My supposed friend Luce has inconveniently reappeared for Lent. You
know Luce, aka “The Devil.” His latest missive was jubilant and triumphant over
the three most important words in the human language beginning with the letter
“c”: namely, confusion, confusion, and confusion. He makes some interesting
points.
He writes:
Dear Deacon:
I had not written to you lately because I was devastated
that the revolution over the election was not carried out to my specifications.
Yes, my moles in the media have tried and tried and they keep trying to create
and as Shakespeare wrote: “Cry havoc, let
loose the dogs of war.” From what I can surmise, your own efforts to take a
more measured approach and guide the individual are failing as each of those
individuals are caught up in the raw emotion of all this moral and political panoply
of confusion.
Ahhh, I love so many words in the mishmash of a language
called English and that is why I hate the utter precision of the Latin
language. Thank my Enemy it’s dead, except for in a few anachronistic quarters
in Italy and ironically, science and the law. Let’s get back to the word,
“confusion”. It is the opposite of “profusion,” where “con” means
“against.” But I would like to use
alternative facts here and say that the “con” in confusion really means what
the preponderance of its usage means – "with," and which derives from the Latin
“cum”. So shouldn’t “confusion” then mean a good thing? Wouldn’t it mean the
bringing together of diversity into that singular oneness that my nemesis calls
for in his unremarkable gospels? Already confusion is reigning supreme!
Shakespeare got it wrong and his MacBethian witches were really stirring the
pot incanting: “Rabble, dabble oil and scrabble; Fire - bake the caldron’s babble…” I wish English was around when I tempted Jesus in the desert. English is the ultimate "mosh pit" for words. It's so imprecisely confusing and I love it.
You should not fight the strength of my argument as it is
out of confusion that your desired peace will result. Don’t be selfish about
this deacon. The great thing about confusion is that I find myself always on
the victorious side in one way or another. But yet, I thought my moment had
arrived after this election and that there would be an armed revolution because
my candidate won the popular vote and the other guy whom I really like a lot
won only technically.
So there is the issue of the first confusion which is
political confusion. The second confusion in my “confusion, confusion,
confusion” theory is ecclesiastical confusion. In all cases of confusion, it is
my wonderful twitter and Facebook that is my greatest tool. Oh my! I have been
up to no good here with bishops, priests, evangelicals and even the pope
opining in a “con-fusive” (made that word up) cacophony of tweets and sound
bites that would wake the dead. These
tools empower people and groups of people, to speak their minds albeit half the
time they do so mindlessly. The key to successful “con-fusiveness” (the desired
outcome of confusion) is not the mind, but rather their emotions -- you know, what causes fussiness and hissy-fits .
And finally, the third installment of my confusion theory is
individual conscience confusion. Now this is the meat and potatoes of all my
efforts to gather the tribes into my fold. I have to tell you Deacon Tom that
you are holding a losing hand in a stacked deck. The political leaders and
church leaders, all the same to me, should continue to concentrate on all of
this aggregate social justice advocacy because that allows me to tempt the
individual souls you are trying to save to opt out of their individual “who is
my neighbor” responsibility” while they take the political and even
ecclesiastical highroad advocating for the generic poor, the nameless poor, the
faceless marginalized, and nameless loser. It is at the individual levels that
their prized freedom, truth, integrity and liberty lies; (or is it “lies?”) Are
you confused yet?
Again, I win. Even if social policies are put into play that
serve their high cause, individually, they still drive the nice cars, eat the
ravishing meals, live in the gated mansions, and neighborhoods; and they shun
the real poor guy with a real face and real name when he knocks at the door to
ask for a buck or two. I depend on this high road rhetoric to tell these losers
to get in line at the Salvation Army.
Again, I win with an orderly confusion. But you wouldn’t
understand because you are deluded into thinking that you can make a disorderly
difference like Mother Teresa: one destitute soul at a time. She would have
been better off getting some government or church “preferential option for the
poor” social justice program started that would cover a lot more ground. Where
she is concerned, well, you win some; you lose some.
Well, sorry it took me so long to chime in Deacon Tom. I wanted to let you know that while I want
more confusion, I’ve got to work a little harder blowing on all this discontent
among my followers in politics, the press, on twitter and Facebook; and how
about them Oscars? I’m so glad people have realized praying is a waste of time.
Actually, all this praying around your new president recently makes me very nervous.
But as things go, prayer has never and will never catch on. Thank, ahem, Him.
Well, enough for now. – Your “fiend” (that’s friend without the “r”) ha-ha
---- Luce
Dear Reader:
I think prayer is the answer to confusion in all of its
offensive, permissive, and overwhelming forms. Prayer helps us gather our
individual soul’s capacity for God to withstand confusion and all that results
including, hatred, violence, the onslaught of our animal instincts, and all
that is the opposite of our spiritual virtues. My antidote to Luce’s program of
confusion, confusion, confusion is “confession, confession, confession”. To confess our weakness as individual souls,
as a nation, and as a church is to allow God to move all three levels to
repentance. It is from such repentance that God assumes the power to drive away
all confusion and bring about the peace that is beyond all understanding. “If my people, who are called by my name,
will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked
ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal
their land." (II Chronicles 7:14) In the end, Luce aka “the devil” has already
lost. Have a peace filled Lent.
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