blind and deaf
wander the world
injuring and being injured
it’s just a matter of closed eyes
it’s just a matter hands over ears
but they ain’t opening
and they ain’t moving
Month: March 2016
Jian Ghomeshi: Victim vs. Abuser
A few brief thoughts on the Jian Ghomeshi saga as I eat lunch and ponder the response to his being found Not Guilty on all charges.
Ghomeshi was charged with four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking. His defense rested primarily on the predication that these were all consensual encounters that were within the realm/boundaries of a BDSM lifestyle.
I am struggling with this and the response.
Signs and shouts with/of statements like “We believe the victims” and the like as well as “Gomeshi Guilty” are designed to show public support for victims of sexual violence.
Speaking as a victim of years of sexual abuse I can attest to how important it is to feel supported.
On the flipside I am concerned by the attitude which says “As soon as an accusation is leveled a person should essentially bypass court and simply be put directly in jail.”
There are only four people who know for sure whether Ghomeshi is guilty – Ghomeshi and the three women who leveled abuse accusations. No one else. Not me. Not you. Not the protestors with their well-meaning signs and chants.
I can tell you right now a witch-hunt style approach to sexual crimes will not help the victim’s cause in the long run. A rush to one extreme typically results in a rebound to the other.
The best system we have to address these accusations is our criminal justice system as flawed as it may be. If there are problems they need to be addressed there and not by adopting a lynch mob mentality.
As it stands Ghomeshi’s career is over. Punishment has already been meted out for something our criminal justice system says he is not guilty of. Don’t believe it? You and I do not have access to the evidence presented nor the experience of the judge and lawyers involved. We are bystanders.
Please know that blind belief is not the same as supporting a victim of sexual violence. Of course I want people to believe me when I tell them I have been abused. I am thankful that in the various instance of abuse in my life the justice system evaluated the evidence and each abuser was found guilty of criminal charges and jailed.
If you want to support a victim help develop an environment where they feel they can come forward and that includes a fair and equitable system of justice…fair enough that, no matter the results, the victim can feel that everything was done that could be done.
Develop free and easy, anonymous access to mental (and sometimes physical) health care that can assist with the healing process – it can take years.
lost in the craziness
under a pair of twin suns
one black and one white
walk and walk and walk
and never stop;
is it a shadow seen
to tell that the light is bright
from the overhead white?
or is the whole world dark
from the surrounding absence
that soars overhead?
we would pray but for the crazed muttering
that spills forth from our paralyzed lips;
we would dance but for the busted stuttering
that rattles forth from our aimless legs
so much we would…but for who we are…
Daredevil as Christ
I am now three episodes into Daredevil season 2 on Netflix and while I do not think there will be any spoilers ahead just in case I will say now –
!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!
“he descended into hell…” – The Apostle’s Creed
There is an obvious irony in developing a character named Daredevil as a sort of Christ for Hell’s Kitchen but in some ways this helps us see the overlap with greater clarity in that we expect there to be none so when they show up they do so glaringly.
Backstory – as a child Matt Murdoch (Daredevil) is involved in an accident that leaves him blind with his other senses heightened to superhuman levels. In many ways he sees far more now than before (or at least after training and honing).
Murdoch’s mother is long gone, his father dies not long after the accident leaving him detached from traditional parents.
Raised Catholic his religion, its various themes and iconography have significant shaping effects on Matt as he evolves into Daredevil. One could argue that Daredevil evolved long before Matt ever put on the uniform in the sense that it is his persona and not some separate alter-ego that comes to life when he suits up, like so many other superheroes. Matt Murdoch is Daredevil and Daredevil is Matt Murdoch.
Daredevil most definitely has a Messiah complex. He very strongly feels that only he can save the people of Hell’s Kitchen. He recognizes that others help in their way but only he, is uniquely fashioned to ultimately do the job.
If Murdoch is Christ than his priest acts as the voice of God for him as he regularly seeks out his advice.
There is a very strong resemblance between Christ and Daredevil in what must ultimately be done for salvation to fully occur – that is that their body must be broken and their blood must be spilled.
There are times when one can almost hear the words of the sacrament if communion from 1 Corinthians 11:24-25 as we watch Daredevil fighting with the forces of evil…
He broke it and said “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
Each time Daredevil enters the fray it is as if he is performing some form of penance on behalf of the ones he is saving and even for those he is fighting, who he believes can be redeemed; Each time it is as if he is partaking in communion.
While there does not need to be a perfect overlap if we were to extend the analogy further we could suggest that Murdoch’s partner Foggy Nelson and their secretary Karen Page fill that role.
The Spirit of God is not so evident or direct as either God or Christ but no less powerful a motivator. Both act in a way that offers constraint and reminds Daredevil that, unlike God, he is constrained and has limits.
If Daredevil is Christ than in season 2 The Punisher, Frank Castle, is fallen Adam…the corrupted image of God/Christ who personifies perfectly Daredevil’s mission. He is both the broken that needs redemption and the evil that needs cleansing.
It is apt that Castle is also Catholic as in some ways he is a dark reflection of Daredevil. He is temptation in the sense that he offers to Daredevil a way to deal with the problem of evil by eradicating not only the source but all who is infected by it.
Daredevil recognizes that evil can only be dealt with at the source if it is to be defeated. To walk the path of eradicating those who are also infected by evil is to walk a path that would ultimately lead to the realization that all of humanity must be eradicated…that none deserve life and all deserve death. This is the path that Daredevil sees and resists at all costs…Castle cannot see this and walks the path willingly.
Daredevil does not send the evil to Hell but rather to Purgatory. Part of Catholic theology Purgatory is that place where the redeemable go to be purified to a point where they can one day enter Paradise. Prison is Purgatory and Daredevil believes that through the criminal justice system people can find redemption.
It is appropriate that Murdoch became a defense lawyer because in his role as Daredevil he continues his advocacy. Christ being the ultimate advocate for humanity the comparison is more than appropriate.
Ultimately Catholicism is the strongest influence on Murdoch who is shaped into not the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen as he is know so much as the Christ of Hell’s Kitchen, offering his body and blood as sacrament for the dispossessed, the evil and the broken that through it, they might be saved. He does this in the same way as the Priest does within the church only in this instance the church is the streets and rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen.
Why the devil suit? Ultimately, while we may conjecture about the similarities between Daredevil and Christ Matt Murdoch would certainly have none of it. The choice of the Devil as his personal imagery has less to do with frightening criminals (as he himself might suggest) and more to do with his own sense of unworthiness and sin.
Ultimately this aspect of Daredevil is what keeps him grounded. It is his humanity and it is the humanity of those he confronts as they are faced with an image of who they really are inside. It is also representative of the ongoing battle Murdoch, and the rest of us, have with ourselves.
Daredevil is the Christ of The Apostle’s Creed, descended into Hell, seeking to save those already there.
To be gods…
For some of us it is not until we become god that we sometimes begin to seek God out. The act of creating life…in my case becoming a father…put me on the spiritual path of seeking out God.
Or more to the point…the act of bringing life into the world suddenly made me think about the responsibility of guiding that life; a life that would affect other lives who would, in turn, affect others and so on and so on…
It is not so with everyone and the act of creating can occur in many ways, not simply by having children. People create with word as God creates with Word. People create with music, people plant, people build, people create limited order in unlimited chaos. We are always creating…we are closest to God when we create; We are furthest when we destroy.
Still even in the act of creation we can fail to see the one we are emulating; fail to recognize that there is a source. We do what we do and some see and some do not.
For all of this we owe it to ourselves and others to ensure that there is always an opportunity to create…to be gods, such as we are. We were made to be gods in an image of God.
We have failed in spectacular fashion for the most part but this may still be part of a broader music. The dissonance we create may serve a larger purpose in the overall symphony…we just cannot see it from within the performance.
Isabella
In the deepest of spaces,
In the darkest of places;
beneath the weight of the world,
amidst a hotter, more fiery forge,
the most beautiful of gems is born
this diamond –
this diamond never fades,
but stands bold before the coal;
this diamond is precious,
this diamond is eternal…
sometimes i forget to open my eyes
I know
I know there is beauty
I know there is beauty right before me
but
but sometimes
but sometimes I forget to open my eyes
in
in those
in those moments I see in new ways
I
I listen for
I listen for life’s magnificent vibrations
to
to play across
to play across my quiet spaces
that
that maybe the
that maybe the echoes would become symphonies
ears and eyes
some wander muttering to themselves
beneath the weight of a scale they cannot outweigh,
while others sit inside of themselves
and make voices to fill the outer silence
created by their slow but steady plod toward absence
in a world too full for them
it is the way of things
that we move to avoid tangling our strings
in those of the ones around us
while words pour as letters –
missives from the fingers of the prophetic
to those with ears
to those with eyes
resurrection
every blind, clashing branch
is waving at the passing wind
that is warmer than it has been;
as if the dead know that
a warm, more present sunlit life
is bearing down upon them –
and they will blaze and bloom,
and they will burst with being
as only the once perished can
bury them
some guns are made of a darker steel
oiled so black they are blue
beneath whatever light might shine
these are the barrels best left buried
and forgotten
lest they take themselves up
and find a purpose in and of themselves
Harnessing Chaos 