No Turning Back

The currently popular jargon, “tipping point”, must mean the same thing as the back-when term, “threshold”. Both translate “point of no return.” I cannot help but wonder how many thresholds we are crossing these days, or how many points are being irreversibly tipped. With an adolescent air of impunity we toy with everything from the geopolitical to the ecological, never believing that we may at some point cross the line from which there is no going back—even if we have second thoughts and try to “repent”.

Dad used the following illustration in one of his sermons: The town gossip habitually spread untruths and unkind remarks about other villagers behind their backs. One day, upon being on the receiving end of the same treatment, she went to her priest and confessed that she now realized how deeply she had hurt others with her gossiping. She asked if there was any way that she could take her disparaging remarks back. The priest responded by inviting her to climb up to the church’s belfry with him where he tore open a feather pillow into the wind. As the feathers scattered everywhere, the priest admonished the woman to go retrieve every single one of them. Such, he told her, was the impossible nature of taking back her myriad slanders.

Heraclitus declared that we can never step in the same river twice. A dynamic reality forever moves on, and the opportunities to do things differently quickly become captured by an irreversible past. How I wish that those who opt for violence and destruction could, just for a moment, come to their senses and realize the irreparable harm they do. How I hope that those who desire peace and prosperity will come to realize that now is the time to create it.

P.S. It’s really happening! Anyone who doubts that the Christian Right is marching toward control of our government should take the time to read Mike Allen’s article, Courting a New Coalition.