You Can’t Win War

‘Lost In [Color/] Space’ by sMacshot

You Can Only Win Peace

09 March – The pastoral text / cellphone SMS of Fr Reuter is this: The soldier slapped Our Lord in the face, hard … for all our sins.

I don’t think I have ever been slapped by someone; I don’t remember slapping someone either. But I imagine that a slap in the face is extremely hurtful – from the pain of it coupled with the shame of it. From the example of Jesus, if we learn the lesson, we will see it as extremely helpful: If someone slaps you on the left cheek, turn to him the right also. A slap is stressful, on the part of the slapped as well as on the part of the slapper. How can you ever like it?

The image by sMacshot is the result of a slap on the face, not by a hand but by technology, not the least of it being software. While the photographer had lost face, she was not about to be defeated. She might as well have told herself: The fault, dear girl, lies not in our software but in ourselves. If photography slaps you, you might as well turn a negative into a positive! She did learn to like it. I love it.

Learning from that, there are only two ways you can ever like a slap on the face. One is to like the result – it stops you from your foolishness. The other is to learn to take it; for your sake, you have to learn to take it. Let it be a reminder that you are not perfect and never have been, that you didn’t have to hurt someone but you did, that you were selfish with someone, that you denied someone, that you made someone mad – in some direct way, you failed to love someone and that caused a deep pain that was excruciating and needed release.

A hard slap on the face doesn’t have to be a smack on your cheek by someone angry; it can be a whack by life on you such as an injury, an illness, an accident, a failure, a going away. You have to learn to deal with it as Jesus handled that slap on his face: Take it and leave it at that. Let it remind you of the mortality of the slapper and of your own, of your vulnerability to revenge: Slap the slapper. What is clearly wrong with that is that the problem doesn’t end there; in fact, it continues, since you have just given it a new lease on life. To be slapped by someone is someone setting a bad example; to slap back that someone is setting another bad example. You can’t win if you do battle. You can’t win the peace by winning the war.