Showing posts with label betrayal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label betrayal. Show all posts

Friday, March 28, 2014

Love & Betrayal

Love & Betrayal

Peter the Shepherd: When they had eaten their meal, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"
'Yes, Lord,' he said, 'you know that I love you.'
"Then feed my lambs, replied Jesus"

A second time the Lord asks, 'Simon Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, replied Simon Peter.' 
Jesus replied,'then tend my sheep.'
A third time Jesus asked him, 'Simon, son of John, do you love me?' Peter, hurt because he asked a third time, replied,'Lord, you know everything. You know well that I love you'.
Jesus said to him, 'feed my sheep.' When the Christ had finished speaking to him, he said," follow me."

John 21:15-19

Many of us are familiar with what happens at the end of the Christ story, even if we have not ever heard these words spoken to Simon Peter by the Christ. The Bible in its whole is a story of love, foretold by betrayal at the hand of one who loves. So it seems this particular story serves to address one of the greatest of paradoxes, the intersection of great love and its betrayal by one close to us.

In our modern, western world, we have been raised to the ideas of science and technology, among others, and to the notion that we can not only shape events but control them through knowledge and other means. In his book, Church and Revolution, author Thomas Bekenkotter explores modern political philosophy and traces its context within a civil religious society. He writes about critical thinker, French philosopher and Catholic theologian, Jacques Maritain. A champion for the advancement of social justice and human rights, Maritain developed during the war years 1939-1945, parts of his beliefs while living in the United States as an exile from Nazi occupied France.

Maritain wrote in response to the human condition: let them not kill in the name of Christ the King, who is not a military leader, but a King of grace and charity for all.
Further he opposed the growing bourgeois belief of man's chief value being for labor and what he may produce.
Maritain moreover held that capitalism and consumerism were the ultimate betrayal of the common good with respect to the social order.
It was these beliefs that formed the whole of the 1948 United Nations document as adopted on Human Rights, and still today forms the majority of thought regarding human rights and the personalism of mankind.
It was this personalism which became part of Maritan's answer for the call of the Christ 'to tend my sheep'.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Love and Betrayal in Community

Fellow thinker of Maritain, French theologian, Emmanuel Mounier wrote in his book, Personalist Manifesto that "Capitalism reduces a person to a state of servitude irreconcilable with the dignity of a man; it orients all classes and the whole personality towards the possession of money; the single desire of which chokes the soul." He advocated for the idea 'incarnation,' that persons are necessarily composed of both body and spirit, that the spirit lives both within and without, that it finds its expression in community with others; vocation, that which fulfills ones' deepest spiritual longings.

It is this idea of community that strikes the heart of most
persons in their daily lives. While many easily think of community as their town or city, there are many more communities to which one associates: the school, the gym, the prayer hall, the job, the family and the home are a few examples. Taking the family, the smallest unit of community experienced by most on a day to day basis as an example, there is indeed a strong and central community existing in family whether it includes a marital relationship and children, or any such constitution with or without child.

Recalling the biblical writing John 21:15-19 where the Christ asks his disciple, Simon Peter, "Do you love me?" To which Peter replies, "Yes Lord, I love you." Jesus answers him saying, "feed my sheep... follow me." As part of the community of the Christ, Simon Peter affirms his love and devotion to the way of the Christ in this exchange. Later it is he who betrays the one he loves.

How can this happen? How does this happen in any of our lives? When is it a betrayal? When I say so, or when another in the community says so? Is betrayal a lack of everyday use of a person's help and labor in the ways that Personalist thinkers decry? Is this then betrayal as the Christ might see it? All these questions may arise in a community relationship, even one so small in size as two persons, and it isn't always so easy to sort it out and discern the truths for each individual.

Is betrayal between a community as small as two persons something like, "you didn't walk the dog, like you promised!" Or is the idea of betrayal something like, "you failed to tell me something and now I'm humiliated. I don't trust you!" Is trust necessarily a part of betrayal? Did the Christ place trust in his disciple? Was there an acceptance of one another at the level of the incarnation, as Mounier calls it? Are communities indeed composed of individuals who are both body and spirit, and if so, what if the persons themselves are not clearly aware of their (bodily-spirit) incarnateness? What then of betrayal; what could it possibly be based upon?

For example, if, in my community, we are agreed to conduct ourselves in a simple way without ostentation, and one of the parties goes out and buys electronic gadgets which then are used to distract or emotionally remove themselves from the community, but do not clearly recognize the effect of their actions, is this a betrayal? What if one, for their well being and for the truth which lies in their own heart, takes actions which affect the other(s) in the community negatively, is this betrayal? What is the other(s) responsibility to the common good of the community, even one deemed an offender?

In love, is not the common good served through the effort to understand and accept each and all? In this community, is there a place for forgiveness, the charity of love? May we, when we think our life is the worst, find one possible example, be it the Christ on the cross, Martin Luther King or Gandhi, perhaps? They were killed by those who disliked them or their message. Who betrayed them?

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Beyond Guilt and Shame

"When people forgive themselves, we sense their merger with something big and beyond us; then it is we, who feel shut out and betrayed... forgiveness can provoke jealousy and anger... Forgivers have found the way to peace, while the rest of us watch in confusion, anger or envy." Forgiving Yourself by Beverly Flannigan

Writing further on the essential subject of self-forgiveness, Beverly Flannigan takes up the discussion of what is it in a life when fundamental assumptions about ones self are shattered? What occurs to the one who suddenly is confronted with a reality both different and less than the one which he previously owned? While "retaliation and revenge are an option, forgiveness of our self and others is another option."

Forgiving is a signal to yourself and others that you have learned, that you are once more engaged in the activity of life. It requires a braveness to step forward again with new knowledge and clarity into what is never to be fully known, that is life itself, and move forward. Is not mercy and a portion of justice important both personally and in our society? May it first begin with your self.

Often in our life, we meet with traumatic experiences, experiences which shatter what we previously thought or believed about ourselves. In the bright light of loss of face, the loss of self-respect, we may be plunged into self doubt and shame. When people begin to question their former assumptions about the world, spirituality, their colleagues, family, them self and others, what may have been assumed is now set into turmoil.

If for example, a person "lies, cheats, physically harms, or betrays others, these behaviors may not, at least initially, destroy the perpetrator's assumptions." Assumptions such as: I'm a good person--even though I cheat sometimes;they deserve it; I'm only working for my best... so I have to betray those with what I know; I live in a world where others accept my flaws, but that's because there is something wrong with them."

And when a person causes harm that remains and is injurious, that person perpetrates something which brings their previous assumptions into sharp focus. "An unforgiven wrong-doer is faced with a new set of assumptions," writes Flannigan. "Additionally they are responsible for destroying the very beliefs which held their world together... They now face the new idea that they may not have been a "good person" at all. And others do not unconditionally condone or accept their behavior," in spite of recognition of the transgressor's flaws. Nor can others be forced, or necessarily convinced, to continue in relation as before. The situation ruptures. Sometimes an apology must occur, sometimes, something more is required.

The injurer, for the first time likely, realizes that "other people do not have to condone their injurious actions, and that it is not they who have "now rendered the world less benevolent than it was, it's me." People are often shocked to find that there are limits. In civil society, there is a rhythm, an order which must be attended to; when one harms others, the injured begin to question themselves and what they formerly assumed.

Finally it is the injurer, along with the injured who will have to, like the victim, if they care about what they have done to permanently damage their own belief system, to build again, a new way and a new set of beliefs.