners live in could be substantially better. We’ve got it all, folks, abundance overflowing, opportunity without limit, and yet we make ENEMIES of people of colour, refugees, people of different beliefs, indigenous populations, conservatives/liberals, take-your-pick. Something within us seems to prefer confrontation to conversation, conflict to negotiation, war to peace.

Somewhere, someone may be praying the prayer of Psalm 16:13&14: “May what you have stored up for the wicked fill their bellies; may their children gorge themselves on it, and may there be leftovers for their little ones.” And in his mind, the “wicked” may be you and me—us, the ones who apparently have it all and more. The “belly full” makes sense in this context on so many levels.

I can’t think of any scene in which persons of good will—be they Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or none of the above—would not have as their most excruciating longing the reconciliation of the myriad enemies that seem to be replicating at the reproductive speed of fruit flies. And to those who maintain that diplomacy, dialogue, patience and generosity don’t work, I’d be inclined to say that they had better work, because everything else has been 
tried . . . and has failed.


All this may be dependent, of course, on our personal reconciliation with our creator, the creation, our fellow earth-inhabitants and our own “better-angels.” Or as one indigenous elder said to a group of us, “If you want to be helpful in the healing of your indigenous brothers and sisters, begin by looking to your own healing.”