Monday Morning Meditation #41: They Drew Up in Battle Formation

I barely stumbled past one additional chapter in I Chronicles this week before coming to sudden rest at a passage that speaks so much to the world situation today. The battle line described in chapter 19, verses 1-9 is not unlike the one I find myself constantly straddling in my work around the world, especially in my two previous jobs. In this passage, Nahash, King of the Ammonites, died and was succeeded by his son, Hanun. King David, to whom Nahash had shown kindness while alive, wanted to honor Nahash. So, he sent a delegation of men to Hanun to express condolences. Hanun, however, was suspicious, accused the men of being spies, dishonored them, and sent them back to Israeli territory. Thus, the Ammonites became a "stench in David's nostrils." Soon, both sides had drawn up in battle formation.



Reading: I Chronicles 19: 1-9.



Meditation: Oh, how well I understand the kind of misunderstanding that the Hanun and the Ammonites exhibited and the resultant dismay of David! I have felt this kind of dismay "on my hide," to use a Russian expression, which in this case is quite apropros.



Let's go back to the year 1984. At that time, the world was frozen into a state of Cold War between two super powers: the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Neither side trusted the other. On the USA side, we spoke of balance of power -- and we worked on ways of spying from the outside: from space. On the USSR, they spoke of parity -- and they worked on ways of spying from the inside: through seeding informants into American society. Battle lines were formed in spite of the rhetoric of peace and parity.



Most Americans are not aware that the Russians were as much concerned about America attacking it as Americans were about Russian attacks. I had the unique opportunity to be in Russia during the Cold War (multiple times and for long periods of time). I heard a Red Army general espouse the concepts of parity. I interacted with various peace committees; the vice president of one, Pyotr Volkovich, became a professional colleague and personal friend, and together we established one of the very first student exchanges and the very first one between Belarus and an American school district, in this case, Portland, Oregon. These were positive, learning experiences for me.



I also had a negative experience, one that immediately came to mind when I came across this Scripture reading. In the early 1980s, I was one of only a handful of American scholars allowed into the USSR for research and study. As Fulbright and IREX scholars, we were allowed foreign language classes. While I had already achieved an easy fluency in Russian, I was eager to take advantage of this wonderful benefit, especially since the University of Moscow language classes are some of the most effective in the world. The Department of Russian As a Foreign Language welcomed me and set me up for a placement test. Part of that test was a written essay on any topic of our choosing. Since my research project was Siberian dialects of Russian, about which I had already done as much research as possible in the USA, I decided to write about that. I quickly sketched out the relationship between the main dialectal groups and linguistic theories underlying dialect development, maturation, and deviation from the standard language over time. As I dashed off this information, the proctor's face took on a stormy expression that grew darker the more I wrote. As I approached the middle of the page, she suddenly grabbed the paper and ripped it away from me. To this day, I vividly remember the scratch my pen made across the rest of the paper as the paper flew out from under my hand. "A vy shto," she demanded to know, "shpionka?" (What are you, a spy?) While I considered the comment to be a compliment to my language skills, the reaction reflected the thinking of the times: any American totally fluent in Russian must be a spy. (We had similar concerns about Russians.) And there I sat looking at a battle line being drawn up and being very innocent of anything of which I might be accused. I was no more guilty than were David's men.



In my travels and jobs, I have lived primarily among America's so-called enemies. It was not always easy for me to see them as such. When I completed my dissertation defense in Moscow, I said something that people who were present have remembered to this day: "Ya snachala priekhala v Soyuz, chtoby posmotret' na litso vraga, no v techenie 20 let, ya ne nashla ni odnogo vraga, tol'ko druzej." (I first came to the Soviet Union to look upon the face of the enemy, but in 20 years I have not found one enemy, only friends.) That people would remember those words tells me how eager they were to be friends, not enemies.



One of my favorite memories from Russia (post-Soviet days) was dinner with the vice president of one university in Belarus. In the course of the dinner, we discovered that we had been counterparts during the Cold War. I had worked in the US Army as an officer specializing in USSR Order of Battle, and he had worked in the Red Army as an officer specializing in USA Order of Battle. Startled, he gasped, "You were my enemy," to which I replied, "and you were mine." He demurred, saying that he had been no one's enemy, to which I pointed out that neither had been I. (I have related the story, along with a couple similar ones, in greater detail here: Three Vignettes and One Thought about an Enemy.)



After the Cold War, I began to spend time in the "hot war" countries of the Middle East. Very quickly, the presence of similar misunderstandings became obvious. Our societies' structure, values, and expectations are so different that not having misunderstandings would be unusual. Add misunderstanding to distrust, and suddenly we have just what the situation is today: countries drawn up in battle formation.



These experiences -- those from today and the ones from the Old Testament -- point to the fact that our entire world needs to learn to trust. That trust is not going to spring up at the international level, however, unless it is cultivated at the interpersonal level, within families, within social organizations, even within our churches. In all of these places, one can find an astonishing lack of trust among people who are relatives, colleagues, and/or friends. If we cannot cultivate trust at the friend/colleague/relative level, how on earth are nations supposed to cultivate it at the foreigner/stranger level.



That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to private prayer to thank God for holding our world together for so long in spite of our attempts to pull it apart, to praise Him for all the examples of trust, mistrust, and love He has given us through His Word -- and His words of guidance to us, to repent for those times that I may have contributed to the development of mistrust on any level, and to ask Him to lead all of us into a world where people trust people and no battle lines are to be found. Now I retire to spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.



I will leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.



For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.