Days of Infamy

Today is "Pearl Harbor Day", the event in American history that generated the famous quote "a day which will live in infamy". I hope to take nothing from that greatest generation with my ponderings and contemplations today. You see I think there are and have been many days of infamy. I have a few in my own life, that for me personally are days of infamy. Everyone I know does. When we're trying to spiritualize them we call them "attacks from the enemy" or if we want to make ourselves overly responsible for them we can call them "flesh acts" as we did in one of my religion classes in graduate school. When we're trying to capitalize upon them and use them to motivate ourselves or others we call them "defining moments". Sometimes in our desire to "overcome" we do everything in our power to minimize and deny those days. We tell ourselves that we need to get over them and move on. We engage in all kinds of mental gymnastics to deal with these events but like similar events in the larger world ultimately they are the days that we can point to and say that event, that hurt, that betrayal, that pain...that changed everything.

I'd venture to say that each of my co-authors has their own collection of days of infamy, some of which lead are what us to our unconventional brand of Christianity in the first place. I wonder what would happen in our Churches if such days of infamy were not met with cliches and platitudes but rather with validation.