Courtesy of ABC News.
There is a search for
the motive of the Vegas shooter, as in any mass shooting. Part of it is that we
can’t fathom an irrational act, but part, I suspect, is that we want to find a
way to distance ourselves from the act and the actor.
(It’s
a bit harder for me to distance myself from the shooter knowing that he
graduated from the same Los Angeles area high school and college as my sister
and brother and I and lived in our area.)
It’s
easier when we can blame an evil act on racism or sexism or fundamentalism or political
ideology or ineffective gun regulations or mental health issues, as examples.
Did the shooter have an aversion to those who loved country music or just hate that
genre? Had he been jilted by his girlfriend or did he have a fatal medical
diagnosis or a financial downturn or a narcissistic passion for infamy when
fame itself was unattainable?
Every
reason gives us a way to exclude ourselves from the possibility of such an evil
act.
Though
we may never know his mind, we can search
our own minds. What is my 32nd
floor suite of isolation, anger, bitterness, and envy from which I rain down
death-dealing judgments on others below? When I can’t seem to make “my” unique mark on
the world, do I rely on marksmanship to shoot down the ideas, experience, identities,
and influence of others?
What
is my secret place to which I refuse admittance to housekeepers, whether
psychological or spiritual or emotional? What weapons of hurt and chaos and
destruction have I hidden there? And how have my weapons become automatic?
I’ve
written before that I don’t agree with Jesus that the thought equals the act. “One
who lusts has already committed adultery.” “‘You shall not murder,’ but I say
do not even be angry with a brother or sister.” I believe one who does not give
in to temptation is better than one who does.
But
maybe I’m missing Jesus’ point. Even to entertain the temptation distorts my
soul, disfigures the beloved child of God that I am. Many of us in this
political climate want to return “an eye for an eye,” failing to realize
that even that form of justice was intended to limit our retribution, not even
the score.
I—and I believe each one
of us—was “comped” a suite on the 32nd floor of our minds upon birth
where we could wreak our secret vengeance on the world, even if it meant
hurting innocent people, sometimes especially
if it hurt innocent people. After all, we too were born innocent: it’s the
world’s fault that we’ve been injured, ignored, and excluded. Somebody’s got to
pay, even if that someone is simply one caught in our crosshairs on a given
day.
What
happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. Those shots were shots heard ‘round the
world. What happens in Vegas or Paris or Orlando, what happens in Washington or
Moscow or Beijing, what happens in Puerto Rico and Niger and Kabul and the West
Bank and North Korea reverberates throughout our global web and wounds
everyone, distorts our souls, disfigures our outlooks, and disrupts our planet.
These
thoughts came to me as I read and reread and read again Thomas Merton’s words
contrasting two kinds of monasticism represented in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov in Merton’s final
book, Contemplative Prayer:
The conflict between the rigid, authoritarian, self-righteous, ascetic Therapont, who delivers himself from the world by sheer effort, and then feels qualified to call down curses upon it; and the Staretz, Zossima, the kind, compassionate man of prayer who identifies himself with the sinful and suffering world in order to call down God’s blessing upon it. … Thus the Zossima type of monasticism can well flourish in offbeat situations, even in the midst of the world. Perhaps such “monks” may have no overt monastic connections whatever (p 28).
We are in an “offbeat”
time when we need monks like Zossima—and may I say, monks like you and
me—called to identify with the sinful and suffering world in order to bring
God’s blessing upon it.
Thomas Merton’s Contemplative Prayer is one of two texts for a contemplative
retreat I will be co-leading for Columbia Seminary’s Spiritual Formation
Program at Sacred Heart Monastery, in Cullman, Alabama, April 30-May 4, 2018,
entitled “Beside Still Waters.”
Related Posts:
Wounding God (Charleston)
What I Love about the U.S.A. (San Bernardino)
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