Loading...When you gently slip into a the chlorinated lap lane at the local swimming pool your feet are going to touch the floor and the most traffic you will navigate through is a discarded band aid or a student from the fitness class crossing your lane. Having entered the element of water you still haven’t left the domain of humans.
When you jump off a an old fishing boat into the salty water of the Carribean, your feet aren’t going to touch the sandy ocean floor which is covered in sea grass, corals, rocks and prickly things. You are looking about for passing traffic of sea turtles, sharks, and coral reef fish, and of course the boat. Don’t lose sight of the boat. As beautiful as the crystal clear waters of the tropics may be, they are not the domain of humans. The boat is the way back to your domain.
I recently enjoyed a vacation to Nassau, Bahamas where I enjoyed several swims in unfamiliar waters with creatures I would only otherwise meet in aquariums. No, I did not see a wild shark. It’s thrilling and terrifying to be on their turf. I’m aware of my finlessness and how splashy my swimming must look to them. The sea creatures appear indifferent to my presence.
Yet I’m keenly aware I am in their territory and completely at their mercy. Hundreds of reef fish swarm around the cracker in my hand yet I perceive no danger. On one occasion when swimming with no marine life in sight I was stung by some unseen stinging thing. Since I didn’t see it, I cannot identify it but I can assure you I won’t forget it.
The animal kingdom is a place where I experience what I believe many come to church to experience during Lent: a sense of your place in the world. In God’s world.
I’m thinking of the victims of the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand. At least two of those who died were refugees — one from Afghanistan and one from Syria. They had fled the violence of their homes only to meet violence in the land of their refuge. Here are two people seeking their place in the world, in God’s world and in both places violence touches them. Is there a land where violence has no domain?
When navigating the sea of information storming about the mosque shootings I was also caught in the traffic of many other news stories of violence including the plight of the Yazidi children and other refugees from eastern Europe who are now refugees from the Islamic State. Reporters are meeting children who have no idea where they are from, who their parents were, or what their original language was. The children don’t know they are exploited or neglected because they’ve never known life outside hiding or “being transported” or sickness. They are only familiar with violence despite having fled from one land to another, to another to escape. Is there a place for them in God’s world where they can experience peace? Pray there is. For with God all things are possible.
For me to preach that to you I must adjust my original question. Instead of asking is there a land where violence has no domain? I’m led to ask where is peace making a domain in the land of violence?
St. Patrick is famous for many reasons not the least of which is that he has been adopted by the nation of Ireland as patron saint. But he is not famous for having been born there. St. Patrick was born in England. When he was sixteen he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and became a shepherd and a Christian. After six years he escaped and returned home. Years later he had a vision that a man carrying letters to him from Ireland spoke in the voice of the entire nation: We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us. In response to the vision Patrick returned to Ireland, to his captor, an Irish chieftain who became a Christian.
Patrick isn’t famous because he experienced violence. He’s renowned because he forgave his captors and the result of that forgiveness brought about the conversion to Christ and subsequent unification of many tribes. Here’s to Patrick.
And here’s to everyone who creates a domain of peace in a land of violence.
To everyone who decides to keep their eye on the boat even they feel like they are in a place where they don’t belong.
To everyone living life in the incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended Lord Jesus which can feel like being a fish out of water — or like a human swimming in a coral reef.
When you decide that life in Christ is the life for you you’ve not left the domain of humans. You may feel like a refugee from a life of sin and death. In Christ we seek asylum in a kingdom so rare and beautiful that the word describing it is heaven. Make no mistake; you must still navigate the traffic from the consequences of sin and death which are violence. Fear not, you are at the mercy of Mercy.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/16/asia/new-zealand-mosque-shooting-victims/index.html
This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. Leonard Bernstein
