Friday, November 24, 2006. In the four-column spread above the fold in The New York Times, we find a color photo by Librado Romero, depicting a three-year old, Luke Akins, watching the Macy’s parade, with the balloons barely rising much above his head.

Fitting that it should be so, for, on the right hand column, the heading reveals a world far from Macy’s balloons, festive malls and frenetic shopping on this Black Friday shopping day, usually marking the period when high profits send retail ledgers from red to black: “Bombings Kill 144 in Baghdad Slum; Siege at Ministry.”

The report by Kirk Semple goes on to tell us that the attack in the teeming shopping district of Sadr City by dozens of Sunni Arab insurgents, not only killled 144, but wounded 206. Later news reports give the death toll as in excess of 200. Indeed, this is Black Friday in Baghdad, in the world, for every thinking, caring person, of whatever race or faith, is among the millions of uncounted wounded today.

On p. A12 is a four-column-spread, black-and-white photo by Ahmad as-Rubay, of shop owners shifting through the match-stick debris of their former buildings and merchandise. Below, surrounded by her dead relatives, we see a picture of a weeping woman. Out of such sorrow, rest the seeds of a blind rage that will seek revenge in an ever-mounting civil war.

And we sit with her, shaking our heads in sorrow and bewilderment at the chaos visited upon Iraq with our tax money, but without our consent, long before the media caught up with the little people across the land, who prayed, wept and wrote about the choice of peace over bombs.

On this first shopping day before Christmas, we find ourselves on Calvary’s hill, over-looking our world, keeping in mind it is also Christ’s world. We are not alone.

Ruth Ellen Gruber once wrote an article for the Chicago Tribune about the mountain of Grabarka in Poland, where there is a forest of crosses pilgrims have planted through the years. Some are carved of stone; others of wood, as rough as the cross Christ must have carried to Calvary. Some are so short they almost go unnoticed; others are five feet tall, while still others reach to the trees.While we cannot climb Grabarka to plant our crosses, we can do so in spirit, standing with Mary beneath the dying Christ, for it is only in his suffering that we can make any sense of the present.

The poet, Anna McKenzie, captures the confusion of mixed emotions as she addresses the problem of suffering to God.

Appendix

And so we must begin to live again,
We of the damaged bodies
And assaulted minds.
Starting from scratch with the rubble of our lives
And picking up the dust
Of dreams once dreamt.

And we stand there, naked in our vulnerability,
Proud of starting over, fighting back
But full of humility
At the awareness of the task.

We, without a future,
Safe, defined, delivered
Now salute you God.
Knowing that nothing is safe,
Secure, inviolable here.
Except you.
And even that eludes our minds at times.
And we hate you
As we love you,
And our anger is as strong as our pain.
Our grief is deep as oceans,
And our need as great as mountains.

So, as we take our first few steps forward
Into the abyss of the future,
We would pray for
Courage to become what we have
Not been before
And accept it,
And bravery to look deep
Within our souls to find
New ways.

We did not want it easy God,
But we did not contemplate
That it would be quite this hard,
This long, this lonely.

So, if we are to be turned inside out,
And upside down,
With even our pockets shaken,
Just to check what’s rattling
And left behind,
We pray that you will keep faith with us,
And we with you.
Hold our hands as we weep,
Giving us strength to continue,
And showing us beacons
Along the way to becoming new.

We are not fighting you God,
Even if it feels like it,
But we need your help and company,
As we struggle on.
Fighting back
And starting over.

Bethlehem and Calvary. We cannot separate the two. The cross was the reason for the manger; love the reason for both. And in that love is our peace, our reason for walking with the King, who first has walked with us.

Blessings of love, dear friends, in the midst of balloons that did not rise, shop keepers who cannot sell, the dead who cannot buy during this Christmas season.

Amen.

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