Friday 6 July 2012
I watched the Constant Gardener last night after having finished reading the book a few days ago. The film did not meet the book, but if a person has not read the book he will think it a good one. It made me think again of Tessa, Arnold, and Justin, and for those minutes before I went to bed it was all I could think about. Tessa was all I could think about.
Arnold...they tied him to a tree, hacked at his body, cut his penis, and cut his tongue, and put the penis in his mouth, hung him from the tree...crucified him.
Tessa...they raped her several times...then killed her...They killed Justin too.
Why?
What makes a man do such things? Give someone else so much pain...so much suffering?
Make himself above another man, and decide his destiny...decide his way of death, decide his amount of pain...
I realized how afraid I was of that...How I did not want it.
Is this what God calls us to?
This is what happened to Jesus...they beat him up, mocked him, convicted him for nothing, tore his skin open, spit on him, nailed him to a cross, and killed him, without a word of defiance or an act of self defense or heroism on his part.
God must be crazy if he's calling us to this, if he's calling me to this, if this is what Christianity is.
Sure, he "saved the whole human race", and Tess, Arnold, and Justin saved a few human lives. But I don't want people to cut me up and torture me, and kill me, just because it's for someone else. Like Dusty in To End All Wars. Is it the right thing to do? Yeah, probably. Do I want it? Hell no.
I'll leave it to the saints, and to those who love, and those who care.
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