The echthroi are those who would separate us from stars
and each other, un-Name, annihilate. The
fallen angels are echthroi, and so are disease and famine and hate nad vanity
and a host of other little nasty things.
The echthroi would teach us despair, indifference, would have us believe
that unmerited suffering is deliberately inflicted on the creature by an angry
Creator. The echthroi are forensic. They
are powerful. But love is greater
Madeleine
L’Engle
Oh that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the
bloodthirsty would depart from me; those who speak of you maliciously, and lift
themselves against you for evil!
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not
loathe those who rise against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count
them my enemies.
Search ME, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my
thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting.
Psalm 139
______________________________________________
The world, it seems
Is filled with echthroi
With those who would separate and divide
The echthroi are everywhere
These fallen angels perhaps
This fallen humanity
Sometimes, it seems, they are people
We know their names
Those who stir up hate and enmity
Those who use fear and lies to manipulate and divide
To create violence
Sometimes they are bigger, more pervasive
Poverty, War, Disease and Dis-ease
And that lust for power and wealth
They can be anything
Even our own families (Mathew 10)
Anything that becomes more important than Sacred, than
Love
Anything that hardens the heart and blinds us to others
And blinds us to ourselves
We feel the enmity
It lingers in our souls
That creeping hate, that foul malignancy
It eats away at us
And it separates us from ourselves
And it separates us from all that is Sacred
The stars, the moon, the sun
The planet
From Love
It feels as if the world is full of these “monsters”
These Echthroi
As if we are powerless before them
And so we lash out
We become violent in our souls
We become violent with our words
We become violent
And we hate
We hate the hate
We hate the haters
And in hating we become what we hate
But hear the good news of the Gospel
The Echthroni are powerful
Love is more powerful
Humility is more powerful
Love can say to hate,
“This stops here”
Let’s hear it for “hate interrupted”
For that moment when we stop and breathe
And become open
When Love stops us in the middle of our rant
“Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not
loathe those who rise against you? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count
them my enemies.”
And takes us to that new place
“Search ME, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my
thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting.”
These are troubling times
It is easy to despair
It is easy to slide into the abyss of hate
But this I believe
The more we resist the Echthroi with their own weapons
Hate
The more powerful they become
But the more we open ourselves up to love
To our “better angels”
To hope, and joy, and peace
The less room there is for the Echthroi
The less power they have
So bless those I love
Bless those I hate
Bless the echthroi
Let me hold them all out to the love of God
This is not easy
It is not soft, cozy, shallow love
It means stepping into the fear, the hate, the blind
animosity
And holding it
Carrying it
As Jesus carried it all
To the cross
So bless the bullies
Bless the haters
Bless them so that they may turn
From anger, resentment, and violence
Into the light of God’s love
PS This I know to
be true. I am not there, yet. But I am trying
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