Humanity's Drug of Choice

The topic for today's post comes from a book by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan entitled, "The First Paul". I'm reading along and enjoying what they have to say to help me understand a misunderstood theologian when I encounter on page 166: "Humanity's universal sin is far, far worse than those traditional vice lists cited for Greeks and Jews by Paul in Romans 1-3. It is this: we have accepted violence as civilization's drug of choice, and our addiction now threatens creation itself." Wow, how right the authors are...just look at the newspaper or TV news, it's all violence. From "bounties" in the NFL, to fighting and disrespecting other players in all sports. It's not enough to win anymore, you have to humiliate and intimidate. All of our lives are surrounded by violence. Try to find a T.V. show nowadays that isn't filled with some type of violent theme, mental, social(making money at someone's expense), emotional, physical or all three. It's incredibly hard and even our "cartoons" are violent and rude (which I treat as a form of violence). Is it any wonder that my children struggle with how to be curteous and in right relationship with others - or that many (if not most) adults also struggle with these issues? I think about some of the church committee meetings that I've been in recently, or the stories of "bad" congregant behavior I hear from pastor friends and I'm quite clear that our sin of violence is quite universal. There are alternatives to violence as a drug of choice. There's a different narrative that can be employed, one that talks about love and respect and forgiveness. You know the one I'm talking about - it's a part of all the Abrahamic faith traditions. This "drug" can be every bit as addictive as our current one, but will lead to a world of enhanced possibility and peace. We sure could use a violence detox or 12-step program that could "cure" us of the need to feel special based on someone else's pain. The outstanding question is, how is each and everyone of us going to help get the point to the media that we've had enough of this chemical and we'd like to find a way to peace? Something to ponder over this weekend and for the rest of Lent. Peace for your journey! Dan