FIFTY SHADES OF COMPLICITY

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's talk about violence. 

      I deplore violence. It is hatred incarnate.  Human history testifies to the scars cut into the world every time "ruthless mortals wage incessant wars."  

The pages of history are soaked with bloodbath battlefields, where warring ideologies clashed, and bloodbath battleaxes, when dissenters' limbs cracked.

     When there is violence, there is complicity. From bloody red to bandage orange, we who participate in society are guilty of soaking the human stain into the world. 

Complicity is not black and white, but different shades of red. Think about that rich ruby of human endeavor we call war. An American general once said, and I alter it just a shade, “War is all red hell.”

Indeed, it is:  from the reddest red to the faintest hue fading into Earth. Consider the following:

Platonic Red

     The politicians who make war are the essence of red. The kings and queens and fuehrers and prime ministers and presidents who mobilize a military and order an attack share a redness about them that is chemically impossible to duplicate into paint. The so-called just wars are just as red too.

     I can only think of three, possibly four, "just" wars in our nation's history:  the two-part war against Great Britain, the Civil War, and World War II. The “maybe” war would be World War I. All were the essence of red.

Blood Red

Parliamentary or congressional politicians who vote to make a war possible are the color of blood. Their hue diminishes not a nuance when they say, "I didn't know the president would actually use the authority my vote gave him to go to war.”

Head Wound Red

     The intellectuals who use reason to justify war are complicit.

Heart Wound Red 

     The preachers who proclaim they speak for the god of battles who is on their side in a holy righteous cause and the theologians who use reason to justify a holy righteous cause are complicit.

Jugular Wound Red

The scientists who invent implements of death are guilty.

Hand Wound Red

The industrialists who manufacture implements of death are guilty.

Lip Wound Red

      The propagandists who sell war to soldiers, to workers, to taxpayers, and to those who do nothing to stop it are guilty.

Goose Bump Red

     The film industry is complicit when it glorifies war.

Flesh Wound Red

     Citizens who support war by working and paying taxes are guilty.

Cloth Stain Red

     Citizens who do nothing to stop war are guilty.

First Wash Red

     The citizens who leave the country are guilty without knowing it.

 

Second Wash Red

      The citizens who protest after the war has begun are guilty. Once the bloodbath begins, it better bloody well end as soon as possible.

Boots on the Ground Red

     The soldiers, sailors, airmen, spies, and support operators who are doing their duty are compelled by training and circumstances to be complicit.

Day to Day Hue of Complicity

     Okay, my title is a shade hyperbolic, but would you read this if I wrote thirty-seven more?

     My point is that we are all complicit in war just as we are complicit in the internecine violence that occurs in our society.  

For example, every time someone says something racist and I say nothing, I'm arm in arm with the Dylan Roofs of the world.

     Or when I say nothing after Walmart employees ignore me but come charging after the black people behind me because my purchase set off an alarm. I have the receipt that proves their employee did not do what needed to be done to nullify the signal, but they don’t ask me.  

Again, arm and arm with Dylan Roof if I say nothing.  That's how day to day complicity looks.

Blood of Christ Red

     Alas, my brothers and sisters in Christ have been complicit in the most heinous crimes against humanity. Of Christians, history should have nothing to say except: "They never hate.  They love."

But such is not the case. The blood of Christ should never commingle with the human stain, but it has and still does.  

When Christians kill one of God’s children, and that's anyone who's been created, we kill Christ again and again by resurrecting him into a malevolent spirit.

     I have some good news. Jesus the Christ can be found where some would never see him. There is one religion that is a faith of peace. It is Buddhism. Can you believe that?

     When was the last time I heard the words "Buddhist" and "militants" in the same sentence? It seems I heard something about that a long time ago, but it's possible I dreamed it.

When was the last time I heard about a Buddhist nation committing genocide?

     I confess I wish I could ask the same rhetorical questions about the family our God of love has called to incarnate love into the world.

Nonetheless, we refuse to quit love. So never ever quit my brothers, and sisters, and anyone else who wants love to replace hate. 

Indeed, love is the only shade of red that saves us all.

     Blessings...