The Raven Foundation

^{Afghan soldiers. Photo: EPA}

The worst thing one can do now is believe in violence. – René Girard

Battling to the End, 125

The greatest danger facing humanity today is our belief that violence can produce peace. It’s a belief that threatens our future, and, indeed, our planet. At some deep level, we all know our belief in violence is flawed, and yet we remain faithful to it. Why?

Those were my thoughts as I read today’s New York Times article titled “As Trained Afghans Turn Enemy, a U.S.-Led Imperative Is in Peril.” It describes an incident of what the U.S. military is calling “green on blue” attacks – NATO trained Afghan soldiers turning on their NATO counterparts. First Sgt. Joseph Hissong awoke during the middle of the night to gunfire. He thought the Taliban was attacking his company, but as the Times reports,

It was not the Taliban. Over the next 52 minutes, as his company of paratroopers braved bullets and rocket-propelled grenades in the predawn darkness to retake one of their own guard towers in southern Afghanistan, they found themselves facing what has become a more pernicious threat: the Afghan soldiers who live and fight alongside the Americans.

Why do we believe in violence? Because our continued belief in violence allows us the conviction that they are the violent ones, not us. We use violence in the name of liberation and peace. They use violence because, well, they are violent people.

Here’s the deal. Everyone uses violence in the name of liberation and peace. Everyone. For example, liberation and peace was the rationale behind the US war in Afghanistan.  Liberation and peace is also the rationale behind the Afghan soldiers’ machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades against US troops.

The problem with our belief in violence is that one person’s violence leads to another’s revenge. And the imitative cycle of violence continues and escalates, as we accuse the other of being a pernicious threat. That accusation against the other absolves us from the responsibility of coming to terms with the fact that our use of violence makes us a pernicious threat.

Where do we go from there?

Unless we find another way of bringing peace, the logical conclusion is that we will be the authors of our own destruction.

But we haven’t authored our own destruction … yet. I’m optimistic about our future because I think Paul was right when he wrote in Romans 5:20,

Where sin increases, grace abounds all the more.

In other words, where violence increases there is the greatest opportunity for grace and forgiveness.

But as long as we believe in violence we will never have peace and we will remain a pernicious threat to one another and to the world.

Paul pointed to the alternative to our irrational belief that violence will create peace. If we truly want peace, we need courageous people like you to deconstruct our belief in violence and construct a belief in grace and forgiveness.

(For more on this topic, join Raven’s radio show Playing for Keeps on Monday morning at 11:00 Central as peace journalist Bob Kohler and I interview 2 time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly about her quest to help create peace in Afghanistan. You can listen to the interview at TalkShoe.com)

Have you ever wondered how mimetic theory changes lives? ME TOO! So, I decided to put together a top ten list. Here you go:

1. You will resent monkeys for the phrase “Monkey see, monkey do” because you know that we humans are by far the superior imitators.
2. You will see the destructive nature of religions.
3. You will see the constructive nature of religions.
4. You will understand the paradox of 2 & 3.
5. You will see how scapegoating works and that the goat you scape may be your own. (I don’t know what that means, but I think you get the picture.)
6. You will impress others as you boldly use words like “mimetic,” “interdividual,” and “internal/external mediation.”
7. You know you have to be bold with #6 to give the impression that you know what you are talking about.
8. You will find out that there is a wrathful divinity and it is us.
9. You will realize how bad it is to be good.
10. You will discover that the best way to scandalize someone is to forgive them.

That's my list.  Would you add anything?

^{The Boys at breakfast. That's a blueberry stained face. As breakfast continued, so did the stain, as you will see below.}

It’s Holy Week, so I thought that when the opportunity presented itself, I’d talk with the Boys (ages 5 and 3) about Good Friday and the death of Jesus.

Opportunity came this morning at breakfast.

“Dad.” Began the oldest Boy. “What days do we have school this week?”

“Every day except for Friday.” I responded. “Do you know why you don’t have school on Friday?”

“No.”

“Because it’s Good Friday.” At which point I got all excited. “Do you know what happened on Good Friday?”

“No.”

“It’s the day they killed Jesus,” I replied with a little more enthusiasm than I expected.

He became sullen.  “Jesus was killed?” he asked.

Oh boy. This was a little more awkward than I thought. We’ve talked a lot about the life of Jesus, but not so much about his death. How do you talk to a 5 year old and a 3 year old (with a blueberry stained mouth!) about Good Friday? I figured I’d just go for it.

“Yes. And here’s what’s good about it. Jesus responded by forgiving them.  And that’s how God works.  God forgives. You know how Superheroes hurt the bad guys?" (I brought up Superheroes because, well, to be honest, we talk a lot more about Superman than we do about Jesus.) "Well, instead of trying to hurt the bad guys, Jesus forgave them. Pretty neat, huh?”

“Not really.”

Ooops!                                                                                                                                                                                             

I’m not really sure why my 5 year old responded that way, but I can think of at least one reason that Jesus’ forgiveness might not be “neat.” Every year around Holy Week I bring up the forgiveness passage in Luke 23:34 to my youth group. As Jesus died on the cross, he speaks words of forgiveness to those who crucified him. Here’s the quote, “Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”  A few years ago, a very insightful member of my youth group articulated her difficulty with the passage. She wished Jesus hadn’t said it because it lets people off the hook.

I don’t know about you, but I do understand where she was coming from. We want justice and letting people off the hook feels unjust. But I think Jesus challenges that feeling. The radical forgiveness of Good Friday is universal, so it does let people off the hook. But here’s why I think Jesus’ universal forgiveness is important: if we seek to keep others on the hook, we will soon find ourselves on the hook with them. For example, if Jesus wanted to keep those who killed him on the hook, he would have prayed for vengeance, not forgiveness.  His vengeance would create a cycle of retributive violence, putting both him and his killers on the same hook of injustice and violence.  Instead, Jesus’ radical offer of forgiveness invited those who killed him to step away from the hook of violence and step into the only alternative, which is forgiveness.

So, my 5 year old didn’t think the forgiveness of Good Friday is “neat,” but I know that he gets it. Children understand Jesus’ forgiveness better than many adults do. My boys, for example, will fight over seemingly insignificant things, but the fight will last about three minutes and then they’ve moved on and are back to being friends again. Forgiveness may or may not have been officially offered and received, but forgiveness is there. Indeed, they have let each other off the hook of anger and violence. We adults, on the other hand, will fight over seemingly insignificant things and the fight can last decades. Most of the time we forget what we’re even fighting about! That’s because we’re not really fighting over some “thing.” We hold on to these grudges because they give us a sense of identity. We like to keep people on the hook of our anger and violence because it allows us to identify them as bad and us as good.

Jesus told his followers to become like children. (See Matthew 18:3.) I think Good Friday tells us that it’s time to forgive like children. Yes, we will have conflicts with others, but it’s time to step away from verbal, emotional, and physical forms of violence and step into the spirit of forgiveness. Indeed, it’s time to start letting people off the hook of our vengeance, otherwise the destructive cycles of violence will continue. As René Girard claims at the end of his book The Scapegoat, “The time has come for us to forgive one another. If we wait any longer there will not be enough time” (212).

_{^{We forgave him for the blueberry stains. And yes. It is April 3rd and that is a Jack-O-Lantern. He loves Haloween.}}

(For more on Good Friday and forgiveness, see Suzanne's article "Please Strengthen My Non-Beleif: A Prayer for Holy Week" by clicking here.)

Good people across our nation are trying to find answers to the following questions: Was Trayvon Martin’s death a racially motivated murder or something else, an act of self-defense or a tragic accident? Is George Zimmerman a racist or something else, a decent man or emotionally ill? Is President Obama’s response measured and appropriate or something else, too timid a challenge to racism or too dismissive of concerns for safety and security? Is this incident unique or something else, a symptom of culture-wide racism, of too many guns in civilian hands or not enough?

Strident voices are shouting at each other from all sides, confident that they are in the right and that anyone who disagrees with them is willfully, undeniably wrong. As the conflict polarizes and we are forced to take sides, it becomes harder and harder to believe in the goodness of those taking opposing views. Here is the eerie thing about all this for me: it is sadly reminiscent of old, tired patterns of debating moral issues that go back to the Civil War. Let me explain.

When an issue is morally charged, good people take sides. That’s what’s happening here – the death of a young person from gun violence is a moral issue, and this death has become even more morally complicated by the charge of racism. Racist violence, unarguably a moral wrong, has a long history in this country: the violence of slavery, of white race riots and lynch mobs, and the institutionalized racism of the Jim Crow South. One of the tragedies of the Civil War, and there are many, is the way in which the North was able to hide from its own racism both before and after the war by shifting all the blame onto the South. Christian rhetoric from North and South provided cover. Pro-union sermons claimed God’s divine support for the union; pro-secession sermons claimed God’s divine support for secession. Each side believed they were fighting for God, liberty, patriotism and to claim their place as the true heirs to the Revolution. As Abraham Lincoln said, God cannot be for and against the same thing, so at a minimum one side is wrong. As if that were not enough of a minority position, Lincoln nearly became a minority of one when he dared to suggest that God’s purposes might be something neither side had yet imagined.

But wasn’t there a clear right side, an assuredly Godly side, when it came to slavery just as there must be a clear right side with Trayvon and George? Some must think so, especially the ones wearing the “I am Trayvon” t-shirts or speaking publicly in defense of George. But what seems clear at first often gets blurred on closer examination. Take slavery – talk about a clear moral issue! How could it be possible not to condemn the side that would fight to preserve it? The problem with framing the Civil War that way is that the Civil War was not about slavery. Look at that list of causes mentioned in the sermons – nothing about slavery there at all. It is a deafening silence that casts shame on our entire nation. The moral issue that divided the nation was the idea of the nation itself, a sacred cause that justified the killing and the dying. That we did kill and die in unprecedented numbers was taken as proof of our nation’s goodness. Bloodletting always creates hallowed ground. When the war ended and slavery was abolished – a clear moral good – we swept aside the shameful truth that slavery was made possible by a deep-seated racism in the North as well as the South. War erupted, raged and ended without Americans ever openly acknowledging and repenting of racism as a national moral failing. This misunderstanding at the heart of our national memory about the war continues to force the issue of racism underground.

And then it resurfaces in Florida and we take sides again thinking for sure we know what the moral issue is and for sure we are on the right side of it. But what if the real moral issue is something else? What if it has to do with the moral failure of thinking we are right? We all know that feeling of righteous rage, or moral indignation when we are sure we have the devil by the tail. Both sides of the Trayvon case are feeling it passionately right now. Maybe that night Trayvon and George were both feeling right, sure the other was wrong. I don’t know, and I don’t want to shift blame from a truly guilty person, especially in a murder case. I think that it is vitally important that the investigation proceed to determine why Trayvon was killed. But I raised the example of the Civil War because the bloodshed was largely due to everyone thinking they were right. Racism continues to rear its ugly head because we have persisted in refusing to share responsibility for what was and continues to be wrong with our nation. Shared responsibility means sharing being wrong, not forcing all the wrong on someone else. The insistence on being right and on accusing others of being wrong allows us to justify our own hatred and violence, the very thing we denounce in others.

As we deal with the tragedy of Trayvon’s death, perhaps we might step back from our accusations and self-righteousness to ask some difficult questions: Can I find the grace to listen to, maybe even to learn from, the ones I think are wrong? Can I give up my need to be right and be honest with myself about where I am wrong? Am I strong enough to gaze upon everyone who is suffering, even the ones whose suffering I have ignored or even celebrated? Do I care more about being right than I do about ending racism and making our communities safe for all our members? Can I seek the good in a spirit of forgiveness?

I’d like to leave you with the thought that the real obstacle to ending racism may be our need to take sides. It is 150 years overdue, but maybe we can find the grace to stop needing so desperately to be right so that we can embrace both Trayvon and George, an embrace that is generous and large enough to include the good and the wicked, the innocent and the guilty, the right and the wrong. Perhaps peace will have a chance if we can say together, “I am Trayvon and I am George.”

Peace Building Opportunity: If you’d like to learn how to give peace a chance in our schools, speak directly with Ted Wachtel on Friday, March 30 on our web radio show, Playing for Keeps. Ted is the president of the world's first graduate school devoted entirely to the teaching, research and dissemination of restorative practices.

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists has announced its list of nominations for the best newspaper columns of 2011. Included in the list is Robert Koehler’s Sept. 7, 2011 column for Tribune Media, Captives to the Logic of Violence, where Raven Foundation Founder Suzanne Ross is quoted extensively. The launch of the Foundation’s project, Be a Hero for Peace, an effort to reclaim the meaning of 9/11, making it a day of reverence, connection and forgiveness, was also highlighted.

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is now available. Contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit his website.

Suzanne Ross and her husband Keith founded The Raven Foundation in 2007 to increase awareness of mimetic theory. Her first book, The Wicked Truth: When Good People Do Bad Things, examines the lessons of myth, scapegoating and forgiveness in the hit Broadway musical Wicked. Her second book, The Wicked Truth About Love: The Tangles of Desire, explores patterns of romantic love and how to create a fulfilling relationship.

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What can superheroes teach us about being human? The Psychology of Superheroes is an interesting book that relates superhero powers to everyday human beings. In this video, Adam discusses the superhero power of mind reading. William Ickes, professor of psychology at the University of Texas in Arlington, claims that science is not able to prove humans can read other's minds the way superheroes can, but that we can infer what others are thinking. We can do that consciously when we listen and try to understand others, and when we interpret body language. We also infer what others are thinking and feeling through mirror neurons - nerve cells in the brain that fire when we perform an action and when we see others perform the action. Mirror neurons unconsciously mimic the actions other's perform - it's as if we are performing them too. What does all this mean for theology? Jesus, on the cross, says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." The anthropological truth is that, because of mirror neurons, we are unconscious of many of the things we do. But Jesus offers a way of consciously offering forgiveness to others. Jesus offers forgiveness in imitation of God and invites us to do the same.

“We will fight for our freedom, and we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.”

Muammar el Qaddafi

“It is a historic moment.  It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship.  Qaddafi has met his fate.”

Abdel Havez Ghoga, National Transition Council Spokesman

Freedom.  Tyranny.  Fate.

Libyans took to the streets in celebration last Thursday as the news of Muammar Qaddafi’s fatefully violent death spread throughout the air waves.  People cheered in the streets in celebration of this historic event that many claim has brought freedom and an end to tyranny in Libya.

We know the fate of Qaddafi, but we don’t yet know the fate of Libya.  The chapter on Qaddafi’s freedom to rule through tyranny and violence has ended, and Libya’s next chapter has begun.

We should pause and reflect on how Libya arrived at this moment. The battle for Libya began last February, on what was called “The Day of Rage.”  Of course, there was good reason for rage and protest in Libya; Qaddafi’s government ruled with an iron fist, was politically and economically corrupt, and supported terrorism throughout the world, including terrorism against his fellow Libyans.  Eight months after “The Day of Rage,” Qaddafi was found by rebels hiding in a large drainage pipe, tortured, and then murdered.  Video proof of those events are apparently available for viewing online.  Pictures of Qaddafi’s bloody face are ubiquitous on the Internet.  In researching the topic, I’ve accidentally stumbled across those ghastly images.

Presently, many are now asking if Qaddafi’s murder was just.  The Chairman of the Transitional National Council of Libya, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, announced yesterday that, because of demands from the international community, a “commission of inquiry into the death of Colonel Qaddafi” would be formed.

I’m not sure who in the international community is demanding such an inquiry, but I wonder if that demand might be hypocritical.  Libya is in this position now largely because of the international community.  The UN, France, Britain, and the US all supported and participated in the violence against Qaddafi and his regime.  Thus, the solution that the international community provided to the violence of Qaddafi’s rule was … violence.

Of course.  Because that’s the way violence works.  In the words of Andrew McKenna, we cannot control violence, violence controls us.  We celebrate our violence and we demand the “freedom” to use it.  Qaddafi demanded that “freedom.”  Libyan rebels demanded that “freedom.”  The international community demanded that “freedom.” But the truth is that we are enslaved to violence.  We cannot control it.  It controls us.

And so, Libya starts a new chapter in its history.  That chapter starts like nearly every other chapter in world history: it starts with violence.

So, what is the fate of Libya?

That chapter will soon be written.  But if Libya’s story is consistent with world history, “freedom” will continue in the form of slavery to violence.  Libya is not alone in that fate.  The international community stands with Libya in our enslavement to violence.

We do have a choice, of course.  We don't have to be enslaved to violence.  We are free to choose the way of nonviolence, love, and forgiveness.  That freedom is within our power.

Whenever the terrible equilibrium of tragedy prevails, all talk of right and wrong is futile.  At that point in the conflict one can only say to the combatants: Make friends or pursue your own ruin.

Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 51.

It’s hard to know what to say in the midst of tragedy.  Last night, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis.  I find that tragic.  Of course, I find the 1989 murder of Officer Mark MacPhail tragic as well.  Tragedy prevails and it is hard for me to say anything without making accusations against someone involved in this case.  I could easily accuse Davis, who, at best, was part of mob violence against a homeless man.  At worst, he shot and killed Officer MacPhail.  I could easily accuse Officer MacPhail’s family for seeking vengeance in the name of justice.  I could easily accuse the American/Georgian judicial system, whose laws claim that mimetic violence is an effective way to bring order out of chaos.  I could easily accuse the United States of continued racism that has coalesced into another lynching of an innocent black man.

Indeed, to say anything is to risk getting caught up the mimetic pull of accusation.  We wonder, “Who is right and who is wrong?”  I think Girard is right; that kind of talk is futile.  It is sacrificial.  It divides the world into “good guys” and “bad guys.”  Of course, anyone making an accusation always thinks he or she is the “good guy.”  And that make us feel so good.  Making accusations allows us to feel superior, as we know who is good and who is bad.  Unfortunately, accusations are always imitative.  Whenever we make an accusation, we can be sure an accusation will be returned.  And when we get caught up in a cycle of accusations “the terrible equilibrium of tragedy [will] prevail.”

I’m a Christian.  As such, I take Jesus seriously when he says, “Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13).  That means Christians are to be a source of life giving mercy, not death inflicting sacrifice.  Sometimes people ask if an individual who has done horrible things deserves mercy.  No.  Nobody “deserves” mercy.  Mercy is a free gift.  If someone has to “earn” mercy, it is no longer mercy.  So, because I am a Christian, I’m for life and against the death penalty.  Still, I’m not willing to make accusations against others.  It is futile and could become tragically counterproductive.  For example, what would happen if people who are anti-death penalty and people who are pro-death penalty stand off against each other?  I’ll tell you: Mutual tragedy would prevail.  That’s why our emphasis needs to be for life, and not so much against the death penalty.  That’s why we need to live into the way of mercy and forgiveness.  That’s why we need to follow Girard’s advice and seek to “Make friends, or [we will] pursue [our] own ruin.”

(If you are interested in putting mercy and peace into practice, join Raven in creating a "Peace Circle."  Peace Circles are a great way to practice peace with your community.  To learn more, check out our "Be a Hero for Peace" website by clicking here.)

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I was very surprised when I heard Ronnie Dunn’s Bleed Red on the radio a few months ago.  Country music (like most pop music) tends to produce mindless songs about sex.  Take a look at country music’s current top 40 and you will find songs called Just a Kiss, Remind Me, Honey Bee,
and the top two candidates for the most mind numbing country songs of 2011: You and Tequila and Country Girl (Shake it For Me).

When I first heard Bleed Red, we at the Raven Foundation were just beginning to talk about our latest project called Be a Hero for Peace.  My ears perked up as I listened to these lyrics:

Let’s say we’re sorry ‘fore it’s too late

Give forgiveness a chance

Turn the anger into water

Let it slip through our hands

Whoa.  This is interesting.  Then this:

If we’re fighting, we’re both losing

We’re just wasting our time

Because my scars, they are your scars

And your world is mine.

As 9/11/11 quickly approaches, I couldn’t help but hear this as a song for peace that promotes reconciliation with our enemies.  You, me, Americans, Iraqis, British, and the Taliban, yes, we all bleed red.  If we have the courage to take a look into the dark places of our individual and national souls, we will find much that we need to apologize for.  When we do that difficult and painful work, we will discover that we stand in need of forgiveness, which will make forgiving others a little easier.  We share a common humanity that connects us all together.  Fighting is more than a waste of our time; it is counterproductive – in the end, we all lose.  Indeed, we inflict the same scars, wounds, and death upon one another.

Emphasizing our common humanity is a good message and I applaud Dunn for having the courage to speak that truth.  But it’s not enough.  There is a dark side to our common humanity, and that dark side is what leads to conflicts.  As mimetic theory claims, we humans “have an irresistible impulse to desire what others desire, in other words, to imitate the desires of others.” (Rene Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, 12)  We hold desires in common, not because they arise spontaneously from within, but because they are given to us by others.  When it comes to desire, we are never individuals; rather, we are interdividual.

Sharing common desires can lead us to become friends, but it can also lead us to become enemies.  When we desire the same things, we can easily become competitors for that thing.  The United States, for example, desires, and even proclaims to be, the most powerful nation in the world.  The more we arrogantly desire to control the world’s affairs, the more others desire the same thing.  We will use all the physical, verbal, and economic violence needed to maintain that control, while other countries become resentful of our presence.  As Rene Girard claims about the West in general, “The West is going to exhaust itself in its fight against Islamic terrorism, which Western arrogance has undeniably kindled” (Battling to the End, 209-210).

Part of emphasizing our common humanity is emphasizing that we desire the same thing as our enemies.  The US and the Taliban both desire autonomy, freedom, and security.  And our methods to achieve those ends are exactly the same – violence.

The way forward, as Dunn says, is to “say we’re sorry ‘fore it’s too late.  Give forgiveness a chance.”

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Adam discusses human interconnectedness. In this lesson, we put pictures of ourselves and the members of the youth group between two foam boards. Then we drew pictures of our enemies and posted it on the front board. We threw darts at our enemies, only to lift up the first board and realize that when we throw darts at others we also throw darts at ourselves. We are all interconnected in the web of life. Once we see that we throw darts, we can take responsibility for our own physical and verbal dart throwing. When we acknowledge that, we can become empowered to end a cycle of victimary thinking and move to healing, forgiveness, and love.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul claims that the church, or the body of Christ, is interconnected. So, when the toe hurts, the head feels it. When the arm hurts, the whole body feels it. How would the world be different if we acted this way with our fellow human beings?