The Ceremony of Innocence
And perhaps the haunting?
What do we mean by innocence? Is it ever more than rhetoric? “I know it when I see it,” which for all practical purposes is nothing more than preference.
Yet it seems to matter in our political thinking. As pro-life, we protect the life of a developing fetus, but we execute a grown person as punishment. This certainly seems a contradiction. So we fall back on the idea of “innocence.”
Our religious tradition raises awkward questions. “Who will throw the first stone?” Who, that is, is truly innocent?
We might believe in degrees of innocence. An innocence thermometer? But who gets to make the call? We humans do not seem likely to weigh our own actions and that of others on the same scale.
And there are some who go back to Adam. Jesus atoned for his sins and our sins, so now are we innocent? And that means?
Instead let’s start by thinking that all life is miraculous and precious, not to mention exceptionally rare, perhaps, in our cold universe. Every squirrel and every flower and every other human. Teach love and respect and joy for life.
But is the wolf innocent in the death of the lamb?
I believe an attitude of reverence for life, is compatible with the decisions we, who live with others in a real world, must take.
Should “innocence” play a role in such difficult a calculus?
Our Gods have been instruments of justice, hence deciders of guilt and agents of punishments. But that is not, I think, our final word on Gods. We see behind the grim face of “justice” the Godhead of forgiveness. And is not forgiveness a new kind of innocence, the only kind of innocence we will ever know?
We travel on a path of choice and necessity. Never sure of our footing. Only aware that we are on a path from which there is no retreat and no reprieve.
In all seriousness I ask, is “innocence” an answer to choices I must make?
[You may find that this abstract and my “point” seem obscure. I almost didn’t send it as I feared it will seem irrelevant. I’m not sure that taking “innocence” off the table proves all that helpful. Still, it places us back in a world of difficult and serious choices. And one of those choices is how we accept or restrain the choices of others.
It is not directly a meditation on abortion. If it has any value in these times, it is indirect at best. Some light shed may prove better than none.]