A cell is waiting for you, Mr Bush

Years ago as I first read John Steinbeck, I fell in love with America. 2The Grapes of Wrath" remains for me the the greatest of alll novels. In it, as a 15 year old, I felt the call to work for a different world to that which we so often tolerate. In the years since, I have read a number of Steinbeck's books but only recently have I finally got round to reading "East of Eden" and boy is it a great read.

One part that got to me is the description in the fourth chapter of how Charlie beats Adam up big time. The line that I can't get out of my head is;

"And all this time Adam looked at his brother as the condemned look hopelessly and puzzled at the executioner"

That line reminded me of the horror that is capital punishment. Murder is based on one person exercising the power of life and death over another. Capital punishment is a particularly cold blooded way of carrying out such murder.

Thankfully, we have abandoned this hideous state barbarism in Britain and indeed in most of Europe. However there are countries such as China( how on earth can the Olympics be held in a country that sells the organs of those whom it has killed?), Saudi Arabia, Iran and much of the USA which carry out capital punishment.

If the executioner is a state murderer, thgen surely those who grant him authority so to act are also equally in the cesspit. Back when he was Governor of Texas, George Bush was responsible for over 100 such killings. He gave no credibility to the possibility that people might experience a redemptiopn as was shown in his callous handling of the killing of Faye karla Tucker who was clearly a changed woman from the brute she had been years earlier when she committed her killings. Indeed, not only did George Bush never exercise mercy but claimed he never lost a night of sleep over it.

This barbarism has continued in his presidency. Like a dog who has tated blood once, Bush goes on tasting more. When the full story of Iraq, renditions and torture is revealed, I fear that we will be left with a sickening picture of violence in which the front man is the darling of major swaths of Christendom. Ultimately, this will be used as a stick to beat Christianity just like those old exagerated maxims such as "Religion is the main cuas of wars." For the sake of God, it is time for Christians to name darkness when it is revealed and not to pass by on the other side.

I enter 2006, longing for a world which is not ruled by corporate power, longing for a world in which violence is denounced as the demonic power it is, a world where Magnificat is at the heart of our being. Like Hector Christie whose book I reviewed last month, I believe that the quest for a new order has to be linked to spiritual renewal for change that ignores the spiritual tends to merely add to the cycle of violence and hatred.

I think a world that is rooted in the Sermon on the Mount and Magnficat would be a different and much better world. However, it could not just ignore the people of violence. There is a case that all such need to be brought to justice.

Still Mr Bush should not despair for such a rejuvenated world would not visit upon him that which has been his work, namely,

judicial killing or even

the denial of the possibility of parole.

For the new world must be kinder, more humane and more Christlike than the sort of barbarism over which George Bush has glorified in. Whether, he choses to embrace light remaisn for him. For Christ's sake, the Church must embrace that vision or betray its Lord!