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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cG-d hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day:\u00a0 <\/strong>now therefore let me smite him\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I am buried in job applications at the moment, cursing them even as I am grateful to be able to fill them in, so when Marybeth asked if I could do this week\u2019s Dark Devotional, <\/em>I leapt at the chance. \u201cPlease,\u201d I thought, \u201cafter weeks of tweaking my CV, using words like \u2018managed,\u2019 \u2018monitored,\u2019 \u2018evaluated,\u2019 and \u2018specification,\u2019 give me a chance to do some G-d talk. Inject that theology into my veins.\u201d<\/p>\n As I sent off another application last Friday, I treated myself by typing \u201cCatholic readings February 20 2022\u201d into Google, clicking on the first link. Prepared for my usual reaction of \u201cWhat were the people who set the lectionary readings smoking,\u201d I let my eyes idly wander down the Old Testament reading, my focus sharpening as I thought, \u201cOh, HELL YEAH, bring it.\u201d My excitement grew as I read the responsorial psalm, New Testament reading, and the gospel, ending with a sense of wholeness. Rarely have I seen the readings fit so beautifully together. So, well done, lectionary setters, for putting your pipes down that day.<\/p>\n I kept being drawn back to the OT reading (1 Samuel 26: 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23), where David and Abi\u2019shai come across Saul sleeping, with his spear by his head, and Abi\u2019shai says:<\/p>\n G-d hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day:<\/em><\/p>\n now therefore let me smite him<\/em><\/p>\n I allowed the discomfort to settle in and deepen: so often we talk about Jacob wrestling with the angel (and thus, with G-d), but we often forget that our journey of faith requires that we wrestle with ourselves. How many times have I said versions of those words about Donald Trump or Boris Johnson and their party\/supporters, anti-vaxxers, racist, homophobic, imperialist right-wingers, the list goes on.<\/p>\n He needs his head ducked in the Thames three times and pulled out twice.<\/em><\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t cross the street to [pour water] on him if his guts were on fire, but if I had accelerant, I might run.<\/em><\/p>\n A guillotine on the Capitol steps or the White House lawn would focus Republican minds. You\u2019d only need one example.<\/em><\/p>\n Long walk, short pier.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I have said those things frequently to much laughter and agreement. As much as I like to imagine I am David, Moses, Ruth \u2013 I am far more often Abi\u2019shai, Pharaoh, Jezebel.<\/p>\n In 2016, particularly after Trump\u2019s election, I noticed a shift on my end (liberal\/left) of the political spectrum. We, who had eschewed violence in my living memory, were beginning to talk about guillotines. Violence was creeping into our language, but I waved it aside, \u201cknowing\u201d we were just venting, we wouldn\u2019t actually do anything about it. \u201cGood!\u201d I thought, \u201cit\u2019s about time we stopped being nice and let these neo-Nazis and fascists know we are strong and mean business. We can talk this way and remain on the right road.\u201d<\/p>\n In short, \u201cNow therefore let me smite him.\u201d<\/p>\n David responds to Abi\u2019shai:<\/p>\n Destroy him not: for who can stretch forth his hand against the\u00a0Lord\u2019s anointed, and be guiltless?<\/em><\/p>\n The statement, in the moment, is about Saul\u2026but I think it runs much deeper than that.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a high church girl. I\u2019m very uncomfortable with the way \u201canointed\u201d gets thrown around in Christian circles. I use it to mean sacramental anointing \u2014 holy orders, extreme unction, baptism, confirmation, and in the Bible, kings, prophets, and Jesus\u2019 head and feet. That\u2019s about it. Well, until now.<\/p>\n My friend Marie, who died in a car accident almost two years ago, used \u201canointing\u201d all the time. Conversations were anointed. Meetings were anointed. Everyone was anointed. It drove me crazy until the day I was desperate for it to pop up in my Facebook chat just one more time, because it would mean she was still here.<\/p>\n David is talking specifically about the fact that Saul is anointed by the Lord to be king, but as I read it, I had my usual image of us queueing up before G-d to receive our gifts, but with an added twist: G-d anointing us with oil before we leave Him:<\/p>\n With the constellation of gifts I give you, you are anointed to bring justice.<\/em><\/p>\n With the constellation of gifts I give you, you are anointed to be a bridge.<\/em><\/p>\n With the constellation of gifts I give you, you are anointed to heal.<\/em><\/p>\n With the constellation of gifts I give you, you are anointed to stand in doorways and bring earth and spirit together.<\/em><\/p>\n With the constellation of gifts I give you, you are anointed to be a mirror for others\u2019 shadows, so they may recognize it and fight it, in themselves and others.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n In that case, we are all G-d\u2019s anointed<\/em>, and which one of us can stretch forth our hand against another and remain guiltless?<\/p>\n In that moment of realization, the weight of what protecting life (hint: it doesn\u2019t include picketing abortion clinics and abusing vulnerable women) actually means struck hard.<\/p>\n Every life is anointed. Every life holds endless possibility. What does it mean to cut that thread? To execute someone? To kill someone in war? To end that possibility, the ability to change, that anointing? And not just to kill outright, but to kill someone emotionally, spiritually\u2014to use, abuse, to dismiss, to obstruct another\u2019s life? To think, as we so often do in mission or in various positions of authority, that we know what path a life should take and force it in that direction?<\/p>\n We don\u2019t. There are infinite paths an anointing can take to fulfil its purpose: someone anointed to bring justice can fulfil it through the obvious legal career path of lawyer and judge, but can also fulfil it in her friendships and family, through teaching, through simply living her life in integrity every single day, every choice making her a vessel for justice to pour through. Someone anointed to heal can be a doctor, a therapist, a teacher, work with an NGO, be the one to hold the space in every situation.<\/p>\n Every life is anointed. So what do we do with those living lives that are harming and destroying themselves and others?<\/p>\n I get the desire to cut short the lives and threads of those who have committed heinous crimes: those who commit genocide, those who have abused and murdered others, those who dehumanize others, those who commit violence as a way of life. I understand and feel it more deeply than I want to admit.<\/p>\n But I also know that each act of violence drags us to destruction. So now what?<\/p>\n