Something to think about
"Hate is the satan of love.
Exclusion is the satan of inclusion.
Oppression is the satan of justice.
Tearing down is the satan of building up.
Competition is the satan of cooperation.
Revenge is the satan of Mercy.
Harm is the satan of care.
Hostility is the satan of reconciliation."
- from Reviving Old Scratch by Richard Beck as quoted in Liturgies of the Wild by Martin Shaw, p. 205)
"Beck uses an example of the banality of evil, a phrase that comes from the writer Hannah Arendt. When Arendt, a Jewish political philosopher, got to meet the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, she was almost disappointed by what she experienced. That he was less Grendel and more party clown. That he had unthinkingly followed orders. And it's that unthinking obedience that she saw as the ordinary face of evil. No one is foaming at the mouth or bellowing in Latin, but just quietly 'getting on with it.' And in that 'getting on with it ' they are a satan in the face of love." (Liturgies of the Wild, pp. 206-7)
Where is your line? When do you stop just going along with things because that is the path of least resistance? When do you purposefully make life harder for yourself because you refuse to continue to be complicit? This is in regards to every part of your life... where you attend church, where you spend your money, when you speak truth and love in the face of discrimination and evil. Everything. Life is political.
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