Constantly

Well, I went with John to the movie Constantine last night. The Hook, one of the local free tabloid weeklies, said this, "Constantine...is either a great bad movie or a terrible good movie." I would tend to agree. As a two-hour blend of action, occult mysticism, and Keanu Reeves acting like a troubled pretty boy, it worked very well as a Hollywood action film. I was actually impressed that it avoided the gnostic dualism that pervaded the Matrix movies. In fact, and by saying the following I am giving away the ending, the movie finally embraces a vaguely orthodox worldview.
I had a discussion with my brother about politics. (By the way, if you followed the previous link, you may be under the impression that my brother lives in San Francisco and owns an art gallery. Let me assure you that he lives in Chicago with my parents and works as a church musician by day and one @$$kicking security guard by night. His name just happens to be the same. Although, by introducing him in such a manner, I have just made his life compelling enough to be a graphic novel, don't you think?)
Anyways, the first sentence of the previous paragraph was written merely so that I could write the rest of the paragraph. It was perfectly redundant, because every time my brother and I speak we discuss politics. However, I once suggested to him that if I were a politician here in the God-blessed U.S. of A. I would employ the language of Micah 6:8, and talk about doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with one's God. When asked the definitions of mercy and justice, I suggested that justice is getting what one deserves, and mercy is getting what one does not deserve. Thus a paradox is suggested. When my earnestly enquiring brother asked me in what practical policies this would result, I replied, as one dejected by the re-election of the Great Hypocrite, that since I would be a politician I would do whatever I wanted because I would be a liar.
Although this piece of brutal honesty did not do much to smooth over the fraternal bonds strained by the unmitigated debacle of Republican control over our government and now, apparently, attempted control over our very life and death, it does point out an important paradox of the Christian religion. (By the way, when something doesn't make sense, it's a paradox if you like it and a contradiction if you don't.)
Anyways, this paradox is the fundamental conflict of the movie I started this blog discussing. Also, this is a fundamental paradox of human society. This is an extremely important question, and I would suggest that both major parties seem to have a problem addressing it. The Democrats (since I am one, I will pick the plank out of my own eye first), have the problem of confusing mercy with justice, and suggesting that the just thing to do is to dispense mercy. While this could masquerade like a healthy respect for mercy, it ends up perverting the concept, because we then cannot see it as it truly is, a gift given freely either by God to us, or from one person to another.
The Republicans (now for the speck, which I am quite convinced is a plank) have the opposite problem, they hypocritically cloak themselves with the mantle of doers of justice, while acting quite unjustly themselves--remember the "Law & Order" president (and no, for all those who don't remember the 70s, I am not talking about Sam Waterston). Also, they will falsely cloak themselves with the mantle of Judeo-Christian religion, and while advocating for an unjust justice, will completely ignore the concept of mercy.
However, the problem with the movie Constantine and often with Christians, is that they see our present existence as defined by neo-platonic or gnostic dualism. Therefore, they see our flesh as sinful and lowly, and are therefore obsessed by issues of sexuality and death. It seems that nothing but a snuff film would satisfy their prurient interests.
Someone once said, and it has been repeated numerous times--and I paraphrase--it is easy to die for a cause, but extremely difficult to live for one. The conservatives frame the problems of our society as a matter of extinction--the end of the things they don't like. Conservatives ruminated hopefully many times about the complete destruction of the Democratic party. They would like all gay people to either keel over and die, or all convert to joyless heterosexuals. They want any vaguely socialist solutions to societal problems to shrivel up and die. Most hypocritically, they would like all death to stop in the here and now. They would like all abortions to cease for hence forth and forever. They would like no one to stop being artificially kept alive by machines, and they definitely would not like to see people choosing euthanasia. In fact, they don't like people dying so much, they want people who reputedly cause death to all die, abortion doctors, folks on death row, etc...
These are the same folks that suggest our world will never be perfect, but would like certain aspects of it to reflect the perfection they claim can never come until Jesus' return (when he blows up all the Muslims, tears down the Dome on the Rock, and we can all finally become kosher again.) This does not reflect thoughtful obedience to religious tradition, nor rational imperical thought in the best of the Western traditions.
The fact of the matter is, we live in a world that demands both justice and mercy, and we have to learn how to live with facts we don't like. For instance, nuclear proliferation is not going to stop anytime in the near future as long as people are curious and power-hungry. The key is for us to either work together as a species imperfectly or at least avoid pissing each other off badly enough for us to destroy each other in a nuclear holocaust.
Life is complicated and confusing, it does not provide any certainty before we die, and the best we can hope for is that the power of mercy is just a little stronger than the power of justice. I swear this entry was about the movie Constantine.
Peace.