My first political blog
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:date: 2005-06-17T21:23:00
:category: faith

Oh well, I tried to avoid falling into trap of commenting publicly all
the stuff I have no clue about, but I cannot avoid thinking about
politics, when I have finally found `Richard Roth’s quotation on pain`_:

    According to the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, spirituality is not
    for people who are trying to avoid hell; it is for people who have
    been through hell. In many ways, spirituality is about what we do
    with our pain. And the truth is, if we don’t transform it, we will
    transmit it.

(I know it is second-hand quotation, but I haven’t found anything
better, and this cite is repeated so many times over the web, that I
assume it is reasonably correct).

I was listening to the `Christopher and Dorothy’s sermon about raising
children`_, where they quoted this claim by Rohr, and so I have finally
searched for it on the Web. I found it quoted many times, but I have
never found the original. However, I found one interesting `article by
Rohr about post-09/11 America`_.

When I was cooking a dinner I was thinking about it, and one thing which
came to me very clear was thinking about Iraq and Afghanistan. How
actually there is much about transmitting pain in invading Iraq and how
little of true transformation happened in the United States after 09/11
(transformation meaning especially μετάνοια—changing the ways we think
about the world). And in order that I would not be accussed of
anti-Americanism, then I have to say that other thing which came to my
mind in the same moment was doubts about the reasons why the Central
European countries (“New Europe” of Mr. Rumsfeld) participated in the
invasion to Iraq. It seems to me that there is something about cynical
calculation of safe playing on the same side as the biggest guy on the
playing field, maybe even subserviency to the stronger guy.

However, despite writing this I am not sure, that whole Iraq campaign is
necessarily bad decision—besides getting rid of the Saddam Hussain,
whole Middle East may be really shaken up to reform itself to more
democracy and eliminate the Islam fundamentalism in the long run. Just
that not all reasons for doing this were noble and pure. Who knows about
the future?

.. _`Richard Roth’s quotation on pain`:
    http://thecorner.typepad.com/bc/2004/04/transform_not_t.html
.. _`Christopher and Dorothy’s sermon about raising children`:
    http://sermons.cambridgevineyard.com/050612-sermon.mp3
.. _`article by Rohr about post-09/11 America`:
    http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/2185.htm