Meditation on the Scourging of Jesus

 

I took the day off of work, and on one of my walks with my neighbor, I saw some little black and white ducks on the river. She said, "I can't see them - I forgot my glasses in my hurry to get out the door." (We have FitBits that demand we get 250 steps per hour, and she was running out of time.) Just then we saw the garbage truck (very early - it usually comes around noon, but then it usually comes on Thursday), so she ran home to get her garbage can out. I saw Travalon coming toward us, so he and I grabbed our good cameras and took some pictures of the cute little buffleheads, as well as some mallards.

In  case you are wondering, the buffleheads with the big patch of white on their heads are males, and the ones with a stripe of white on their heads are females.

Travalon did Door Dash today, then he and I took a walk by the Yahara River. We had gorgeous views of the sparkling blue water, but we hadn't brought our good cameras and didn't think to take photos with our cell phones. Then we stopped by the pond in Waunakee where we saw the bird party late last autumn, and there were a few ducks, but nothing like what we saw last year. Travalon did take a picture of the pond (with the glow of the sunset in the background) with his cell phone.

Today while I was home by myself, I prayed the Seven Sheddings of Blood Chaplet, and while meditating on the Scourging, I suddenly realized that slaves were regularly scourged too. The white men doing the scourging probably saw themselves as good Christians, but Jesus Himself is closer to the black slaves being scourged. Then I thought about how often the message of Jesus has been twisted around to justify suppressing the poor and doing violence to those with less power, which is pretty much the polar opposite of His actual message. After all, being scourged, then being mocked, and then being forced to carry the instrument of your torture yourself sounds a lot more like the experiences of slaves in this country than the self-proclaimed "good Christian" white men who were doing this to them. And then I wondered: when am I the suppresser thinking that I am doing God's will? My observations are that the people who consider themselves the best Christians are the ones most likely to be doing things in direct contradiction to the actual teachings of Jesus, so it is worth the effort to ask ourselves: do I just think I am a really good Christian? Or am I actually behaving like one?

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