Grace and Danger

On Tuesday 11th September, 2001, an album called "Love and Theft" was released. Coincidentally, given other events that unfolded on that day (9/11), it carried a song called "High Water" - a tribute to American blues legend Charlie Patton, considered by many to be the 'father of the delta blues.'

 

 High Water contained the following prescient lyric:

"Judge says to the high sheriff, 

 I want him dead or alive

 Either one, I don't care

 High Water everywhere..."

About a week later, the then US President invoked the language of the Wild West, in expressing his desire to 'get' Bin Laden - dead or alive. Slicer isn't suggesting he was listening to Dylan in the intervening days. When the contents of "iPod One" were leaked, Dylan wasn't mentioned (no surprise there).

The news of Osama Bin Laden's death in the last 24 hours (and burial under deep water) has been met with varied reaction. There is no doubt that he represented a clear and present danger to human beings of many ethnic backgrounds, intent as he was to organise and inspire large scale terrorist acts across the globe. Dealing with such danger is a real challenge for the "Christian" West, if we are not to be overtly hypocritical. Arguably the central theme of a Christian worldview, differentiating it from many others, is the notion of Grace - the concept that we have not been treated as we deserve. It is an altogether different notion than that of karma.

Not only are we supposed to grasp Grace as a concept, we're supposed to deliver it to others. Forgiveness, turning the other cheek, overcoming evil with good, praying for enemies are supposed to be more characteristic of Christian values than "Western Democracy" and "free speech," or "human rights." To listen to the rhetoric of many politicians in the West who profess Christian belief, it often seems that the converse is the case. However, the same faith is supposed to be pragmatic - faith without deeds is dead. Uncomfortably, many of the examples we're given of the action we're supposed to be delivering  involve us putting the interests of others ahead of ourselves. This is why there is an imperative to defend the weak and vulnerable, particularly when in a position of influence. 

So how do we act graciously in the setting of danger? The late, talented, John Martyn linked Grace and Danger in the title of one of his albums (two decades before Dylan linked Love and Theft), but the title track doesn't really give much of an answer.

However, the subsequent track "Lookin' On" includes the lines:

 

"My cynic friends maintain

 A low profile with a high disdain

 I think I'll try once more to make friends

 With the wolves that live at my door"

The Slicer doesn't think there is any merit in triumphalism, but sometimes you have to do the right thing to limit harm. In Slicer's opinion, American Special Forces did the right thing to limit harm (Whether they should have acted unilaterally is open to debate). However, doing the right thing is bigger than taking out a dangerous enemy - it also encompasses considering whether or not we've contributed to root causes and provocation of that enemy. Doing the right thing also should include thanks to those with the courage to intervene at great personal risk while we maintain a low profile, 'lookin' on' from our comfy armchairs and pontificating with disdain - whether that disdain is for Bin Laden or for the means used to remove him.

It is always easier to demonise one individual, and pretend that evil is "over there," then try to blast him/it off the face of the earth, than to consider whether there is any possibility that there might be some things not quite right "over here" in our behaviour which have contributed to poor relations between nations or races. Alongside doing what is necessary in the short term, we also should continue to work "to make friends with the wolves" at our door. Too much remains to be done for us to allow ourselves to get side-tracked into triumphalism.

In any case, as Dylan opined in an earlier work: 

"Ain't no man righteous (No not one)"

 

He did, of course, nick the idea...

Comments

[Earl Windhamlewes]

Judge says to the High Sheriff I want him dead or alive is a quotation of another song.

[The Slicer]

Is that so, Earl? Can you demonstrate the source song?