Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, February 17, 2009

There are two ways, one of life and one of death,
and there is a great difference between the two ways.

- from the Didache – the Teachings of the
Apostles, (50-120 CE) trans., J. B. Lightfoot

Bottom line, starkly put, that is the choice we have. This very early Greek document just holds up the mirror for us. Have you ever read Ursula LeGuin’s “The Tombs of Atuan”?? It does the same thing, so beautifully written that you can feel the dust of the Way of Death seeping into you, as the wizard Ged wrestles with the Priestess of the Tombs who guards a religion that has lost its way on the roads of Death.

It reminds me much of our own days. To me, people are being cheery (in the places they are free to be cheery!) about “religion”; Americans are especially good at it. But the religion that gets into the media, that we see being played out, seems to me marked by Death. I see the pictures (why, oh why, do I watch these things!!??) of the Taliban, fresh from burning down girls’ schools, as the Pakistani government appeases them by letting them trump Pakistani law with the imposition of Sharia, and the dust of a religion dead at it’s heart but still a walking deathlike spectre looms and leers in the TV camera. Or I watch the pope “rehabilitating” a Holocaust denier – same thing. Ancient Buddhist statues being blown up. Hindus and Muslims burning each others’ temples. Gayfolk being killed by toppling walls on them; fundamentalist “Christian” evangelicals waving “God Hates Fags” banners. Countless more images flit through my mind. Death. The Way of Death.

The Way of Life is indeed different. In the Christian Myth, Jesus/God died in the face of the Way of Death. But He had chosen the Way of Life – for all. The God of the Way of Life returned Life to Him – the implication being, to all of us as well.

I suspect I won’t live to see the Way of Death rejected. It will be awhile. Regardless, I want to choose the Way of Life, in whatever little way I can. I’ll be looking for any support I can get!

Brian+