c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a pastor, writer and software developer living in Winston-Salem, N.C.)

UNDATED _ When e-mail problems began last week, I looked first for answers. What was causing some people not to receive the daily meditations that I send to interested readers?

I looked for small answers _ incorrect account setup, for example. I looked for medium-size answers _ something gone awry when I transferred my e-mail system from a home-based desktop computer to a laptop computer used in travel. I looked for large answers _ system breakdown at my Internet service provider, maybe a fundamental flaw in thinking I could do daily postings while traveling extensively.

Unable to find answers, I became frustrated and looked for someone or something to blame. But that didn’t get the mail out.

Finally, I had nowhere to turn except to ask for help. So I sent a series of help-me-troubleshoot messages to readers. Suddenly, the clouds parted. A passing comment from one reader pointed to the apparent cause of this week-long glitch: a typographical error! An unwanted”t”in an account name _ about as small an answer as one could imagine, a single letter.

The old technological saw proved true once again _”garbage in, garbage out.”In other words, user error. Or in techno-speak,”fat-fingering.” My progression from puzzlement to frustration to blaming seems pretty typical, not only of myself but of humankind.

We instinctively ask Why. We are reflective creatures. Our minds don’t just absorb data; they process it and look for connections and reasons. We are drawn to mystery, like a baby exploring her toes or a dying person staring into the not-so-distant future and wondering what comes next.

If we were perfect, we would stay on task. That is, we would do the hard work of making connections, probing for reasons, turning problems over in our minds, peering deeply into the chaos. But we aren’t perfect. We tend to get frustrated, and in our anger and frustration, we drift into blaming, we look for scapegoats, we fabricate enemies, we wage war.

Hence the generational animosities that have surfaced in the impeachment proceedings, in which the entire 1960s generation is blamed for systemic realities that some find confusing 30 years later. Hence the historic scapegoating of Jews. Hence the blaming of women by men, and the blaming of men by women. Hence the Red scare after World War Two, which allowed bullies to seize power by blaming an”invisible empire”for everything that people found frightening about modern life.

Hence the tragic hand-me-down anger in which a frustrated parent abuses a child, and that child abuses himself and later grows into an abusive parent. Hence the lay-clergy warfare that is tearing apart many congregations.

Some of the religious people of Jesus’ time were no better. They had found ways to fine-tune their hatreds. As long as they stopped short of murder, anything went. Men could diminish their wives. The righteous could stone the sinner. The operative rule was the”law of retaliation”_ an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

In dealing with the frustrations that accompanied being a minor blip in an oppressive empire, they gave themselves plenty of leeway to act out. A small-minded legalism _ in which scouring pots correctly mattered as much as healing the sick _ allowed custodians of the law to claim small bits of power.

Like many in our age, they turned against each other and against the stranger, and then they waved Scripture in the air and cried,”It’s the will of God!” Jesus said No to all of that.”I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment,”he said. Sin doesn’t begin at the point of murder. Sin begins when we externalize our own failings. Sin begins when we blame and scapegoat. Sin begins when we lazily stop our search for answers and simply abuse the first weaker person who crosses our path. Sin begins when we use people’s religious hungers as a rallying cry for bullying.

Not all problems can be solved by locating a fat-fingered”t”. Some problems are profound, deep, systemic, perhaps beyond resolution. But nothing is solved by blaming, bullying, scapegoating and warring.

DEA END EHRICH