"The Ticking is the Bomb"

I recently read this article in Esquire (AKA the "Paper" for men). I was deeply moved by the imagery used by the author, Nick Flynn, and his ability to strand conscience humanity into concepts of the eternal, which humanity does not usually lend to conscience reality. The article is about the writers own personal growth in life juxtaposed with his involvement in the lives of the men who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib who were humiliated by American Soldiers that had captured the prison in the early days of the "War on Terror."

We live in a world where terrible things happen to people everyday. Where desperation overcomes our rational decision making. A world than enables us to be captive, loosing sight of the freedom made available to us. In my Lenten reflections, this article was a surprising and fantastic way to get in a right frame of mind.

This quote in particular made me think:

There is a moment in Achmad's story when words are not enough, as there will be in every story, a moment when the only way to tell us what happened is to show us what they did to his body, and at this moment he pushes back from the table and stands -- They hang me this way, he says, and raises his arms out to his sides as if crucified in the air. There is something about him standing, about his body suddenly rising up, that completely unhinges me, something about it that makes his words real in a way they hadn't been before. The word made flesh. At this moment I get it: These words are about his body, it was his body this story happened to, the body that is right here beside me, in this room I could barely even imagine just yesterday, his body that is now filling the air above our heads, our eyes upturned to see him. Achmad stands there like that, arms outstretched -- the scribe has nothing to write, the painter has nothing to paint, the interpreter has nothing to interpret, the lawyer's eyes are fixed on his eyes, all his words have led to this moment, when his body is finally allowed to speak. The lawyer shakes her head slightly. And what happened next? she says softly, and he lowers his arms and sits.

Enjoy... "The Ticking is the Bomb"