[todaysdate]
By Mark Azzara
As I sit at my keyboard, just days after the massacre at the Paris newspaper Charlie Hebdo, I remember the great advice given by my first editor, the late John Dennis of the long-gone twice-weekly Southeast News in Downey, Calif.: “Never write an editorial with boxing gloves on.”
What can I say that would make sense of the senseless or add anything meaningful to what has already been said? The answer: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But silence can be interpreted as cowardice or, even worse, indifference. And I am anything but indifferent.
France’s version of free speech is irrelevant in this country because the cartoons published in Charlie Hebdo would be prosecutable as hate speech here. Cartoons that were designed to provoke a response did just that. But free speech is not my focus as I untie the boxing gloves and peel off the tape that binds my fingers together in a fist.
I am slowly learning not to care about what others say about my religion. Jesus already has been defamed so often that it’s passe, and he doesn’t need anyone to defend him, least of all me. But I am concerned that many other Christians are getting very touchy about the abuse being heaped on our faith.
The “Muslim” (I use that name very loosely here) fanatics who would not forgive remind us that we all have our limits. Everyone, you and I among them, will rebel at some point when the pain gets too great, like a docile dog biting the idiot who has poked him once too often with a pointed stick. It’s understandable but also not Christ-like.
I can’t speak for other religions but I have a rough idea what the Christian response should be, not only to the violence but to the years of cruel, insensitive provocation that led to it. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Jesus spoke those words while being nailed to the cross – a provocation far worse than anything generated by cartoonists and writers.
Ignorance is to be pitied, and the ignorant to be prayed for. Whenever I hear my faith bad-mouthed it inspires me to repeat Jesus’ words and ask God to make me aware of, and forgive me for, my propensity for the same kind of profoundly embarrassing, hurtful ignorance. If that’s not my starting point then as the carnage in Paris reminds us, nothing else I think, say or do will really make any positive difference in my life or the lives of those around me.
