"So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence," observes the first chapter of Proverbs, "for it takes away the life of its possessors."  As we look at our fractured world, full of animosity and strife, rife with war and conflict, violence seems ascendant, seems to overwhelm all attempts at peace.  Tragically, many of those pursuing or using violence to achieve their various political and economic ends are, more often than not, responding to violence, in numerous forms, that they have experienced and for which they see violence as the only viable response.  And perhaps it is.  Not all revolutions and upheavals produce an unpleasant or oppressive end.  On the other hand, as the writer observes, those who view violence as the only means of gain, as the only means of accomplishing a goal, may be in the end undermining, philosophically, metaphysically, and politically, everything they are hoping to achieve.
     And this is the perhaps the greatest tragedy of all.  Change may come, but with a heavy price, and those who pursue it by violent means, however justified they may seem to be, do well to remember that even if we are reaching for laudable ends, we achieve them in a broken world, a world bent under the weight of its turmoil and sin.  No victory is forever, no gain will last, and no conquest will permanently change a heart.  Life will go on, but it is a life lived in a world singularly inhospitable to spiritual and metaphysical clarity.  It will always be incomplete.  As are we.
     Though violence may be inevitable, it doesn't need to be.  Life is greater than its pain.