Why Radical?

A Radical goes to the roots,
Finds out the base of things,
Lives by the original source
Cuts out additions, revisions, rationalisations,
Goes back to the basic beginnings.

A Radical is not a Revolutionary.
A Revolutionary seeks achievable changes
After which all will be well,
A Radical seeks continual change
Because everything will never be right.
The Revolutionary works for
One great heave to overthrow the status quo.
The Radical persistently revolutionises everything.

The Radical is not a liberal,
A Revisionist, or an Enlightener.
A Radical does not trust
The evolutionary processes of humanism,
The 'discoveries' of science-based technology,
The mutual manipulation of sociological theories,
Personal growth, self-fulfilment, self-enrichment,
'experiences'.
Radicals know themselves too well
To trust any of them.

Jesus was a Radical.
He went to the roots of everything,
Simply, without prevarications,
Demanding that basic human solidarity
be respected and held to -
like the bond-word of one person to another,
like the commitments of Sisters and Brothers,
like the rest after labour that bodies need.

Jesus was a Radical.
He pointed away from himself
To a reality and a dynamic to which he was obedient
Which he called 'God's Kingdom', 'God's Rule'
A Radical Reality in which there could be now equality between all people,
raising up of everyone's gifts, significance within the secular, forgiveness for the offender.

Jesus proclaimed a new radicalism needed by the new Kingdom -
A radicalism of total commitment
to that which was sure, though invisible, for everyone, though few knew it, for all time, but especially now.

JOHN VINCENT