Then the Lord said to Cain: Why are you angry? Why are you dejected? If you act rightly, you will be accepted; but if not, sin lies in wait at the door: its urge is for you, yet (but) you can rule over it.”
As I continue along with so many others on the planet to observe the level of expressed depravity exhibited by those currently in power, I have come to a place of deep questioning about how we got here.
I wonder how we have arrived at this place of treating Latinx folks who have lived and worked beside us for decades as if they are barely human. What is fueling the desire to move our country along economic lines to hurt the poor and to prevent them from having health care, access to decent food and housing? What made us decide we should simply fire people from their jobs as if they had no financial responsibilities and to leave them in unimaginable situations of not being able to pay their rent, losing their health insurance, unable to take care of their families?
Catherine Meeks
And along with this, why are we willing to take food, medicine and other essential supplies from people all over the world while much of the food rots in warehouses we are paying to rent?
When United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent was told that more than 500,000 children had died across the world because of USAID cuts, his only remark was, “I do not accept that fact.”
Along with these acts are the continued wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, which are leading to mass deaths from starvation and lack of resources to medical aid.
“How did we get here?”
The most profound question I have had over the past months continues to be, “How did we get here?”
Who was the first human to behave in such a manner that it devalued another human and created the space to make it possible to act in a violent manner toward that person? Since I know I am not ever really going to be able to answer that question, I thought to look into some of the ancient accounts of people behaving badly to see what I might glean. Thus, I took a look at a Judeo-Christian story as one example I have heard most of my life, the Cain and Abel story. A story that seems to have many layers to it and can be helpful in the attempt to understand this present moment.
Of course, it is clear this modern-day expression of depravity and meanness did not begin in the 21st century in the United States. We have been practicing this behavior since the early explorers’ first encounters with the indigenous nations they discovered here and who later would become victims of the explorers’ othering, which resulted in violence and mass destruction of so many. As we read our United States history, we know we kept up this trend with slavery and in creating a deeply carefully carved system of racial apartheid which continues to this present moment.
But how does the Cain and Abel story inform us? Our questions can help us. What happened to Cain? What made him so angry? Why was his offering less pleasing?
Cain was a farmer who tended the land, and he brought the gifts from his labor and the land as an offering to God. And Abel, who was a shepherd, brought his firstborn sheep from his herd. The commentators I read regarding this story oversimplify it. There is no good explanation for God’s displeasure with Cain’s offering. But it seems important to think about the implications involved in the notion of the fruits of the earth being seen as less than the firstborn sheep and it seemingly being unacceptable.
“This disconnection from the natural world makes it easier to ‘other’ folks who are not like us.”
This raises many questions as we reflect upon how our present-day divorce from relationship to the land and natural life is contributing to so much of modern humanity’s problems. It is this disconnection from the natural world that makes it easier to “other” folks who are not like us, and it is easier to see them as inferior.
While the point of some of this story is confusing, there are some important points that allow us to see how it informs us.
In the first place, the rejection of the offering from the earth implies the superiority of being a shepherd over being a farmer and connected to Mother Earth. So many of our modern problems are grounded in the ways in which that separation continued to be fostered throughout history. But the creation of a narrative of inferiority for the fruit of the earth versus the superiority of sheep has not served humanity well.
While Cain is quite upset about the rejection, it is not helpful to simply reduce the encounter to his being sinful. Although he allows himself to be led to the horrible act of killing Abel, because he refuses to take responsibility for the rejection and to seek a remedy that would involve changing his behavior. Instead of doing this he projects blame onto his brother and decides to kill him. He “others” his brother.
“Othering” is one of the primary prevailing energy systems we are engaging in this present moment and it continues to lead us as a planetary community to violence and destruction the earth will not continue to sustain. We are here in this moment of chaos and devastation for many reasons. But our separation from Mother Earth and the unwillingness to affirm our connection to other humans and all other life without engaging in mass “othering” and projection when life does not go in the way we hoped form a very deep and viable foundation for evil and all its components to dwell in great power among us.
We see the fruits of this in all the ways described at the beginning of this discussion as well as in many others. We cannot escape through the oversimplification of the problem or of the possible remedies, consumerism, violence, political power or any of the other tools we used to help us to get to this place.
We have to dismantle that house we built. A new house has to be built.
Catherine Meeks was given the President Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement and Service Award in August 2022; was listed by Georgia Trend Magazine as one of the 500 women to watch in Georgia in 2022; retired as the Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies at Mercer University; is a community and wellness activist and midwife to the soul; and the author of The Night Is Long, But Light Comes In The Morning, Meditations on Racial Healing, She previously served as founding executive director of Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing and currently serves as founder and executive director of the Turquoise and Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing. She lives in Atlanta.