Salomon Ligthelm

Salomon Ligthelm Instagram – We are “meaning-seeking” creatures, not just happiness or pleasure merchants – the latter are low-order aims. Meaning sustains us when seasons of happiness and pleasure wanes – which invariably and inevitably happens. But we’ve been on a strange trajectory over the last 100 years or so. With Modernism we dispensed with Meaning, the Spiritual and the Transcendent and we traded it for the Rational, the Empirical and the Scientific. With Postmodernism (and subsequently Neoliberism) we’ve dispensed with both the Spiritual/Transcendent AND Rational/Scientific for what I would call “Woke Morality” – the type of morality that doesn’t see the face of the person it’s fighting for, but only the likes from followers. It’s the type of morality that has no real relational connection with the people who are being advocated for in the shadows or in the private/offline experience, but only want to appear morally superior in the online/public spaces. We don’t like rational truths or metaphorical ones – we just like how we “feel”. We’ve been placed into various “groups” or “tribes” by the powerful so that we can play US vs THEM games with the group that is “other” than us, while the powerful control us. We’ve lost the ability to see the need for Justice AND Forgiveness (which doesn’t NEGATE the NEED for Justice). Justice without Forgiveness perpetuates the atrocity within the heart of the perpetrator. But give him a chance to be forgiven (while still paying for the crime), and he can be restored. It’s at the heart of all the great stories of redemption. And it was at the heart of Desmond Tutu’s desire to restore the divide in my nation of South Africa when he instituted the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” as Apartheid came to and end. It was a nationally broadcasted forum where victim and perpetrator were allowed share their pain, their sorrow, their guilt and their TEARS. IT CHANGED A NATION. Many in Europe predicted a bloodbath at the end of Apartheid – fearing massive retaliation from those oppressed during this time for sins committed against them. But it never happened. This is a Divine idea that we’ve lost. We need to lift our eyes again. | Posted on 15/May/2021 20:04:01