How Low Must We Go?

I’ve often wondered about bottom point conversion. AA meetings are rife with testimonies of being as low as one could go before realizing the need to never touch another drop. Many Pentecostal movements bear the same testimony of waking up in the gutter to the realization that things must change. The prodigal son of Jesus’ parable is an excellent example. It was on the third day of rioting in Los Angeles that prompted Rodney King to ask the question, “Can we all get along?” The question becomes, must we experience the extreme in order to seek the reasonable, the rational. History seems to answer, yes. Even the Holocaust wasn’t enough to stop the ideological killing of human beings. Even Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t sufficient to lay bare the immorality of Mutually Assured Destruction. Even the crucifixion of the Prince of Peace hasn’t deterred eye-for-an-eye retaliation. I wish that I was smart enough to figure out the answer. But even a simpleton like me can figure out where all the killing ultimately leads.