Ransom

There don't seem to be many mysteries left to me about what Jesus taught us. There used to be quite a few.

One of the remaining ones has been this notion of Ransom. I've been quite intrigued by it because it has seemed to resonate with what I've been called to do, but I've been unable to make sense of it. This morning it became clear.

Last night I went to the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. At the Friday noon vigil in front of the White House with Pax Christi and the Dorothy Day and Jonah House Catholic workers it was announced that at 7:30 in the evening there would be a presentation/discussion regarding the Jewish Occupation of Palestine.

I went. It was wonderful and horrible - brilliantly done. What the Jews/Zionists/US Imperialists are visiting on the Palestinians is every bit as evil as the Holocaust, Darfur Genocide or African Apartheid. Consummate evil - Consummate Selfishness.

The presenters were two women that have returned from duty on the Christian Peace Maker teams in Palestine. Both were brilliant. One a middle aged professional American married to a Palestinian with a Palestinian son; the other a Catholic Sister for 40 years. The younger one did most of the 1 hour plus presentation. During her introduction she made a comment that the Perpetrators were not evil. I found this enormously disturbing and singularly dissonant with an otherwise amazing and helpful presentation.

At the end, during the Q&A I asked about this comment. I expressed my extreme respect for the value of their presentation. I went on to say that cancer is not malicious, it has no awareness - but it is consummate evil. In this sense at least the Perpetrators of terror on Palestine are the darkest Evil.

The middle aged woman explained that she had said that they were not evil because they can be redeemed. I agreed that they can be redeemed, saved from the evil. I remained extremely disturbed by her early comment however.

This morning I was at the 25 year vigil standing in for Thomas by 6am. After several hours of prayer I flipped open Dave and Mary Rachel's bible and it opened to Mark Chapter 10. "The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as the Ransom for many."

Well, with last night's Palestine presentation, the issue of Evil and this verse from Mark in my mind clarity came regarding "Ransom."

Last night I should better have said that the Persecutors of Palestine are "possessed" by evil, captive of evil - Lust/Selfishness/Greed/Mammon. I should have said that the only hope was to Ransom them from this Evil Captor with our own lives.

Wait, didn't Jesus do this so we wouldn't have to? Also in my reading this morning, Mark or Matthew I forget, Jesus spoke of how His Father was our Father, that we were His son. What Jesus did was show us how to Live. Jesus Ransomed our Spirit, Liberated/Freed the Spirit/Otherishness/Brotherhood of a few of us from Lust/Selfishness/Greed/Evil so we could repeat the process.

I don't know exactly how this Ransoming happens, but since this morning it is easy for me to conjure up examples. Steve Beko's Heroic Sacrifice in "Cry Freedom" Ransomed the Otherishness/Spirit of the Editor (Kevin Klein) and his bio-family. Jesus with his Crucifixion Ransomed the Apostles and hundreds or thousands of followers for maybe 100 years. (Nicea was the final nail in that coffin, with the Saints and a few others as exceptions.)

Think about these and other examples - you have them in your life. Think about which heroic acts of real or fictional characters in your life have melted your heart or that of others, melted away, if only for a moment any Selfishness - Freeing your Spirit/Soul. That is what Ransomed means.

It almost seems that the Soul is somehow either complicit or drugged the way that Ransoming seems to work; it seems this way because it is the Soul/Heart that Ransoming seems to touch. Or maybe it is that Ransoming seems to be a powerful narcotic or knock-0ut agent on the Flesh/Selfishness/Mammon, puts it to sleep, and what is left is an active Soul/Spirit/Otherishness/Heart. Tell me what you think!

Let us get on with it. Who are you going to try to Ransom? How?

For me? Darfur faux-activists, White House visitors, my Inner-Family, the Zionists, the Military Industrial Complex, Officer Mallot on March 21st, The Pentagon on March 17th, the White House on March 16th, etc, etc, etc.... I hope. Pray for me. Join me.