Blame

“The root of all disturbance, if one will go to its source is that no one will blame himself.”
-sixth century monk Dorotheus Of Gaza

Recently at Duke we’ve reflecting on the rape of a black woman by members of the Lacrosse team. The facts of the matter at not completely available to us. So the incident becomes a kind of screen onto which we project our perceptions about who most likely is a fault. Is it a case of a opportunist minority (as one friend wrote to me), or is the fault of rich, entitled, drunk, racist white boys (as other friends think)? Or, are we somehow all implicated in this culture of entitlement, manipulation, coercion, violence, and use of the other? As we’ve been wearing this scarlet letter “I,” it has caused us to think about how we’re all implicated in the executions, in the war, in violence, and even rapes.

May we repent, and may God have mercy.

-Tim