Looking at the world news, I keep being reminded of these words from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings:
‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.
‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’
Whether our world is in quite such a bad way as Middle Earth in its Third Age, when Sauron seemed on the point of regaining the One Ring To Rule Them All — that’s possibly debatable. Though to read some of the social media and opinion posts that I can’t help seeing, you might think the debate was pretty much settled. Things really are that bad.
There is so much anxiety, fear, hatred (doesn’t seem too strong a word for it) between groups of people who disagree about politics, religion, or simply, the truth about facts. We hate, because of what seems to us to be the extreme evil of the others’ beliefs, thoughts, words, policies, actions. When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet to discuss the future of Ukraine, without any reference to the views of the Ukrainian people who have so bravely resisted Russian aggression for three years… how can we not think of other times when great powers have simply partitioned and plundered smaller eastern European neighbours? When the UN debates a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the United States joins with Russia, Belarus and North Korea in voting against the resolution… how can we not feel our times slipping into madness and chaos?
The great danger of such times of anxiety, fear, and hatred, is that they cause us to dehumanize those ‘others’ that we disagree with. We believe the worst about them, which may be based on exaggerated reports or opinions, or even ‘fake news’ — just as their opinions of us may be. Maybe we even want them to be worse than they are, to be as bad as we suspect them of being, because that gives us better grounds to hate them.
I was struck today by some words C. S. Lewis wrote some 80 years ago in Mere Christianity, about forgiveness.
Even while we kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves — to wish that he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.
How would it be, if, instead of reading, and weltering in, and commenting on, and passing on all the negative comments and judgments about the people we dislike, we tried to forgive them? To wish for, and pray for, their good? And yes, that might mean praying for them to change, or be changed.
Of course, if we did that… and if they did change… we wouldn’t have any reason or excuse to go on hating them. Am I just imagining that that might be the real problem?
Godspelled 