What is Necessary?

 Was it Necessary to Do It? The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

“I tell you that ant is very alive!

Look at how he fusses at being stepped on.”

Mary Oliver, Was it Necessary to Do It?

I’m part of a book club whose members have selected novels that offer us perspectives very different from our own. Most recently we read a novel by a young Vietnamese author. In his book, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, author Ocean Vuong shares his life as an immigrant in the United States. It is a book filled with beautiful poetic imagery and jaw-dropping violence. On the first page, he recalls his mother commenting on the head of a moose on the wall of a restaurant. “Why would anyone do that?” she asked her son. Why would anyone want to showcase a dead animal? 

The Vietnam war affected Ocean Vuong’s family deeply, as well as millions of others. Notably, Thích Nhất Hạnh was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, who was exiled from Vietnam for his antiwar activism. He once wrote, “When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.”

Ocean Vuong suffered violence in many forms, for many reasons, by many people, like many Asian Americans today. Why would anyone want to shoot to kill? Why would anyone want to showcase their hate, bigotry, misogyny, or pathology? Because…...they suffer and we suffer and our suffering is spilling over everywhere. And look at how we all “fuss” when we’re stepped on!

Life and death are subjects near and dear to us; Mary Oliver wonders about the ant. It’s still very alive. Was it really necessary to kill “it”?  Who is the “killer” anyway? Putin? You? Me? Us? Ask the moose. Ask the ant. Ask Jesus.

Yes, on earth we are all briefly gorgeous. I wonder, what message will we send?