So I’m a few weeks into my Lenten fast. I have given up all
violent media this time. This is harder than you might think, even for a fairly
passive guy like me. Actually, I blew it on the first day.
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| Abbey of the Genesee |
On Ash Wednesday, the wife, the son and I rode over to the
Abbey of the Genesee, a Benedictine trappist monastery in Piffard, NY famous
for their breads. (http://www.geneseeabbey.org)We
bought lots of loaves (mmm, raisin bread…) and then slipped into the chapel for
vespers.
If you’ve never attended a session of the Liturgy of the
Hours, you should seriously consider it. It is peaceful, reflective, beautiful
and wonderfully restorative.
Well,
usually. On this fine afternoon, the chosen psalms for recitation included
139 (If only you would slay the wicked, O God)
and 140 (let the mischief that is on
their lips bury them. Let hot burning coals be poured upon them : let them be plunged into that miry pit from which
they shall never arise.). This was incredibly violent
stuff, even when chanted with placid monks in front of a minimalist stone altar. Check that - especially when chanted with placid monks in front of a minimalist stone altar. The effect was chilling! In a place of high Roman Catholic holiness on the very first day of Lent, I broke
my fast before I’d really even started. Oh, the irony.
As
it turns out, this experience was fair warning for what has followed. Violence
is so deeply woven into American culture that it is nearly impossible to avoid.
I lean over a pew before church to joke with a young congregant and he’s deeply
engaged in a light saber duel on his hand-held video game. I sit down to watch
the Daily Show and have to avert my eyes from a commercial for an automatic
bill pay service that features a malevolent, angry bill collector shattering
glass and breaking down doors to deliver an invoice. At a hotel in Binghamton last weekend I had to turn off the
cable tv because the commercials inserted into even the mildest of programs
featured a ton of violent content.
Last night at band practice I began to show the boys and
girl a rendition of Let It Be from one of my favorite movies (Across the
Universe), only to realize I’d have to shield my eyes through the first 1/3 of
the song.
Ridiculous? Yes, it is. The lengths to which we must go
to honor a somewhat arbitrary decision is part of the glory of a Lenten commitment.
It is maddening, imbalancing and terribly inconvenient --all things a good reflective faith challenge should be. These passing weeks help me realize how indifferent
or even accepting I have become toward
violence. I didn’t realize how ubiquitous it has been in my supposedly peaceful life.
I believe the human race is poised for a spiritual/psychological evolution. I also believe we're a long way from achieving it. Generations away.
ReplyDeleteWhile the realism of depicted violence, the technology to produce it, has increased, I believe we are actually more aware and less accepting of it than 50 years ago.
Violence is inherent in being human. The tendencies dwell in the primitive brain. We have known for hundreds, even thousands of years that we are "higher beings" with potential to self-determine. What is needed is the motivation to do so.
One could argue that the violent rhetoric has escalated in the political/social realms. I believe it is always darkest before the dawn. The optimist in me hopes we are purging, as a race, our basest tendencies. If we survive this purging, be it decades or centuries long, perhaps our great-grandchildren or their great-grandchildren will be a different kind of human- a more inately peaceful "elevated" version of the semi-knuckle draggers we are today.
Oh great, now I'm going to have Synchronicity II stuck in my brain all day!
ReplyDeleteA quick, funny story about my mom's trip to the Abbey of the Genesee. She went with a guy she was dating at the time, they did the whole tour, brought the bread. And you know how my mom will talk to anybody right? So she talking to one of the monks, and at some point he tells my mom how much she looked like Lena Horne. To which the guy she was dating replied, "Shows you how long it's been since he's seen Lena Horne."
I actually turned off my TV 2 years ago, and use it only to watch videos and Netflix. Mainly to assert some discipline so that I can work on my dissertation. But I love Netflix because it permits me to be selective about what I watch, avoid commercials and avoid feeling inundated by the political diatribe that "passes" for news lately. That doesn't mean I don't get the news, or stay blissfully uninformed, I just do it on the Internet where I actually have to do some research and not just take what's being told to me for word.
As for the violence, a while back I watched the Swedish series of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which is just a hotpot of violence and violation. Yet for me it wasn't just being passively received, and after a certain scene (avoiding spoilers), I shed some serious tears in empathy for this heroine in the rough as I came to understand the dynamics of her character and allowed this visual story to convey her experiences.
I can't remember who said this, or the overall context of the statement, but the gist is that when people communicate their suffering, it is our responsibility to pay attention. So for example having to hear the finite details of the atrocities of rape committed in Rwanda, or Sudan or Croatia horrifies and yet also deepens the understanding of the de- humanization of rape and the importance to take action for campaigns to end rape in all forms, but specifically as well, as a form of war. One example in a microcosm of the inhumane ways humans can mistreat each other. This also reminds me of the discussion about the ethics of editorial photographers who witness and photograph atrocities (that infamous photo by Eddie Adams of the South Vietnamese soldier shooting a Viet Cong operative in the head). The overarching question becomes what is their responsibility? Is it to bear witness and capture the moment, to intervene, or to turn away?
I think to some extent violence in our world has become de-contextualized which then contributes to it being normalized and that generates passive responses when we’re not compelled to examine what we’re seeing and understand the broader context. This brings to mind a story about a class trip to a movie theatre to watch Shindler’s List where the students were evicted from the theater for laughing at a scene when a young Jewish girl was shot in the head by a soldier. Once everyone was done being outraged, a broader conversation was sparked about how these students really didn’t have a solid understanding about this story they were told to watch. When I teach diversity, there is a film I show where people say some terrible things, and people laugh, and I’m often reminded about this story, that without context, people will often react without thinking, as well, laughter is at times, a coping mechanism for shock.
I think one the smartest things I did as a parent, as my daughter grew into identifying her own music and seeing movies that I would prefer she didn’t watch, was not to boycott it and try to restrict her, but to ask her to think about what she was listening to and watching. What emotions did it evoke and how does she understand the story, or message, or lyrics? In other words I (hopefully) conveyed to her to think deeper than what’s being presented on the surface and understand that everything has layers of context that may need to be “unpacked” or set aside. I like to think that somewhere past the eye rolling and the “God, mom, I just like to dance to this, okay?” she understood.
Great posts, Kendall and Kristin.
ReplyDeleteLike you, Kendall, I believe I can see a corner in human existence. It is my hope that all the extremism, furvor and thrashing of the past century or two are the death throes of some of our as-yet-not-completely-defined flaws as relational beings. This is difficult, as these flaws are mixed in the mortar of our institutions and histories. No wonder it seems so destabilizing to change.
Kristin, I am often struck by your ability to float above so much shock and clutter to see a much wider picture than most will consider. Your stories of finding broader context remind me of the Thoreau quote I just shared on Facebook: "Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors."
Amen.