Suffering is Redemptive

Reading the papers today, you'd think all hell is breaking loose in Iraq.

Meanwhile, our troops are out there winning this damn war.

The Iraqis need to form their government, and I'm waxing weary of the posturing by clerics, radicals and Islamo-cry-babies. But, for crying out loud, they have to go through this. This is part of their history where all the ideologies that have been warped by years of tyranny, radical Islamic rhetoric and 5th century thinking are clashing in the middle of Bagdad for the first time in a political arena. This is the first time in history of the Middle East that this is occurring.

Have you ever seen The Mission? In it, Robert De Niro plays swindling, opportunist slave-trader (Rodrigo) who kills his own brother over another woman. Rodrigo, in the depths of despair, meets Friar Gabriel who challenges him to face his sin and seek divine forgiveness through an act of penance. Rodrigo accepts and goes back with Gabriel to the rain forests to live with the Guarani people whom he used to trade and sell.

For the journey, Rodrigo is forced to carry a bag/net full of armor with him. To get the Guarani village, he must carry this heavy burden up a cliff face several hundred feet tall. In doing so he struggles mightily. At any point, this beaten man could have given into self-loathing and turned around and went home, or just let go of the rope to end his life. After all, he did murder is brother. Instead he clumsily fights his way up the ropes and makes it, with the armor intact, to the top.

As he lays by the edge of the cliff, exhausted and the armor still tied to him, a Guarani man takes his macheti and cuts the rope loose. The armor, which he struggled carrying all the way up the cliff, fell all the way back down to the bottom, splashing in the river never to be seen again. He looked up at the man who set him free--a man whom he used to enslave, and broke down in a laughing, gut-renching cry. It was the cry of a man who understood complete redemption and the suffering endured to get there. The tears flowed and his smile beemed.

This is a bit of a leap, but the Iraqi people and their leaders have a lot of suffering left to do before they can understand the redemption that will lead to their ultimate peace. The radical elements have not yet been purged, and they won't be handled purely by military means. Our military in conjunction with the lethally trained Iraqi Army have given them a chance for redemption. Now they must collectively scale the cliffs in Parliament with the bag of armor attached to their backs.

It isn't going to look pretty, but in the end they have to go through it. They must decide whether they are going to continue to the top, or just let go and plunge into the river below.

But, you can count on our mainstream media to stand-by with play-by-play the whole event, pointing out each and every mistake they make as they struggle to the top. Using the freedoms that they gained on the backs of those that have suffered for them long ago, they'll be rooting for the Iraqis to take the plunge, but I hope, just like Rodrigo, that they'll embrace this period of suffering and keep pushing.