When they tell us that the television cartoons children of all ages watch are filled with violence, we tend to shrug it off with, “It’s always been that way.” As a matter of fact, all the way back to the days of Popeye and Olive (for those who can still remember that far back) arguments were settled by physical blows; somehow we mistakenly thought it was funny.

When we see the contemporary entertainment provided for adults, either on television or in the films, we acknowledge that the violence which frightens and shocks seems to be “what sells these days….”

The promos and clips advertising the next thriller invariably are nothing more than a series of explosions, gun fights, desperate escapes or brutal beatings. We see it so often that we make a quick personal judgment about the attractiveness of the program and then wait for the next show. We seem to have lost our innate moral sensitivity to brutal behavior, even on the screen.

The fact of the matter, however, is that art imitates life … and our modern life is very violent indeed! The tragedy of these past three weeks along the border of Israel and Lebanon seems particularly brutal, and the loss of so many innocent civilian lives only underscores that reality.

The suicide bombers in Iraq, willing to kill countless other civilians simply to make a fanatical point, represent a moral tragedy as well as a civic nightmare. Religious rioting occurs everywhere on our globe.

Our central city neighborhoods are also so filled with violence as to make the newspaper reports almost casual and matter of fact. Suburbs have their own level of violence, often domestic in character, and that reality hardly ever makes the news at all. And then there’s road rage!

None of this is acceptable. None of it!

The Judeo-Christian tradition itself, however, has made its own contributions to that perennial human phenomenon of violence. The poets of Israel, for example, often attempted to describe the supreme power of their God by resorting to their extreme human experiences of power, namely vast gory military battles and final crushing victory.

This was easily projected upon God Almighty. The very title “God of hosts / Sabba’oth” originally referred to the stars of the night skies, imagined to be heavenly armies of angels in battle array, marching across the sky each evening!

The Psalms are filled with references to the power of God, smashing the enemies of Israel (and also of God because they were presumably on the same side against “the nations”). The Book of Revelation describes the final battle between good and evil (God and the Beast).

It is brutal and lethal; but God wins and for all the imagery of the book, that’s the fundamental point of its message. Still, we ought to be more cautious about invoking those symbols.

Armageddon, or the ultimate historical battle marking God’s definitive victory over evil and the end of the material world as we know it, should not be drawn in mere human terms of wars and international conflicts. Our God is bigger than that. Those are symbols for a deeper reality. People who look forward to the fulfillment of that “prophecy” are mistaken if they presume that it will be ultimately physical conflict alone.

Bloody weapons and clashing armies, however, are not the only images provided by inspired biblical poetry for unspeakable divine power. The Psalms also use imagery from nature to describe the full and ultimate power of God: majestic storms with lightning and thunder, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes which seem to shake the entire earth.

There may well be times in this very imperfect world when physical force is needed to protect the innocent and when moral strength is required to confront and contain injustice. One of the deepest and

(I believe) God-given instincts in creation is to protect new life and offspring, which is why abortion is such a deep moral issue.

Our ultimate purpose in all areas of human disagreement and conflict, however, is civil conversation and conversion, not confrontation or conflict. That is why it may be time for our Catholic religious imagination to seek new ways to picture divine power and majesty. Any act of mercy, for example, is an expression of power too. Religious education has a big challenge on this score.

The fiery explosions and weeping mothers who fill our evening news reports are vivid testimony to a world gone terribly wrong. Maybe the cartoons of our childhood were unfortunate cultural vaccinations which made us immune to the tragedy of violence in more mature adulthood. None of this is acceptable.

This column is an extended and somewhat scattered personal reflection as I study the pictures of horror on the front pages and watch the news, night after night after night. The God we try to serve simply cannot be pleased with the world we have formed. God is not pleased when we resolve even the most difficult of human situations by eliminating the weakest person present.