In recent posts I have referenced the work of sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning. Their work points to shifts in our culture. Specifically they not we have shifted from a “dignity culture” (where aggrieved parties tended to let more minor slights go because it was assumed that all people have a central dignity that they don’t need to earn) back to an “honor culture” that we last experienced in the 18th and 19th centuries – where slights had to be avenged; when we had duels. These pistols and swords have been replaced by tweets, posts, and vitriolic. Wounding and death still occurs, only under another guise.
I think about this is the light of the readings for the Solemnity of Christ the King. The gospel, Matthew 25, in its command to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned and more – this gospel points out we are called by Christ to ever live in a “dignity culture” because all people have a God-given core dignity that don’t need to earn back.
I read an article this morning by Dr. Alex Piquero from the University of Miami. His focus was on restorative justice. But I think it again raises the culture divide raised by Campbell and Manning.
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Next Sunday is the 
“I, John, looked and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.” (Rev 14:1) And so begins 
I hope you are someone who regularly engages Sacred Scripture, the Bible. And I mean someone who reads, ponders, muses, meditates and wonders about God’s Word. And more than just on Sunday at church. Maybe you are part of a parish Bible study, a small faith group that gets together at someone’s home, or are taking time to know and immerse yourself in the Bible. And don’t worry this post is not recrimination about why you are not doing those things, but just a thought or two about how lucky we are that the Bible is available to us in books, online, audio, and in software that can interconnect Scripture to exegetical and theological dictionaries, books that can help us with Greek and Hebrew, commentaries, and a whole host of other tools. We are lucky that literacy is common in our day. It hasn’t always been that way.
Imagine four persons in a room. The first is a powerful dictator who rules a country. He commands armies, directs the lives of millions, and his wishes become law and are enforced. He possesses a brutal power. Next to him sits a gifted athlete at the pinnacle of his physical prowess. This is one whose speed, strength, and endurance have few equals. His is a graceful power for which he is much admired and envied. The third person is a rock star whose music and charisma electrify sold out arenas. Her words can become the anthem for a generation. Her power is a soulfulness of the muse. The fourth person in the room is a newborn, a baby, lying in its crib, unable to clearly ask for what it needs. 
Recently I have written several posts about the common good as it pertains to wearing masks. Last night on the news a young man said that he didn’t like people telling him what to do and he didn’t see the need to wear masks. It wasn’t a clip from summer time, it was recorded in the midst of this massive second wave of infections nationwide. It just strikes me as an overly libertarian view that does not consider there is a common good. And the common good is a matter of our faith.
In 
Perhaps lost in the tsunami
friarmusings 