The Colonial Plague

Everyone’s shit stinks. To your “civilized” ears, this sounds like a high-minded critique. It’s not. It’s just an observation about mammalian life. All animal life makes dung piles, yes.  But eventually, the wind blows, rain falls, and our dung piles disappear. It may stink for a bit, but sooner or later, it is gone, and the place thereof knows it no more. As all farmers know, our dung fertilizes the ground as God intended, and something beautiful grows in its place, for example, the lilies of the field Matthew’s Gospel.But in the storyline of Luke, the “kingdoms of the world,” cut from stone by Solomon’s hand, are glorious up the earth and impressive to your “civilized” eyes but obnoxious in God’s. Yes, everyone’s shit does stink. But what really smells is the campaign to make something impressive out of your dung pile. To scale it. To build it up. To spread it around. To impose it on others. Such is the plague of Alexander the Great, Julias Caesar, and their colonial heirs, who love making something out of nothing and saying, “Look what I built.”Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Luke 4:5-8 (Episode 492)

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