Subject:
Crucifixion
From:
"Marion Namenwirth" <namenwir@umn.edu>

Date:
Tue, 17 May 2011 00:04:21 -0500
To:
"Jochen Meyer" <ernstmeyer@earthlink.net>

Dear Jochen,  

I'm enjoying very much reading your correspondence
with Caner Cetinkaya.  I wonder how he will have reacted to your
suggestion that the Turkish immigration has likely served to
revitalize and fertilize German culture after its depletion by
the Nazi experience, and making the analogy to the influence
of Jewish culture on Germany.  You layer irony upon irony, since
Germany has shown considerable resentment of the influx of Turks
and Turkish culture, as happened earlier with Jews (not to mention
that Caner might be a bit stunned to hear the impact of his Turkishness
compared to the influence of Judaism in Germany.  (You are aware
of all this, I know, but it amazed me to see what you had written.)

It's finally Spring here too.  Magnificent clouds of pink and
white blossoms envelop our red-buds, crab-apple and ornamental
cherry trees.  Daffodils and tulips in luscious colors erupt
joyfully from our lawns.

Yesterday Judy and I walked in a park
down by the Mississippi, among trees and bushes sparkling with
their bright green brand new leaves.  We picked our way around
mounds of mud from the recent flooding of this low-lying wetland
area, detouring through the drier woods when we could, sinking
into the mud when that was the only path leading where we wanted
to go.  We saw blue herons, egrets, hawks flying overhead, robins,
thrushes and so forth, and turtles sunning themselves on floating
logs. 

Lately I have been so inactive physically that after
an hour and a half of walking at a leisurely pace I was exhausted
and reluctant to retrace our steps, since we had arrived at the
opposite end of the park from where we had left the car.  But
it was a beautiful Sunday, with many people out walking with
their children or dogs, so I was able to enlist a young couple
to drive us back to near where we'd started from.  Must do this
more often!

Some time I hope you will tell me more about what
the Crucifixion represents to you.  From your comments with reference
to the Bruegel painting "Procession to Calvary" I glean that
the Crucifixion, or perhaps especially its repreated re-enactment,
is key in your thinking about human society and behavior.  I,
on the other hand, have never made the Crucifixion my own.

To me, Jesus was a Prophet, an important charismatic reformer,
an inspiring teacher. Like many Prophets and reformers, the Established
Authorities of the time felt threatened, and arranged to have
him eliminated.  Crucifixion is barbarous, hideous, and was applied
quite routinely as capital punishment for a plethora of transgressions
in ancient times. 

I frankly find it repelling to have people
re-enacting sadistic acts.  To meditate on the details of crucifixion,
which seems to play a large role in Catholicism, seems like a
distraction from the teachings of Christ and how they could be
put into action.

Yet it seems as though society harbors a desire
to seek resolution through human or animal sacrifice.  For example,
when things go wrong in government, or in an organization, there
is enormous pressure for someone "at the top" to resign.  This
satisfies the multitudes that the sin has been expiated, even
though, more often than not, the one sacrificed was not especially
responsible for the transgression, and the resignation or firing
of said individual will do nothing to make a recurrence less
likely.

In the film about the Bruegel painting ("The Mill and
the Cross") mounted soldiers repeatedly swooped down on peasants
or commoners as they tried to sell their wares at the edge of
the marketplace, beat them, tied them up and dragged them away,
sometimes to be immobilized atop a pole and left to die.  The
local gentry and clergy shook their heads in dismay, relatively
helpless to protect the poor Flemish from the rapacious agents
of the conquerer, the King of Spain.  So low-level quotidian
crucifixions were a part of this sectarian confrontation. 

The example of Christ, the ways in which our everyday victims
could be identified with Christ, should diminish our appetite
for violence and retaliation, but does it?

Marion