Practicing Domesticity: Pray for Pakistan

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Pray for Pakistan

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today Osama bin Laden was killed by American forces.

I found out when I went on Facebook and saw three successive comments on my newsfeed where friends' statuses spoke about not forgetting today. Curious, I investigated and within about a minute confusion as to what happened was erased, only to be replaced by confusion as to how to respond to such news.

How should we feel about the death of someone who has caused so much pain to so many?

Well, in those initial moments I was presented with three options on my newsfeed alone: the first was immense joy. He had killed Americans, and now we killed him. This was justice many said.

On the opposite extreme, other were proclaiming the terrible thing we had done. We had killed a man and who were we to judge.

Somewhere in the middle was the response that said it didn't know what to think.

Thousands have been killed by this man, but he was still just a man like you or me. That doesn't minimize his crimes by any means, nor the pain that many still feel, but he was still human.

His sin was no greater than yours or mine.

But that can be hard to even think, let alone accept. And I'm not trying to say I understand what those families affected by his regime feel or that their feeling are invalid. Rather, as Christians, what should our proper response be?

How do we show Christ's love here?

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What I Learned From My Mother

by Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Source: Sleeping Preacher (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)

Alone

by Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

The Silence

by Wendell Berry

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Pray for Pakistan

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