Peace and Outrage

A member of the HoBD listserv called our attention to this video depicting social change through peaceful resistance. It's a montage of non-violent peacemakers, set to the music of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings

Take a look, when you have about 9 minutes to sit quietly.



You know what struck me about it? The images of Gandhi, MLK, Mandela and Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and all the other leaders of peaceful resistance. They beamed with a beatific joy or sometimes a steadfast resolve, but I didn't see blazing anger in their faces.

It made me think of the state of high outrage in which many of us have been living for quite a while against those who seem to be trying to destroy the Episcopal Church we love and against those who are attacking our integrity and our very lives. Outrage at the primates. At the Archbishop of Canterbury. At the former bishop of San Joaquin. At the Network and other dissidents. Sometimes even at our own Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori.

Wormwood's Doxy is taking a break from the blogs. She writes:

I have enjoyed the recent Anglican fray too much. I have found myself addicted to the high of being outraged. I suspect this is not healthy for my soul---and that it explains the spiritual dryness I've been feeling lately.

I'm not taking a break from the blogs or from blogging. I don't think I've enjoyed the Anglican fray; God knows, I pray constantly for it to end. But I think my New Year's resolution needs to have something to do with working a bit harder to show the light of Christ and a little less addiction to outrage.

Lord, in your mercy . . .