Repentance is due

Wes, Royal, and Mike:

This is the fifth and final (I hope) preface to the book I have been writing, or undertaking to write, for the past year, It is 4:56 in the morning. It is dark and quiet and I am alone upstairs typing. I no sooner had typed the first sentence in this preface when I heard a car driving down Wood Street, tires making a slick sound on the wet pavement, and then the driver tossed out today's New York Times wrapped in a plastic bag. It plopped on our sidewalk and called to me.

I am going to have to resist the temptation to go downstairs and bring up that newspaper, resist reading the news and arts of the world while drinking my second cup of coffee, resist dissolving in fresh ideas and information as the dawn breaks.

That would be my pleasure and I will not resist long. I do this every day because I am addicted to the New York Times. I will give in soon because, even in relation to my addictions, I sinfully practice nonresistance.

You all play a part in this book, you are characters, your names will not be disguised and yet, the book will be a work of imagination. I can only imagine what and how you think and that has been the source of fascination and fury for me since the war began.

For the past several years, in letters and conversations, I have tried to unlock your thinking, particularly in regard to your religious beliefs, your firm dogma, and in regard to the war in Iraq. If you were members of any other mainstream Protestant denomination, your minds would have been easier to approach. But as you all confess to being Mennonite, the puzzle of your logic becomes unfathomable, inchoate, even mystical.

Somehow, you have managed to evolve into holding a schizophrenic relation to the world. When it suits you, as regards involvement with this tragic war, you claim to belong to a spiritual world, your hands spotless of Iraqi blood. Hiding behind the Mennonite pacifist tradition, you plead exemption and, worse, you prevent others from speaking out against the war and torture. Yet you support the political rule. You encouraged the continuation of your own privilege, your own comforts, your lack of sacrifice. To keep yourself exempt from involvement, you voted in favor of those who relished war.

Dad, who finally figured out (more or less) how to use email, wrote me yesterday the following:

Greg, you do an injustice to us when you imply that we approved of our going to war. ;also, you condemn yourself when you say the things about Royal that you do. The mark of a Christian is to love each other, and your attitude and commennts re: Royal certainly do not exhibit love. Nor do your newspaper articles. We rarely hear Limbaugh, nor do we hardly ever listin to the radio outside of programs on Great News radio. Enjoy Mark & Carrie in the morning,and MUSIC ON WGNJ . I CERTAINLY DON'T APPROVE OF THINGS THE BURNS' PROMOTE, BUT TRY TO GLEAN GOOD THAT IS AVAILABLE. I DON'T AGREE WITH THEIR MILITARY STAND, BUT NEITHER DO I CONDEMN THEM TO THE POINT THAT I CANNOT GLEAN THE GOOD THEY HAVE, AFTER ALL, THE BIBLE MESSAGE. IS LOVE NOT ONLY AS REGARDS NON-RESISTANCE ETC, but in everyday living. I think much of the Mennonite church, particularly Goshen College, has gotten so carried away with their Anabaptist stand, ( which many other churches also are, without the Non-resistance stand), that they miss the total message of Christs LOVE a nd redemption. Enough for now. As you can see, I inadvertently hiot the capital button, when capitalization was'nt needede. Enough for now. Do LOVE you. Dad

I have read and re-read this letter many times. In truth, I don't understand why one can't discern the good in the New York Times, in Frank Rich (he’s Jewish, I know), in the news of the world, why one can't “glean good that is available” on National Public Radio and the BBC and not just what one sees and hears from Great News Radio, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and Pat Robertson.

I'm getting antsy to go downstairs and pick up that newspaper, so I'll stop. It's not that I don't understand your rationalization for support for George W. Bush (or your disdain for his predecessor, William Jefferson Clinton). I fear I understand all too well. You don't want to practice sacrifice or risk being criticized by others. You don't want to relinquish your material comfort. You pore over the Bible to find ways to sanctify your way of life, to see yourselves as righteous in your support of the decidedly unrighteous and greedily wealthy.

Dad wrote that love is key to Christ's message. But he misconstrues a key element, because Christ called for us to love our enemies, not just those of a like mind, not just those of the same race, or religion, or practices.

East Bend, like George W. Bush, like Rush Limbaugh, like Fox News, carefully chooses and defines enemies. You don't call them an "axis of evil" necessarily, but you create them and you fear them just the same. You may give lip service to loving Muslims and gay people and socialist democratic rulers and the poor and the addicted, but you think you must change them and convert them first, convert them into being like yourselves, to having your values, your comforts. You don't wash their feet. You don't invite them into open dialogue. You don't negotiate with your enemies. It would be too much work for you. You are too busy or old.

Some Mennonites do, though. Some Mennonites go out of their way to get into harm's way, without demanding allegiance to a dogma. When Goshen College opens dialogue with Muslims or gays, East Bend has condemned such action. East Bend strikes out with its self-righteous sword.

The newspaper is winning out. I'm going downstairs now. I'm making another pot of coffee. The dawn has not yet broken. Sometimes I think it never will.

If, however, you have changed your mind in recent months about the war and torture put forth by this President that God permitted to power, history will not be changed. An honest apology is in order, which is just another way of my saying to you, repentance is due.