Murder
After the murder of our daughter, I remember asking a couple of our friends, leaders in our church community, how to deal with the chaos of trauma we were experiencing.
They looked at us with big eyes and apologized profusely that they knew nothing about what we were experiencing. As a Mennonite community we knew about martyrdom, persecution, rejection, wars and revolutions, but no one in our church had experienced "the trauma of first degree murder."
Then I looked for biblical support...and that's when I found it in the story of Cain and Abel - the first human children, the first generation born into the world—which makes them the members of the first collective . There I found murder - right there in the original family.
Let's unpack that again....
After eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve's eyes were opened. They realized they were naked and sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. Later, God made garments of animal skins for them—a gesture many interpret as a foreshadowing of the sacrificial system, pointing forward to the ultimate atonement through Christ.
To survive in the cursed world, they had to work hard. Their children, Abel kept flocks, Cain worked the soil.
When it came time to present offerings to their God, Cain brought some of the fruits of the ground, while Abel brought the fat portions of the firstborn of his flock. God looked with favor on Abel’s offering—but not on Cain’s. Cain burned with anger and could not get over it.
Eventually enraged by God's rejection, Cain killed Abel his brother. It was first degree murder.
Could it be that the collective—our external, systemic, social supports - manifests evil in its most primal form as murder?
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” ― Voltaire
They looked at us with big eyes and apologized profusely that they knew nothing about what we were experiencing. As a Mennonite community we knew about martyrdom, persecution, rejection, wars and revolutions, but no one in our church had experienced "the trauma of first degree murder."
Then I looked for biblical support...and that's when I found it in the story of Cain and Abel - the first human children, the first generation born into the world—which makes them the members of the first collective . There I found murder - right there in the original family.
Let's unpack that again....
After eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve's eyes were opened. They realized they were naked and sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. Later, God made garments of animal skins for them—a gesture many interpret as a foreshadowing of the sacrificial system, pointing forward to the ultimate atonement through Christ.
To survive in the cursed world, they had to work hard. Their children, Abel kept flocks, Cain worked the soil.
When it came time to present offerings to their God, Cain brought some of the fruits of the ground, while Abel brought the fat portions of the firstborn of his flock. God looked with favor on Abel’s offering—but not on Cain’s. Cain burned with anger and could not get over it.
Eventually enraged by God's rejection, Cain killed Abel his brother. It was first degree murder.
Could it be that the collective—our external, systemic, social supports - manifests evil in its most primal form as murder?
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” ― Voltaire
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