A Parasitical Posture

In the relentless assaults upon truth and reason, the rule of law, the dignity of persons and basic human decency over these last two years, I am more and more aware of just how broken our world is and how broken it has been through the ages.  I know, for example, particularly after reading Jon Meacham’s book, The Soul of America, that we have had many such periods in our nation’s history.  I know, too, that our history is but one little piece of the world’s long history of brokenness.  That knowledge really doesn’t help or console me this morning.  It does reiterate the biblical doctrine of the Fall.  

A parasite is any organism that lives and feeds off of another organism. They are legion.  Because parasites come in so many different shapes and sizes, they can cause a very wide range of problems. Some consume your food, leaving you hungry after every meal. Others feed off of your red blood cells, causing anemia. Some lay eggs that can cause itching, irritability, and even insomnia. If you have tried countless approaches to heal your gut and relieve your symptoms without any success, a parasite could be the underlying cause for many of your unexplained and unresolved symptoms.  Once a person is infected with a parasite, it's very easy to pass it along. If you have a parasite and don't wash your hands after using the restroom, you can easily pass microscopic parasite eggs onto anything you touch — the door handle, your phone, or anyone you touch. In other words, you yourself become parasitical.

A parasitical (“exploiting others”) posture (a particular way of dealing with or considering something; an approach or attitude”) is a person, group, corporation, nation, or institution that relishes feeding off of others in various ways.  These “principalities and powers” (as the Bible bespeaks of them) claim autonomy and dominance over human beings making humans subservient to their purposes whatever they may be.  They consume human life in order to sustain their own position or power.  Or, like parasites, they find their power and worth (life) by denigrating, demeaning, and depriving a person or group of human qualities (health), personality and spirit.  The result is dehumanization as in this quote, “This administration has been telling a story about immigrants to dehumanize them, to portray immigrant families as less than fully human, less than mothers and fathers and now children.” 

There are 570 children still in captivity—separated from their parents.  What can be more dehumanizing—and it is happening in the United States of America—and that is only a fraction of what is happening in the present parasitical posturing.

In the midst of global warming, are we a part of a
new Ice Age when it comes to how we treat one another?