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Advent
reflection Vision of peace shimmers in Advent scripture
By EMILIE GRIFFIN
For many years I have found myself
praying in Advent for a world at peace. No small objectives do I put before
God; no petitions for lost umbrellas or personal solvency. Something about the
rhetoric of Advent calls for a world-sized agenda. Let us pray that we
may take Christs coming seriously. All-powerful God, increase our
strength of will for doing good that Christ may find an eager welcome at his
coming.
Since Sept.11, that longing has intensified. Many Americans have
made a special effort to do good in this time, to mend the broken threads of
society. My daughter and her work colleagues in New York City went to the
nearest hospital and signed up as volunteers. Bishops and pastors took up
donations. Local committees organized benefits for the American Red Cross. Some
held back on selling their stocks; others got on planes; elementary school
teachers organized class projects to help the children in New York
City. Now many Americans are focused not only on Americas
protecters -- firefighters, police, military -- but also on the fragile Afghan
people caught in the middle of a military response.
Perhaps most significant, some have turned over a new leaf about
following world affairs. Many who sloughed off the bombings of the U.S.S. Cole
and the two African embassies say that from now on they will try to be wiser
and more vocal about world policies.
In some ways, however, the battle is all in the soul: to continue
believing in Gods providence and protection, to hold on to faith when
faith itself seems part of the problem. Much of what we see happening in
fundamentalist movements (ours and theirs) entails a kind of puritanical
repression. In Saudi Arabia, we learn, citizens dont speak out because
they fear the volunteer watchdogs in The Society for the Promotion of Virtue
and the Prevention of Vice. A similar group existed under the Taliban. Such
groups enforce the wearing of veils and long beards. They also crack down on
free discussion and dissident views. Sadly, certain Americans have attempted a
similar ministry. Exercising their First Amendment rights, they accused groups
they disapprove of, such as feminists and homosexuals, and claimed that such
groups had brought Gods wrath upon the whole nation.
I was comforted by the prayer service in Yankee Stadium in which
Muslims, Christians and Jews prayed together. It struck me as only in
America when Bette Midler sang a spiritual solo. Midler is the kind of
woman the Taliban would look askance at. Probably most folks in our country
think she is risqué. But, with its amalgam of firefighters and cops and
rabbis and pastors and imams, that prayer service symbolized the American
melting pot, an ideal we need to remember in dark times. Admittedly, the
atheists felt excluded and needed their own way of mourning. But on the whole,
I think we celebrated not who we are but who we want to be.
In the days to come, the mountain of the Lords house
shall be established. ... For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the
word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
There is a sadness in this: that one of the holy cities that seems
to cause a lot of the trouble, Jerusalem, is held up always in scripture as the
mystical city of peace. When we pray through and with the Advent scriptures,
the vision of peace shimmers there, part of Gods alluring promise to us.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks. One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall
they train for war again.
Many intellectuals and political theorists have come to suppose
that religion is the root cause of violence, that the fight against terrorism
and hatred will never succeed until religion itself is stamped out. Since Sept.
11, I have, like many Americans, asked for the roots of my hidden hatreds to be
exposed to me, and to be freed of the cultural conditioning that might make me
vengeful and angry. I ask for the peace of Christ to come into my heart, to
cleanse me of all hatred and vindictiveness. This transformation I pray for in
myself, in society, will not be done without God. Jesus Christ is the one who
asks me to live at peace with friend and stranger. Without Gods sovereign
love, I am powerless to be good and to do good.
Emilie Griffin lives and writes in Alexandria, La. Her latest
book is Doors into Prayer: an Invitation.
National Catholic Reporter, December 14,
2001
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