This week’s release of Samir Quntar from an Israeli prison in exchange for two dead Israeli soldiers resulted in exuberant celebration for supporters of Hezbollah. Internationally the release is not understood. Why would you liberate a vicious murderer for a couple of military bodies? Likewise, why would Hezbollah cohorts consider a person who beat a child to death to be a war hero?
Though different, we have also seen some interesting media coverage of the Papal visit to Australia for World Youth Day. Largely the coverage has been about historic Roman Catholic scandals and secular disagreement with current papal instruction on contraception and abortion. There’s been little reflection on the significance of so many young people worldwide taking part in the celebration. There will be more pilgrims in Sydney for this event than the 2000 Olympics!
These worldview conflicts can be read in the space of one page of the Dominion Post. Yet what’s more interesting is that my response to what I read will be very different from the response of someone else.
It raises the question of truth in the face of kaleidoscopic of worldviews.
What is the truth about the Middle East conflict? Is Catholic History as abusive as some commentators make out? What are we to make of Muslim, Christian, Palestinian, Catholic and secular histories?
In his book Bush and Babylon: The
decolonisation of Iraq, Tariq Ali makes a good point: there is a real history that actually
happened. What and why can be established through good historical research. But
there is also bad history based on what people “feel” about what happened. This
is called, “rewriting of history”.
The problem
for most us is that we don’t do the research; we can’t. Every article in the
World section of the newspaper would take a lifetime of study. So what to do?
Without
being trite, I think we ought read prayerfully. Yeah, I know, that sound trite!
But hear me on this. To read prayerfully is to read reflectively. It’s to call
for a response that is deeper than mere first responses. It’s to be aware that
the experiences of differing worldviews are human and valid and powerful even
though they may founded on the shaky ground of perceived history.
Jesus
wisely said that we should “ask, seek, knock” – that is, bash on God’s door in
search of truth and clarity. He said, “seek first the Kingdom of God”, a
Kingdom of non violence, prayer, self sacrifice, kindness and love. A Kingdom
that draws frm within us a radical response to others and our world.
To read
prayerfully is to be self reflective. What of our own past? It’s truth is not
necessarily what we feel it is. Pain is pain, but it doesn’t equal the truth
per se. What baggage do we bring to the present that hinders our perception of
others?
No, the
truth is not always as we percieve it. But if we are prepared to seek and pray
for it – truth has a habit of revealing itself.
Digby Wilkinson © 2008