How do they do these horrific things?

Fill the bucket with body parts,

line ‘em up and cut their heads off.

throw acid on ‘em and rape them women.

 

A woman loves a man.

He’s of the wrong sub set in town.

The honor of the family at stake.

Her brother brutally butchers her.

 

A father’s will is contravened;

the honor of the family demands

that he destroy his son.

An unfettered patriarch, he becomes judge and jury.

 

The girl is not interested in me.

I will disfigure her,

arouse a tribe of vicious boys to

dishonor her, and restore the balance.

 

These are rich people.

They must be destroyed.

It’s not fair; destruction of the beauty

alone satisfies our vicious, delicious deity.

 

Is it inherent in the naked ape to become so vile?

As we seek solace in a brotherhood of beasts with lesser values:

false honor, self-righteous justice,

Incalculable revenge.

 

An eye for an imagined insult in the eye of a counter visionary,

a beheading for a minor transgression of a hidden principle,

acid in the face of ebullient affection,

no forgiveness and the dark fraternity of fear?

 

The utterly misunderstood gifts of life and tribe

we throw in the face of the God in whose name we dissemble.

Because there is no power to subdue this savage beast,

even the best of us was destroyed in the flesh.

 

Is there nothing but the cross? Where is the Christ? Why hasn’t the kingdom come?

How can there be a resurrection for the ruined insurrectionist

the mob unleashed by a clever, cruel commander

or the victim who still sees the face of God?

McNally SJ 3 August 2016