“After Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is my beloved.”
A Spirit in the form of a dove, resting on a man, is not the usual portrait of power. So too, a neighbor in the person of a Mom, driving an SUV, is not the usual portrait of power. Yet power is exactly that witness. We have lost the significance of power as we have lost its intimacy. We have been coerced to believe violence in the shape of a warrior, embodied in a man, is the usual portrait of power. But we would be wrong. That is the portrait of control. Militarism confuses us about power and control in human relations. Power is life-giving and means “to be able,” while control is violent and means “against.” Warriors act against us for their gain. An example would be an ICE warrior who must control a woman who is helping her neighbors during one of ICE’s enforcement operations. She will not be controlled. The warrior needs her full compliance, pathologically so. He will gain the satisfaction of his need. Thus, the ICE agent knows he has a gun. He knows all he needs to do is step in front of her car. He will intentionally use her attempt to get away from him as the excuse to kill that “f****** b****.” The ICE agent and his slave masters will, as usual, control the narrative so that the killer becomes the victim and the victim becomes the killer. There is no spectrum called a level of force continuum. There is only the warrior’s right to kill. They will kill us and they will lie about killing us. Thus, the warrior system will lie about Renee Good being armed with an SUV. Renee being a Mom trying to get home to her loved ones gets twisted into the lie that she is a terrorist. Renee’s life is overflowing with power – ‘to be able’ – to love. The significance and the intimacy of Renee’s power to love is symbolized in the bedraggled stuffed animal we have all seen hanging out of her glove compartment. We feel its power of love to rehumanize us. So very important in an empire intent on dehumanizing us all as justifiably targeted victims. Renee’s life says to us, ‘This is my beloved.’ Renee’s beloved will hold that stuffed animal across the years instead of her. What will the killer’s beloved hold across the years – his gun? Did the killer know that in rejecting a powerful and loving Jesus to imitate his controlling warrior God, he would forsake his humanity? The warriors who come to know this truth know they have lost the significance of their power and its intimacy. It is a moral injury that sometimes has them intentionally step in front of their own gun. The controlling warrior ethos thus claims another beloved.
In the Spirit of a dove we send our thoughts and prayers. Thoughts – about disarming the deadly warriors of our time so they do not kill anyone ever again because they know we and they are beloved. Prayers – for our power to disarm them.
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, we are your power to disarm the warrior
Question: Who are the warriors I know whom I can disarm?
January 11, 2026 Gospel Matthew 3:13-17 Feast of Baptism