By: Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee (Servant of God)

Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee (Servant of God) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:18:45 +0000

I am UTTERLY concerned about the duress of Copts in Egypt. It is difficult– and inviting– for me to use terms like ‘persecution’ in my easier place thousands of miles away in my ‘Desert’ (for so my place here is called, for its danger.) I think I am trying hard as humanity in me will permit– and hubris before God will prohibit– to be fair in all my hearing of these bitter tidings, am trying therefore to hear-out all sides– even with love for all with whom I find disagreeable or bearers-of-bad-news.

It would be inviting to at long distance judge: but I am American, of a Nation that insists on treament of the Saracen in the Middle East in bellicose and ‘Crusading’ (as termed by the CEO-presiding in the USA) ways– which have as far as I can grasp ALWAYS gone over badly in the popular esteem in that Genesis-land, my religion’s homeland. I want to see MY connection as SINNER (what St. Thomas Merton called a GUILTY BYSTANDER) this terror, tribulation, tempest-teratologic.

To the degree that for-the-sword we bring-the-sword to these Holy Lands, I think there is a systemic problematic. The ‘sword’ of which Jesus teaches in the Gospels at Matthew 10:34 — to the degree that by necessity we view it under the Sermon just 5-3 chapters earlier– and of all things prior in a spirited way– SEEMS TO BE ONE OF NON-VIOLENT NON-COOPERATION WITH EVIL– and the first-bringers of SWORD to the Middle East seem to include the Americans, and their seemingly interminable siege with Abu Graib tortures to Bible Lands. For me– SINNER– as all are in-sin by the words of Jesus in commenting on the publican in Luke 18:13– that is is ME– all MEs– “standing in the need of prayer” (so going an old American Negro spiritual) and reconciliation. I/WE cannnot bring the Gospel of Peace with SWORD– maybe there is a level at which “two swords is enough” only symbolically (the seeming lesson of Luke 22.) And NO swords-of-bloodshed seems to be the goal/objective.

To me, then, the lesson of war in the Middle-East– my country’s Crusade it would seem, my country’s almost alone– would have to be in a conclusion that this is not a JUST WAR– that we do not ‘do justly love mercy walk humbly’ (cf. Micah 6:8) in this case. Easy judgment of my Arab siblings– the non-Christians-benighted essentially– needs immediately to be preceded with MY OWN burning conscience– as guilty bystander in front of Jaweh. And if judgment begins with US, then may it in assize come to those who obey-not-the-Gospel (cf. 1 Peter 4:17.)

In Prayer without Ceasing, for my sins, for all sin, I am
Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee
Day of St. Thomas of Malea
Day of Great Martyr St. Kyriaki
Hour of Compline (Anglican Rite)
Louisville, Kentucky USA

Comments on: Egypt’s Copts the ‘New Martyrs’?

By: Vernon Lynn Stephens, Culdee (Servant of God)