In these troubled times, I appreciate more than ever the spiritual Amazing Grace, especially the first stanza:
Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I’m found.
Was blind but now I see.
I have always found the melody grippingly moving, and always want to sing along, but it was probably the film version of Amazing Grace, based on the true story of the movement against the slave trade in 18th century Great Britain, that imbued the song with the power it has for me. That world-shattering anti-slavery movement was led by William Wilberforce, who was inspired by English poet, clergyman, and former slave-trader John Newton (1725–1807), who wrote the song.
To me, Amazing Grace is not simply a rapturous expression of Christian faith, although Christianity was the particular vehicle embraced by John Newton to rescue him from the evils in which he had become ensnared. Rather, I see it as a song of redemption and hope that reaches out across estranging and often evilly-manipulated divisions of religion, race, gender, nationality. Also, I resonate to the idea of grace as a force and gift available to all, not restricted to people claiming a particular set of beliefs in a particular religion.
My recent fantasy was that somehow Amazing Grace could become a tenacious torrent of sound that would envelop all the pseudo-Christians, deceived disciples, and lost souls of other religions who profess love and peace but promote hatred and perpetrate violence. And while it was at it, I hoped the torrent would sweep up all the angry, frightened, defensive, and sometimes venemous people who vilify fighters against injustice.
Among the people I would like to see swept up are those who scorn Colin Kaepernick for standing up against racism by sitting down during the playing of a national anthem written by a slave owner, originally including a stanza degrading runaway slaves, and a sadly apt metaphor for a nation awash in centuries of murderous racism.
My grand fantasy for the future is that the world, before it is too late, will replace national anthems and battle hymns of republics with Amazing Grace and other songs that honor love and redemption rather than violence and vicious victories.
Whose Child is This? Whose child is this? Is this child an Iraqi . . . an Israeli . . . a Chechnyan . . . an Afghani . . . a Kurd . . . a Nigerian? Is she or he English, Indonesian, Spanish, Lebanese, Turkish, Congolese, Bosnian, Persian? Does it matter? Is this child not a daughter or son to each of us?
Is this child not a human being born of a union of a man and woman whose intimacy, whose passion, whose very breathe yielded a life that sought only to live . . . to enjoy some moments of laughter and delight, some moments of comfort and calm . . . to make yet another life.
Now this child rests amidst the dust and debris of war . . . lifeless . . . torn and shattered . . . killed by someone whom she or he never knew, and would likely never meet. Death from a distance. . . a bomb from a plane, a shell from a mortar, a strap of explosives . . . intentional and willing, calculated and planned, a measured effort to destroy.
The Source: an agent of death and destruction, a pilot or soldier, an insurgent or terrorist . . . does it matter? They have killed their own child . . . they have killed our child. And in doing so, they have diminished each of us as human beings, each of us as creatures of consciousness and conscience, each of us as reflections and carriers of life. Words cannot console her or his parents, if they, indeed, survived this horror. They are left with only endless pain . . . memories of a child eating, sleeping, playing . . . a reminder of a tragic moment inscribed in mortar and blood.
Enough! Enough! Stand, speak, write, act against those who advocate violence and hate no matter the source — be they presidents, prime ministers, generals, terrorists, mullahs, rabbis, dictators, ministers, true believers . . . tell them that we do not share their quest for power and greed. Tell them we do not share their hate, nor their blindness and indifference to suffering. Tell them we do not share their empty post-tragedy rhetoric designed to keep us mired in the fulfillment of their selfish needs. We are not pacified and contented by their explanations and assurances. We challenge and contest their motives! We resent and resist their excuses. How shallow their words in the face of dying or dead child.
THIS IS OUR CHILD! Today, we claim this child as our own, too late to keep her or him alive, too late to know her or his hopes and dreams, too late to know the promise and possibilities of their life had it been given the chance to be lived free of oppression, abuse, and indignity.
But we are not too late to affirm to all living children that we will try to protect you, to guard you, and to shelter you from the terror of war and violence, and from an untimely, painful, and meaningless death, by choosing peace over war, compassion over violence, voice over silence, and conscience over comfort.
Note: I first wrote this brief appeal in July, 2005, following a conference in Savannah, Georgia, in which Dr. Amer Hosin shared photos of death and suffering in the Middle East. I emailed this appeal in the December holiday season, when the poignant holiday carol, “What child is this?” is played endlessly on radio and television, testimony to Christian faith, but indirectly testimony to the consequences of violence against children, and the reality our hope for recovery and redemption reside in children – all children!
Today, as I viewed the now iconic photo of the stalwart Syrian boy, covered in dust, his mind and body shattered by bombs he could never fathom, and I recalled the iconic photo of the naked Vietnamese girl escaping napalm. I decided I must share this appeal today. It is upon all of us. What can we do to stop the destruction of life? What can we do end the reflexive response of violence and hate toward those we deem enemies.
I say to you, I plead with you now: “Hate begets violence, and violence begets hate, and always innocents become the victims.” We use the word “hate” daily, casually expressing our so often disgust or revulsion with something as benign as broccoli, or an athletic team. “I hate __________!
The powerful emotion of “hate” has escaped our conscious awareness! We “hate” too much, too often, too easily; the consequences of the word and the behaviors it implies are lost to us. Ask: Do I have a right to “hate?” Is “hate” a choice? What do I mean when I say I “hate”! Stare at the image of a dead Iraqi child? Embed the image of the struggling shocked Syrian boy in your mind. Make room for it! It is more important than so many other images you hold.
Ask: Whose child is this? He or she is your child! If you deny this reality, then await the day the face returns to remind you of your failure, to haunt your minds as you look at your child.
[Note from Kathie Malley-Morrison: Today we welcome another guest post from Dr. Hilda Perlitsh, a social psychologist with expertise in the areas of organizational psychology, career development, and cross-cultural issues.]
Jews praying in the synagogue on Yom Kippur by Maurycy Gottlieb (Image in public domain)
“Yom Kippur,” Hebrew for “Day of Atonement,” instituted in Biblical times, mandated in Leviticus, is considered to be the most significant holy day of the year among the Jewish people.
This ancient, enduring observance completes a 10 day period, the High Holy Days or “Days of Awe,” which begins at the New Year, Rosh Hashanah.
During this period behaviors towards others and to G-d are examined and one engages in reflection and repentance. G-d inscribes each person’s fate in the “Book of Life” for the coming year and these decisions are “sealed” at the end of Yom Kippur.
The day itself is characterized as a “complete Sabbath” prescribing “prayer, repentance and charity,” requiring a 25 hour fast, and abstinence from labor and pleasures. The Yom Kippur service includes the recitation of comprehensive lists of sins and petitions of forgiveness.
The Jewish tradition is very clear about differentiating types of sins; petitions to relieve sins that are addressed to G-d only pertain to the individual’s relationship to G-d such as any vows made against G-d (as during forced conversions during the Inquisition). Transgressions committed against persons must be settled with those persons; G-d does not forgive sins committed against other people.
The lists of sins in the traditional prayer service address mistreatment of others especially in the use of language (e.g. falsehoods, slander, humiliations). Even if one has personally not committed any sins, redress for others in the community is prayed for.
Yom Kippur begins at sundown with the chanting of the “Kol Nidre” prayer which seeks annulment of vows against G-d, and closes with the “Ni’elah” service which signifies the “closing of the gates” for the inscriptions for the year ahead, followed by a long blast of the Shofar, a ram’s horn.
The theme of “T’Shuvah” translated as repentance, more precisely “return”, is central and interpreted as the recognition of free will and the imperative to struggle with and take personal responsibility for one’s behavior.[1] Redemption includes the tasks of: addressing the world’s oppressed, teaching compassion, giving charity for less fortunate others, being just and loving mercy.
This holy period prescribes processes that enjoin each person to chart a corrective course at the beginning of every Jewish New Year and thus provides the basic scaffold for the moral framework of Jewish civilization.
The challenges embodied in the “Days of Awe” are built on various strands of human strivings, codified into Jewish law and traditions, transmitted into and joining the civilizing thrusts of other beliefs and traditions…..towards the continuous repair of the world: “Tikun Olam”.
[1] Meditation, page 106….”.surely our deeds do not pass away unrecorded. Every word, every act inscribes itself in the Book of Life. Freely we choose and what we have chosen to become stands in judgment over what we may yet hope to be. In our choices we are not always free. But if only we make the effort to turn, every force of goodness, within and without, will help us, while we live, to escape that death of the heart which leads to sin.” Gates of Repentance: the New Union Prayerbook for the Days of Awe”. Central Conference of American Rabbis: New York, 1978, revised 1996.
Hilda D. Perlitsh, Ph.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology, Boston University
