On Prayer

You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word ‘is’
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.

Czeslaw Milosz

Hey folks — I know, I know, I kinda dropped off the face of the internets. I even got an inquiring email or two asking after my welfare and I’m touched by that.

I don’t have much to say right at the moment, but I really wanted to post a segment that aired on The Current on CBC Radio this morning. It’s called “For God and Country,” and it’s a documentary about a soldier who was stationed at Abu Ghraib (after the scandal) as an interrogator. He was a non-denominational evangelical Christian, and after a period of time interrogating jihadis at Abu Ghraib he applied for and received conscientious objector status. He’s very articulate in telling his story as he talks about the moment he realized that all of his Christian role models - Paul, Bonhoeffer, etc. - were prisoners and that given that he would actually be more comfortable in the place of the orange-jumpsuit-wearing jihadi.

It’s not an “America sucks” kind of piece. It’s about the nature of warfare and how incompatible it is with Biblical Christianity.

Go here and click on “part three” at the bottom to listen.