2011.05.15 Paradoxical Metaphor from Biology
We have so many wars we don’t know what to do with them all. Worse than old Mother Hubbard!
The latest is the war on infections, a bacteriological war, a “good” war. Still, I wonder if germs will ever befriend their destroyers or if we will ever accept death as part of ongoing life.
Don’t misunderstand me. I fear infection and bacteria and impotent anti-biotics, too. And I want to live healthy for as long as I can.
In the May 12 Boston Globe I read about “persisters.” Persisters are “bacteria that evade medications by slipping into a zombielike state, then mysteriously reawaken to cause new infections.” (Carolyn Y. Johnson, A1) Know any people or groups like this?
What awakens persisters of the bacteriological kind? Sugar. Imagine!
But in people a degree of tenacity and persistence is a good thing. It’s all in how you persist and for what? Life lived is risky.
The strategy of “persisters” is to play dead and evade the good guy anitbiotics’ detection. Clever indeed. Persisters don’t fight they just dissociate. This is how some children survive in families. They are good and quiet; they escape notice and maybe a blow or a slap or a curse. Clever—for a time.
The paradoxical metaphor is the more asleep you make yourself the more you miss— of BOTH good and evil.
I know a woman who lived dying like a clam until bacteria awakened her to illness and she came alive, discovered people loved her, chose life, then died quite alive.
Awakened, you could come out of your coma and face possible danger; or you could stay alert enough to see life in whatever tiny manifestation it might present itself. And choose it.
Which I believe is what God, according to the biblical deuteronomist, had in mind with this wisdom: “See! I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life... that you may live.”
Would that we could choose life for everyone, even bacterial types. We might perhaps have chosen to put a dent in our American persistence and brought Osama bin Laden to trial and justice instead of death.
Impossible vision? Persist in it anyway.
Showing posts with label Osama bin Laden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Osama bin Laden. Show all posts
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
2011.05.05 Another "Happy" Ending?
Today is el Cinco de May, May 5th, when in 1862 Mexicans in the Battle of Puebla defended themselves and defeated mighty French forces. A David and Goliath story. A day to commemorate unexpected reversals.
That is hardly the case in the Bin Laden death. I make no defense of terrorists or their tactics which seem to me to be insanely desperate, but ................ we are Goliath, for gods sake, not David!
I was disturbed to see front page photos of Americans waving flags and cheering about the death of Osama bin Laden, terrorism master mind.
The President spoke of justice. I understand the idea but for me it makes no sense in the face of so much tragedy.
People imagine this a happy ending?
I am a Christian;I do not cheer for anyone’s death. The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel tells us that God “desires the death of no one.”
As a Christian too I know that death is an opening to new life.
Osama has been a source of great fear in this country post- 9/11 but I feel cautious about too much hoopla of joy or relief. The apparent victory could encourage more resolve in terrorists, inflame their religious culture that honors martyrdom. The passion to serve God by being a martyr is not an impossible outcome of too much cheering too soon. Hardly a “happy ending.”
A Muslim woman, originally from Pakistan, Naila Baloch, spoke wisdom at our recent clergy conference. Naila is one of a group of Muslims who pray their Friday noonday prayers at the Episcopal cathedral in Boston.
She said, “Osama is more a symbol than a person. We have lived in collective fear for a long time. I hope we can start to feel safe again, that this death will be the symbolic death of our fear.”
I pray and hope so.
May we refrain from a lot of ill-timed celebration. Instead let’s breathe fresh spring air and befriend our Muslim neighbors.
Let’s talk, get to know and understand each other, pray together.
It’s all the same to Godde and Allah.
That is hardly the case in the Bin Laden death. I make no defense of terrorists or their tactics which seem to me to be insanely desperate, but ................ we are Goliath, for gods sake, not David!
I was disturbed to see front page photos of Americans waving flags and cheering about the death of Osama bin Laden, terrorism master mind.
The President spoke of justice. I understand the idea but for me it makes no sense in the face of so much tragedy.
People imagine this a happy ending?
I am a Christian;I do not cheer for anyone’s death. The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel tells us that God “desires the death of no one.”
As a Christian too I know that death is an opening to new life.
Osama has been a source of great fear in this country post- 9/11 but I feel cautious about too much hoopla of joy or relief. The apparent victory could encourage more resolve in terrorists, inflame their religious culture that honors martyrdom. The passion to serve God by being a martyr is not an impossible outcome of too much cheering too soon. Hardly a “happy ending.”
A Muslim woman, originally from Pakistan, Naila Baloch, spoke wisdom at our recent clergy conference. Naila is one of a group of Muslims who pray their Friday noonday prayers at the Episcopal cathedral in Boston.
She said, “Osama is more a symbol than a person. We have lived in collective fear for a long time. I hope we can start to feel safe again, that this death will be the symbolic death of our fear.”
I pray and hope so.
May we refrain from a lot of ill-timed celebration. Instead let’s breathe fresh spring air and befriend our Muslim neighbors.
Let’s talk, get to know and understand each other, pray together.
It’s all the same to Godde and Allah.
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