Violence

I’ve been reading Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer about the past and present of the Mormon religion.  It’s the fastest growing religion in the western hemisphere – there are more Mormons than Jews on this little planet.

It is a disturbing story – as I knew it would be.  It’s disturbing because of the facts of the situations.  Not much has changed from the 1950s when the government tried to break up a fundamentalist polygamous group in Utah until this past year when they tried the same thing in Texas.  Not much has changed in terms of the brainwashing that occurs for the women … and the men.  The are true believers in a violent faith.  And in their eyes – until they are opened by circumstances beyond their own norm – their faith is entirely justified.

What also disturbs me is in wondering how all of us are fenced in by destructive belief systems that we simply can’t see because they are so familiar and ‘normal’.  Outside of the fundamentalist Mormon groups – their marriages of older men to 14 year old girls, the rapes and the pregnancies, the submission of women to men, of men to the authorities  – its all pretty clearly wrong.  We can see it.  But, we can’t see outside our own beliefs to find out how we are violent – toward ourselves, toward one another, toward the environment, toward Life.

To be violent is to violate – to use force – to use the power over others that some of us are born to, and others gather to themselves. And there is no question that violence, violation, and the abuses of power grow in scope and intensity in times of fear.  Like now.

There’s a lot of fear running freely right now.  Voices are a little more strident, people are pulling into themselves, their families, their ‘clans’.  How wonderful it would be if we could just all turn it over to someone else who knows better and can fix it all.  How tempting.  Is that really what the snake offered Eve … safety?  A false sense of security … if she would just give up her own thoughts and voice and listen to someone who would take care of it all?

There are people who are hoping that I’ll come down in personal judgement against the Mormons.  Against the Christians.  Against the Jews.  Against the Republicans … the unions … the ‘man’ … those irresponsible hippies … against those who have a different viewpoint … a different set of beliefs.

Oh, there is a vindictive and violent streak within me – as there is within us all.  I need to acknowledge it … to know it so that it can’t control me.  There is also a wiser part of me that knows that the path of non-violence is the only way toward true change.  Gandhi called it satyagraha.  Deep commitment to truth.  What truth?

Truth based in love.  Truth that understands that the means and the ends are one.  Truth that seeks to eliminate antagonisms without harming the antagonists but seeks to transform the relationship.