While driving the Angry Kid to school this morning I passed a church. This church displayed a large banner promising its communicants something called "Relentless Compassion" (complete with scare quotes).
I don't want to be on the receiving end of "Relentless Compassion." I think it would give me a migraine.
Monday, June 29, 2009
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I'm guessing that Relentless Compassion involves a lot of smiles that crinkle the corners of the mouth but leave the eyes untouched.
That sort of thing creeps me out.
You're ON the receiving end already -- it's the motto of the Democrat party.
A.K.A. "We're going to help you whether you like it or not".
I imagine relentless compassion -- whethere doled out by that church or by the Democratic party -- is better than the "compassion" doled out (with an eye dropper) by the Republicans. For them, compassion means "You need help? Fuck you. Now move along."
Apparently it's the summer of religious adverbs: there's a church near us exhorting us to "pray ceaselessly."
Which isn't easy, even if you have master circular breathing.
In my experience the only people who really mind help that's delivered "whether you want it or not" are people who are concerned that someone ELSE is getting help. You know, people who don't REALLY need it but take it anyway. Like, who really needs health care? Disaster assistance? Jobs and job training? Drug Regulation? Environmental Protection? Workplace Safety? Laws protecting the weak from predatory lenders? You know all those things that made America a paradise before the Democrats forced them down the throats of a working class determined to preserve their fragile poverty.
Folks, not everything is about partisan politics.
From the Christian point of view, the relentlessness of divine compassion, and the instinctive resistance to having that compassion forced on us, is exactly the point. Our little spark of autonomy is the problem, not a valid critique of the divine relentlessness.
And for what it's worth, this slogan reminds me more than anything of the little sign one used to see on 880 in Oakland, reading, "STOP CASTING POROSITY". Yes, no doubt this advertised a metal-casting business, but it was hard not to feel chastened.
God as the Godfather. Gonna make youse an offer you can't refuse.
Sounds like the Unitarian-Universalists to me. I can't find the exact quote, but an early Universalist (they believe that God's grace excludes no one, not even the most perverse, unrepentant sinner) said something about God not resting until the last sinner was "dragged kicking and cursing into Heaven."
It's the idea that the spark of autonomy is a problem that chills me about this. The relentless idea that the Christian model of the universe is the only one.
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