The opening sentence of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice states categorically, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”. Why on earth would that be the case? Such a desire leads to children! Had Austin lived in our time she might have written, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man who finds a wife will end up in a car on a long journey with three children in the back seat. It also follows that man and wife will be on the verge of a nervous breakdown”.
We’ve just had this experience. It’s not that our kids are terrible, but after 2000 k’s of driving they start winding each other up. There’s something about siblings intuitive knowledge of which buttons to push in order cause mayhem. Why do they do this and is it only children?
I have vague memories of doing the same with my brother. I think it was little more than sport on most occasions, but every now and then it became more. Provoking small vulnerable people in confined spaces was a way of causing a degree of misery for one of three reasons: first, no reason at all. Second, to gain some kind of revenge and third, to irritate my parents. It would always start of as a small insignificant prod yet within a very short period of time it became a war which no one was going to win.
It’s not only kids though. Adults are much the same, just more subtle.
I note with some joy that President Obama has called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay’s military prison. None to soon I think. Rendition (exporting people to countries with relaxed laws against extreme interrogation) is the anti-thesis of any kind of good virtue and that the previous administration employed it is something I will never fully understand. But there’s a small part of me that does. It’s the child in the back of the car torturing a sibling and in doings so watching a family war break out.
Can governments be childish? Can good police officers overstep moral boundaries? Can well meaning soldiers commit war crimes? Can loving parents abuse their children? Yes. When we reach the end of our emotional tethers the child breaks free. We become unsophisticated in our handling of reality and can take an irrational path to complete destruction because it feels like the only option we have.
Jesus wasn’t being pious when he said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. He was being serious. It has proved over and again to be the way of peace. Yes, sometimes people suffer and die, but not near as many as with reciprocal violence. Peace is the way of Christ.
We each get to choose our way, just as nations do. What will be your way? Peaceful adult or unpredictable child.
Digby Wilkinson 2009