23
" The ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom.The psychological distress symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. The dialectic of trauma gives rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of consciousness, which George Orwell, one of the committed truth-tellers of our century, called " doublethink," and which mental health professionals, searching for calm, precise language, call " dissociation." It results in protean, dramatic, and often bizarre symptoms of hysteria which Freud recognized a century ago as disguised communications about sexual abuse in childhood. . . . "
30
" Were you there?”
She shook her head. “No. I was here in Nain having a
child.”
“Then why do you weep as though you had part in his
crucifixion? You had no part in it.”
“I’d like nothing better than to think I would have
remained faithful. But if those closest to him—his
disciples, his own brothers—turned away, who am I to
think I’m better than they and would have done
differently? No, Marcus. We all wanted what we
wanted, and when the Lord fulfilled his purpose rather
than ours, we struck out against him. Like you. In anger.
Like you. In disappointment. Yet, it is God’s will that
prevails.”
He looked away. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“I know you don’t. I see it in your face, Marcus. You
don’t want to see. You’ve hardened your heart against
him.” She started to walk again.
“As should all who value their lives,” he said, thinking of
Hadassah’s death.
“It is God who has driven you here.”
He gave a derisive laugh. “I came here of my own
accord and for my own purposes.”
“Did you?” Marcus’ face became stony.
Deborah pressed on. “We were all created incomplete
and will find no rest until we satisfy the deepest hunger
and thirst within us. You’ve tried to satisfy it in your own
way. I see that in your eyes, too, as I’ve seen it in so
many others. And yet, though you deny it with your last
breath, your soul yearns for God, Marcus Lucianus
Valerian.”
Her words angered him. “Gods aside, Rome shows
the world that life is what man makes of it.”
“If that’s so, what are you making of yours?”
“I own a fleet of ships, as well as emporiums and
houses. I have wealth.” Yet, even as he told her, he
knew it all meant nothing. His father had come to that
realization just before he died. Vanity. It was all vanity.
Meaningless. Empty.
Old Deborah paused on the pathway. “Rome points the
way to wealth and pleasure, power and knowledge. But
Rome remains hungry. Just as you are hungry now.
Search all you will for retribution or meaning to your life,
but until you find God, you live in vain. "
― Francine Rivers , An Echo in the Darkness (Mark of the Lion, #2)
34
" For it is not we who call God by these names. We do not invent them. On the contrary, if it depended on us, we would be silent about him, try to forget him, and disown all his names. We take no delight in the knowledge of his ways. We tend continually to oppose his names: his independence, sovereignty, righteousness, and love, and resist him in all his perfections. But it is God himself who reveals all his perfections and puts his names on our lips. It is he who gives himself these names and who, despite our opposition, maintains them. It is of little use to us to deny his righteousness: every day he demonstrates this quality in history. And so it is with all his attributes. He brings them out despite us. The final goal of all his ways is that his name will shine out in all his works and be written on everyone’s forehead (Rev. 22:4). For that reason we have no choice but to name him with the many names his revelation furnishes us. "
― Herman Bavinck
