On Our Not Experiencing Pleasure When Enemies Suffer And Die

Raw, unedited recordings of WW II
combatants who came to relish seeing
their enemies tortured and killed.

During World War II British intelligence agencies secretly recorded conversations of German prisoners of war in order to gather any information they could about enemy war plans and tactics. In the process they learned a lot about how combatants think about the brutal work of killing people.

Here's an example, dated June 20, 1942:

"I heard of a case of two fifteen-year-old boys. They were wearing uniforms and were firing away with the rest. But they were taken prisoners... They were wearing soldiers' uniforms, so what could one do... They were made to dig their own graves, two pits, and then one of them was shot. He didn't fall into the grave, he fell forwards over it. The other was told to push the first one into the pit before he was shot himself. And he did so, smiling--a boy of fifteen! There's fanaticism and idealism for you!"

The authors further comment, "Similar incidents have been documented among U.S. troops in Vietnam, who sometimes claimed babies were members of the Vietcong. This is not a sign of insanity. It marks the shifting of the frame of references so that group membership is more important than all other defining characteristics, including age, in determining who the enemy is. Joanna Bourke, a scholar who has studied soldiers' perceptions of killing in various wars, has argued that such skewed frames of reference do not prove that soldiers personally enjoyed murder. Instead, Bourke suggests, the cold blooded killing of people categorically defined as belonging to the enemy is part of the normal, everyday practice of warfare." 

We all know that regarding enemies as distinctly different from us and other humans is a necessary change of mindset combatants have to experience. But how has labeling whole groups of people as enemies affected the rest of us?

For example, what empathy, if any, do we feel for the estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Russian soldiers killed, wounded and missing in action in their current invasion of Ukraine? Many of these have been guilty of terrible atrocities, which partly explains why their deaths are not regarded in the same way as those of innocent civilians lives and property they are destroying, but the fact remains that all people on both sides are God's children. Each is someone's son or daughter, sister or brother, father or mother, spouse or lover. And many of those who have lost their lives and limbs were not engaging in war by their personal choice, but were conscripted as killers and sacrificed as cannon fodder. 

I'll never forget when I first told our pre-school daughter the story of David slaying Goliath, an archenemy of Israel. I expected her to express some of the usual satisfaction we associate with a bad guy in full armor being defeated by a lad armed only with a sling. But she was visibly distressed, and responded with, "But Goliath was a person, too!"

Out of the mouth of babes.

I recently spoke with a friend who admitted wishing someone would just assassinate Putin as a way of putting an end to his horrific invasion. I understand, as I personally acknowledge feeling tempted to take pleasure in the defeat of Russian troops in battle after battle in the Ukraine, in spite of the loss of so many precious lives in the process.

But shame on me, or any of us followers of Jesus who take even the slightest pleasure in our "enemies" experiencing agonizing deaths. 

In 1871 a local veteran of the Confederate's Stonewall Brigade Band wrote: 

"Christian mother, as you nestle your baby-boy to your breast tonight, pray God that his hands may not learn war. . . Fathers, tell your children of the Horrors of War, in place of recounting the achievements of some General. Discourage all military ambition, and thus help to hasten the time when
'swords shall be beat into ploughshares,' for that time will come, as the Lord liveth."

(On Stone Walls and Broken Histories--Historiographical Reflections on the Stonewall Brigade Band, E. K. Knappenberger, April 2023, unpublished)

During passion week recently I realized anew the importance of emulating Jesus's attitudes and actions toward enemies : “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you."  Luke 6:27-28 (NLT)

To love and pray for enemies means never taking pleasure in their suffering or death. They are people, too.

Our Backyard Garden--Off To An Earlier Start

A generous layer of maple leaves provided a warm
blanket over the winter, and will serve as a moisture
preserver and weed suppressant this summer.

I'm experimenting with no-till gardening in the 10' x 60'  plot behind our house this year, which means uncovering just as much of the leaf mulch as necessary, making furrows with a hand tool, hoe or shovel, then planting the vegetable seeds or plants and waiting for the harvest. 

I'll soon be planting a row of pole green beans right beside the row of sugar snap peas shown here. The beans will piggyback their way up the fence as the peas are being harvested. I've already planted several feet of pole beans and a couple of squash and lettuce plants, way earlier than usual, so I'll need to cover the squash and beans whenever there is a threat of an overnight frost. 

With the climate change we're experiencing, our frost date keeps moving back, and I'm expecting some erratic (and dryer?) weather this summer. So we'll see how this works.

Gardeners are in good company, since one of God's first acts was to create a garden for the first human pair to inhabit and care for. In John's gospel God is called a "gardener" (or vinegrower or husbandman) by Jesus, who frequently went into a garden to pray, and he was himself mistaken for a gardener after his resurrection.

May we have a productive growing and gardening year in 2023, and make every day Earth Day.

Christ Died To Save Us From Our Selfishness

The 2008 sculpture by Esther Augsburger of Jesus in the role of
a servant is at the International Christian School in Hong Kong.

Christians tend to agree that Christ's death saves the repentant from the consequences of their sin and gives them an undeserved pass to Paradise. However, they haven't all agreed on just what that means, or on how that happens. 

One of the church's oldest theories of atonement was that of Christ's death and resurrection being about God's ultimate victory over the effects of sin and death, a victory and deliverance we can claim and celebrate by faith.

Some, including St. Augustine in the fourth century, believed that Jesus's life of complete obedience to God, even to the point of death, was meant to  exert a moral influence us, leading us to repent of our sinning and to live that same kind of Christ-like life by the grace and power of God. 

Some later theologians believed Christ's death represented a kind of ransom paid, either to the devil or to God, one that paid the debt we owed and the guilt we incurred because of our transgressions, and which granted us our full pardon and deliverance. Or according to other scholars, that Jesus became our substitute, taking the just punishment we deserved, suffering and dying on our behalf, so we wouldn't have to bear the eternal consequence of our sins.

I'm inclined toward a view of Christ's life and death that doesn't have him saving us from a wrathful God, but that the same God who "so loved the world" entered a hostile, God-hating world in order to save us from ourselves and from the consequences of the world's self-centered way of life--and to enable us to live and love in the way Jesus did and the way God does. 

As an example, here is one of my favorite passages: 

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.  Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Though he was God,
    he did not think of equality with God
    as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
    he took the humble position of a slave
    and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
    he humbled himself in obedience to God
    and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor
    and gave him the name above all other names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:3-11 (New Living Translation)

Here we see God demonstrating, in Jesus, the kind of love that knows no limits, that is able and willing to love God's worst enemies, even those who hate him and crucify him. This salvation is revolutionary, transformative and life-giving, resulting in God not only saving us from the consequences of our sins, but frees us from the grip of selfishness that causes us to seek our own way instead of following the way of Christ's cross and resurrection.

SURPLUS: "Whatever Is More Than Required"

This is the logo created for an effort to raise monetary
gifts at the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale.

In early 2017 some of us proposed setting up a special giving table at the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale as a way of adding to the total revenue generated for Mennonite Central Committee through this fall auction and craft and food sales. With the approval of the Sale's executive committee a Sharing Our Surplus (SOS) group was formed to give this a try, hoping we could raise at least $10,000.

Prior to this the Relief Sale had already been raising some cash contributions by occasionally calling on bidders during the auction to make monetary gifts. In addition there has long been the My Coins Count campaign (formerly Penny Power) which raises from  between $20,000 to $30,000 in the months prior to each fall's event.

The additional SOS giving at the Sale has been gratifying, though modest in scale. And there's no way of knowing how many of the donors who gave at the Sale would have contributed to MCC at other times and by other means.

Here are the numbers:

2017    $40,989  
2018    $31,508
2019    $27,803
2020    $47,406
2021    $50,710
2022    $37,396

Total: $235,812

Some have raised questions about how the word "surplus" might be understood by the average Sale attendee as simply asking for crumbs and leftovers from our wealth-laden tables. As a result we have seriously considered whether we should rebrand this effort and come up with a different logo. 

But a dictionary definition of the word surplus is simply "the amount that is more than what is required or necessary." 

Hmm. 

Given the Biblical teaching that "the earth is the Lord's," and that God's children are simply stewards and managers of God's wealth, how much of the "Company of Heaven's" money should we managers budget for our own living expenses and how much should be invested in the needs of others in the family of God? If we truly saw things from our Creator's perspective, one concerned about the wellbeing of all creation, how might we determine what is "required" or "necessary"?

One measure might be whether our spending and consuming would resemble what would be possible for our other "neighbors" on the planet. At the very least, loving them as ourselves should mean wanting to see that each of them, each refugee, each victim of war or famine, every man, woman and child on earth, be afforded their daily bread, their fair share of God's manna, along with medical, shelter, clothing, transportation and other "required and necessary" amenities.

When Jesus asked the rich young ruler to sell his possessions and share them with the poor, I don't believe he meant to deprive him and his family of their actual necessities. I'm not even sure he was asking him to divest himself of his capital wealth, that is the land or business enterprise the man managed as a means of production. Some of his own disciples, for example, were a part of their family's fishing business, with its inventory of boats, nets and other fishing equipment. 

But in Matthew and Mark's gospel, Jesus clearly asks the young man to sell off his surplus, to rid himself of his excessive consumer wealth and share the proceeds with those in need. This sounds like the very thing he would counsel wealthy North Americans to do as well. 

The gospel of Luke does insert the word all in the account, as in "Sell all that you own, and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven." 

In any case, being offered stock in the Company of Heaven through investing in the needs of the poor is surely the best financial counsel we could ever get.

You can contribute to the SOS refugee relief fund here at any time https://vareliefsale.com/donate/

Signs Of New Life At 110 Old South High Street

Twelve amazing women make this their home for a 90-day
journey of recovery.

Since January I've been serving as an interim counselor at Gemeinschaft Home's Women's House Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. While I've been blessed with many memorable work experiences in my career, this one has been among the most challenging and rewarding of them all.

It's hard to imagine any other setting where I could have the opportunity to hear the stories and support the dreams of twelve incredible individuals like these residents, nearly all of them mothers. We meet as a group each of the two afternoons for a conversation about parenting and then individually by appointment as needed.

I'm still seeing a few clients at the Family Life Resource Center, but this assignment has been an unexpected added plus as I move toward full retirement. 

Here are some of the daunting challenges many of these courageous women are facing:

• Most have experienced significant traumas as children, have had far more than their share of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE's) such as verbal, physical and/or sexual abuse, domestic violence, and/or the loss of one or both of their parents through divorce, neglect, abandonment, etc.

• Many became mothers as teenagers, often not by choice, and have experienced having their children removed from them, sometimes permanently.

• Most were introduced to drugs at an early age, and over time became dependent on the relief from stress and anxiety their substance use offered them.

• Many have been incarcerated and suffer from both the trauma and the stigma of having this on their record.

• Without exception, these women are determined to overcome their substance use disorders, get a decent job and place to live and start a new life with their children.

I am in awe of their resilience and courage as they seek to defy all odds, with God's help and the help of good people, to achieve their goals.

Parole Eligible Persons Dealt Another Setback? A Guest Post

Mr. White has remained infraction free for the past forty-one years
of his incarceration, and has been denied parole 18 times.

Governor Glenn Youngkin has proposed a recommendation for a bill to be entered during the special session of the General Assembly set for Wednesday, April 12, that states:

"Prosecutors will be allowed to weigh in on parole decisions of potential parole review cases prior to any decision or vote of the Virginia Parole Board in a discretionary parole review case for their input in how the release of that potential parolee will affect their jurisdiction in which the offender was convicted and sentenced."

The story was posted in the Daily Press News on March 29, 2023 by staff writer Peter Dujardin.

Many of the current "old law" and other parole eligible offender's who are due to be interviewed for parole in the Second Quarter Parole Review Docket statewide and at the Augusta Correctional Center  have significant concerns about how such a bill would affect current and future parole decision outcomes.

The Augusta Correctional Center's parole eligible population on June 10, 2022 was 290. During that fiscal year only two offenders were granted parole at Augusta of the 63 combined parole grant decisions made statewide by the current Parole Board, whose members were acting in an interim status pending their confirmation by the General Assembly session ending in February. 

The parole release rate statewide has been the lowest in the history of the Virginia Parole Board process over the past two decades. And the Augusta Correctional Center has had the "extremely lowest" parole grant release rate in three decades of all of the VaDOC facilities statewide. In testament to this fact there were 44 potential parole cases interviewed for the first quarter of 2023 at Augusta. None have been granted a parole release!

The second quarter (April/May/June) docket at Augusta has 51 cases scheduled to be interviewed for parole release consideration pending hearings that begin on April 4, 2023 and run through the end of May 2023. There have been a considerable number of parole denials here at Augusta in cases that were reviewed by the Board as far back as November 2022 and the first two weeks of January 2023. Some have also been deferred for the next three years to their next review.

There is a growing concern from potential parole eligible offenders about this recommendation by the Governor for such a bill  becoming law and its continued disenfranchisement of gaining a fair and unbiased parole review by the Virginia Parole Board. Many offenders have more than one jurisdiction in which they have been convicted and sentenced for multiple crimes. Some cases are decades old and the initial prosecutors involved in the offender's case are no longer serving in that jurisdiction. In some cases the parolee will not be returning to the same locality that the conviction/sentence occurred. For example, returning to Norfolk to reside on parole when the sentencing jurisdiction was Fairfax.

PLEASE contact all Senator's who were supporting the parole reforms and parole bills that were introduced in this past General Assembly this past session and urge them to weigh in their concerns in this proposed recommendation and how it further retards the parole reform process. It defeats the interest of public safety to further disenfranchise returning citizens with rejection and burdensome vindictiveness. We should be investing in positive rehabilitation outcomes and in ensuring that the parolees get a fair and just opportunity at a real second chance. 

Your voices are needed to address this at the special session on April 12, 2023. Thank you for advocating for fair and unbiased parole reforms and against injustice in the Commonwealth.

Jonathan White 1161021
Augusta Correctional Center
1821 Estaline Valley road
Craigsville, VA 24430

For a list of Mr. White's accomplishments see https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2021/08/another-heartbreaking-parole-denial.html