I have been captivated by the news of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt over the past three weeks. One hopes that cool heads prevail in this crisis and that violence is not an option in the process…. Human process: The recreation of the world, or perhaps better said the world still in the creation process birthed in the beginning, still seeking its destiny…but process nonetheless…and the process, as process is, is not neat and clean; there will be tragedies in the process, social and economic hardship for the more vulnerable of the region….but what has struck me, and I hope I’m not too naive about this, is the noble passion of the human spirit…this upwelling call for justice, which in all religions and cultures is our highest vocation…that we work for the good of the whole, that we live together in mutual and collaborative dignity….The nations of the world are jockeying for self-interested position….but all the while the voice heard above the din of potential chaos is the voice of liberation and justice.
And the voice of justice is the voice of the human spirit that knows deep in its DNA that it is justice and freedom that we live for…however messy the process….It is the same voice that has transformed civilizations forever…In modern times alone:…the voice of Gandhi, the voice of Martin Luther King Jr., the voice of Nelson Mandela, of Caesar Chavez, of Oscar Romero, of Mother Teresa, of Aung Sa Suu Kyi….all of these voices merely and profoundly a representation of the voice of a people whose cause was a just way to live together….It was the voice of the human spirit that changed the world for the better, and has throughout the course of history, and forever will. In the prologue to John’s gospel, the writer puts it quite succinctly: “What has come into being in him (the Christ) was life, and the life was the light of all people.” John is describing the life force, the life force that exists in every culture, called by many names….the light force that creates and recreates the world….It is irrepressible and the darkness has not overcome it….and it is not exclusively owned….but enlightens all.
I imagine that the people of Egypt….Tunesia….and people of other places where the spirit of conscience is rising, know the truth of this…and this truth casts out fear….that courage comes with such an upwelling….but such upwellings are inevitably opposed by the powers that be, the insideous status quo…so there is always danger, no doubt….Be we and our sister and brother humans of every nation, race, tribe and religion are born to bear the light…the light of transformation and creation, the light of humankind….and the art is to bear such a light peaceably, creatively so that justice in its saving manifestation is served with all due grace and good will….I believe it can happen that way.
Pray for all who sacrifice for the cause of justice, for in such sacrifice the world is made new….and don’t believe that such causes are regional…they are global…because now as ever the people of the world are intimately connected…all of us one blood, one blood!….all of us of the one light, the light of humankind which gutters against the winds of violence and injustice…but in the end will last and make us one and free in the one spirit.
