I'm a big fan of the current crop of US crime shows, CSI, without a trace, and crminal minds. we get them late in the UK so apologies to US readers, but last week criminal minds (was a feb edition in US i discover!) ended with Mandy Patinkin delivering a great quote from French playwright Eugene Ionesco. "Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
this spoke to me very much of what i was grasping at in my earlier post on 'is God and idealist'.
the Ianesco quote has quite a web presence, much of it quote sites but there are some other pearls on them from Ianesco, but also some comment worth checking. I am not surprised others are grabbed by it too!
for me it says this: ideology is that thing people create when they want the answers sown up so they can say who is right and who is wrong, or in or out, or good or bad....ultimatley ideology is the means of exclusion of making a world of division of 'them and us'. but it says more than this, 'dreams and anguish unite us'. now the last part for me makes clear sense, the common struggle of the human expereince draws us togehter, often releases compassion, even for those we thought we despised or feared despised us. but what of those dreams? do our dreams unite us? on a superficial level perhaps not, indeed my dream may be your nightmare...and the state exists to make sure it does not become so, but struggles to acheive this....indeed should it achieve this? but at another level there is something here, when i get beyond the dreams of persoanl indulgence, of my own comfort, and begin to dream fro all, of the world i wish all could share, of my dreams for justice, for peace, for laughter and delight in life for all....are these dreams that really do unite us?
for me this is what the mission of God is about, the ushering in of the kingdom, the dream of jusitice love and life for all creation and not just humanity at creations expense or one person's at the expense of another's. i am reminded from preaching recently about Halloween and the Allhallows season, that Paul reminds us we have no human enemies, and Jesus tells us that our enemies are indeed to be treated as out friends, not the ideology that divdes, but the dream of the kingdom come on earth as in heaven that unites and blesses all and soothes our common anguish.
but does the church live this......do I live this?
