The Choice: Life or Death

”The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

There is power to destroy and power to heal and give life. There is power to turn buildings into rubble and to destroy the lives of people in those buildings. We have seen buildings destroyed by bombs made to kill and destroy, We have also seen people pulling away rubble in search of bodies and upon finding a person alive do all they can to get that person to a place of healing.

We have power to choose life and power to choose death, power to heal and power to harm. Given the amount of money that we, as a nation, spend on bombs and missiles (our president is asking for more) and the ease of movement from diplomacy to war, it is clear we believe in the power to kill and destroy. Money that could go to the uplift of people in need goes to the power to rob people of life.

We have a president who speaks gleefully of the power to destroy. He threatens to destroy a whole civilization. He overestimates his power. But he, along with all of us, have power to destroy, to take down, to belittle, to discard, to demean, to hate, to speak falsely, to live falsely, to rob our lives of reality.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”

We also have power to love, to heal, to raise up and restore.

What we do with the power available to us has us being either those who steal or those who give, those who destroy or those who heal. There is choice involved.

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity….Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:15,19)

What will we decide? What will we believe in? Will we trust ourselves to the power of death or the power of life, the power of the lie or the power of truth? Will we be thieves who steal and kill and destroy, or with Christ, in whom we find our true humanity, come to others with life and healing and give abundantly.

What kind of nation do we want?

Filed under: Compassion, Decision, Spirituality, WarTagged with: ,

Easter 2026

There is darkness and light.
Evil and righteousness.
Injustice and justice.
Discord and harmony.
Emptiness and fullness.
Death and life.

There is light overcoming the darkness.
Righteousness displacing evil.
Justice defeating injustice.
Harmony replacing discord.
Being filling emptiness.
Resurrection to new life.

We experience darkness and death all around us and in us. Wherever there is oppression, injustice, and evil of all kinds there is death—death to compassion, humility, hope, peace and joy; death to our humanity. Wherever there is war taken up as an answer to our problems; wherever the enemy is identified as outside us, as if the enemy does not also exist within; wherever we see need and pass by as if it had nothing to do with us; wherever we refuse to love, there is darkness and death and the need for resurrection to new life.

Scriptures of various spiritual traditions call us to die in order to live. We must let go of our lives, relinquish ourselves in order to find our true selves made in the image of God. Jesus tells us to lose our lives in order to find them. Die to life lived on our own terms in order to receive our true selves which flow from our Creator.

Saint Paul views the gift of Christ as the gift of dying and rising:

“Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)

“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:11)

The key to it all is being “in Christ,” or in other words, coming to be conformed to our true humanity in union with God.

Filed under: Hope, Humanity, Liberation, Salvation, SpiritualityTagged with: ,

Choosing War Again

We are at war again! How easily we go to war! It is as if, having prepared for war with all manner of sophisticated weaponry, we cannot help ourselves but to use our weaponry. Is that because we have to prove how powerful we are?

I am referring to us as a people. Abraham Lincoln reminded us that we are “a government of the people, by the people, for the people” with the hope that our democratic form of government would “not perish from the earth.” We choose our representatives and president. We can choose presidents who are problem solvers for the American people or we can choose a president who is needy for power and make him our commander in chief, making available to him all manner of military power.

We the people have again gone to war. We have attacked Iran, and as with all wars, a rationale has been given by our president and many of our legislators. Apparently, we are going to be the Iranian people’s savior. We are doing regime change again. (How well has that worked in the past?) Or, at least, we will open the way for the people of Iran to make changes, as if we consulted them for what they needed. Iranian organizations working for change in Iran know, on the ground, what is necessary for change. We are not it. Nor does the destruction we bring help them: the loss of life, the children killed in an elementary school, a hospital bombed.

We the people are at war. By a majority, we chose our president and representatives, and the government we have chosen has taken us to war. Yes, our president has acted lawlessly. (There were no “imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” Politico) Nor did he consult with congress. But then we chose a lawless president. We knew he was lawless, if we were paying attention.

Each of us are responsible for the decisions we make, the actions we take, the leaders we choose, the witness we present. We witness from values we hold, from our sense of purpose in life, from what we live for. There are alternatives to war. Yet, we keep choosing war.

The prophet Isaiah envisioned a day when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.” For that day to come he exhorted us: “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

Inherent to our humanity is the potential to decide to walk in the light of our Creator (the light is there for us) or pretend we are our own god and walk in the darkness of our deceit and make life hard for those we live with. A government of the people means that the decisions of a nation come through the people rather than a king. The people choose their representatives and their president. We do so in light or darkness (or some measure of both).

In this moment, we can make decisions about our government. We have agency. We can take stands, speak out, press for change, be witnesses to another way of operating, the way of “doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.” We can be light in the darkness, if we will be open to the light.

There is an alternative to war. We have had difficulty accepting it or signing up for it. Jesus speaks it: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Filed under: Justice, Leadership, Peace, Society, War, WitnessTagged with: , , ,

Healing For Divisions

How do we cross the divides? Whether cultural, social, or political, where do we find common ground? How do we recognize our common humanity?

Divisions reveal the breakdown of our humanity. Our divisions surface from the hollowing out of our humanity. A humanity meant to manifest love loses its humanity when it ceases to love.

For the dividing walls to come down, we must recognize our inhumanity in light of our humanity. And there must be a renewal of our humanity and a renewal of love.

Until we acknowledge that we are to “love our neighbors as ourselves,” we will rationalize our behavior. We will legitimize our divisions. We will treat our inhumanity toward others as necessary and love as impossible.

Change comes when we seek quiet moments of interior reflection in which we allow ourselves to recognize the loss of our humanity in our stinginess, belligerence, unfairness, dishonesty, prejudices and unloving actions. We acknowledge our inhumanity in our refusal to love our neighbor, especially our neighbor who does not think or operate like us or who we have viewed as an enemy.

In the silence of introspection, we may hear the still small voice calling us to love our neighbor. Rather than throw back at another what they have thrown at us, we take a step toward love by forgiving them. And then we look for what else love can do. We may even see that Jesus is right when he tells us to love our enemies. We were meant for love, and it is possible to love another who does not love us. It is possible to look beyond another’s brokenness and see their need.

The divisions in our society are only addressed by a love that sees beyond the inhumanity of the other to their humanity. The image of God stamped on our humanity may be effaced, but it is not destroyed. So we find a way to speak and act in recognition of the humanity of others, whether we experience their actions as humane or not.

There is no recovery from our divisions if we remain focused on another’s inhumanity, on their cruelty, hate, distorted values, fears and prejudices, and treat them as unredeemable. By words and actions we must call one another back to humanity: Speak against inhumanity and for humanity. Act against hate and for love.

At times that may mean speaking hard words of love that call out the inhumanity of one toward another, so that the inhumanity of one can be seen for what it is and the one who is being harmed be recognized in their injury. (Love is not the same thing as being nice.)

This is what I recognize Jesus doing when he called out religious leaders who “tied up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and laid them on the shoulders of others, but were unwilling to lift a finger to move them.” He called them back to their humanity when he addressed what they had become: “You are like whitewashed tombs….On the outside you look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Love speaks hard words when necessary.

God, the source of love and our true humanity calls us back to our humanity as children of God. Only as children of God empowered to love do our divisions lose their power and break down.

Filed under: Compassion, Healing, Love, SpiritualityTagged with: ,

Can ICE Agents Be Saved?

”Can they be saved?” is a question that could have been asked of tax collectors in Jesus’ time and place. These traitors who collected taxes in Judea for the occupying power of Rome were at the top of the list of sinners. Religious leaders certainly saw them outside of God’s mercy. They asked Jesus’ followers, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Can tax collectors be saved? Can ICE agents be saved? Can those occupying cities in this nation, pulling people out of their homes and cars, beating them, shooting them, confining them in inhumane detention centers, deporting them to nations they are not from, separating parents from their children, racially profiling and abusing them be saved? Can White supremacists be saved? (A White pastor who had been detained by ICE was let go with the words, “Well, you’re White. You wouldn’t be fun anyway.” Clearly, White supremacists have been recruited for this activity.)

Can ICE agents be saved?

Can tax-collecting traitors who got rich off the oppression of others be saved?

Jesus was passing by a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and was rich. Jesus said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” People grumbled at Jesus’ going “to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” But Zacchaeus demonstrated repentance, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house…for the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Another tax collector, Matthew, became one of Jesus’ twelve core disciples. Jesus “called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, `Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.” And Jesus made it clear to Matthew, and to all, that following him meant that they “deny themselves and take up their cross and follow.”

Jesus’ central message was “repent and have faith for the reign of God is near.” Let go and let God reign in your lives.

Salvation is open to all. Relationship with God is open to all. The way is repentance. Turn around. Do not continue down the path you are on. Relinquish your life to God. Let God direct your steps.

The message to ICE agents is: “Do not continue to bully and terrorize others. But turn to the God who is Love and have your life turned around, so that you exist for the uplift of others and for seeing other’s needs and serving them.”

Salvation comes to the house of an ICE agent when they repent. Salvation comes to those who oversee ICE, when they repent and bear fruits of repentance. Fruits of repentance are seen when leaders in government no longer center their decisions on holding on to power, but instead take responsibility for leading our nation with compassion and care for all.

By God’s grace repentance, change of direction, and new life is available to all.

Filed under: Grace, Justice, Mercy, Repentance, Salvation, SocietyTagged with: ,

Martin Luther King Jr: “Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool”

In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. preached a sermon entitled, “Why Jesus Called A Man A Fool.” His text was Luke 12:16-21, the parable of the rich man who had a bumper crop and decided to pull down his old barns and build larger ones where he would store all his grain and goods.

Pastor King notes that the man was not called a fool simply because he was rich. Things had come together for this man in such a manner that he had far more than he needed. What made him a fool was his assumption about himself and his relationship to others. With his riches, he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

The point of the story: “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’”

King notes that the man made relaxing, eating, drinking and being merry the goal of his life. King further notes the use of the word “I.” The man assumes that it is all about him. He does not acknowledge his dependence on others, those who worked his land and built his barns.

King talks about our interdependence. Those who are rich in our nation did not become rich without the work of others. He also reminds us of the way “the black man made America wealthy.” The wealth the nation derived from cotton was produced on the backs of an enslaved people. That work remains unpaid.

Pride and arrogance make us blind to our dependence on others. Ultimately, it makes us blind to our dependence on God for our very being and for our purpose in life, which is to love one another as God has loved us.

King applies this blindness to the kind of religion we make up for ourselves:

“Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of people and is not concerned about the slums that cripple the souls—the economic conditions that stagnate the soul and the city governments that may damn the soul—is a dry, dead, do-nothing religion in need of new blood.”

King echos Jesus who calls us to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit those in prison. And the prophet Micah who tells us what God requires of human beings: We are “to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.”

Filed under: Humanity, Justice, Racism, Serving, SocietyTagged with: , ,

We Do It Because We Can

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

Come now, you who say we will go into such and such a nation and, having the military power to do it, will take hold of their government to bend it to our will which is to have their oil.

“Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring.”

Never mind that over a hundred people are killed by our actions, families robbed of their loved ones. Never mind the loss of life. It is necessary to obtain access to the oil. After all, it is our oil. We lay claim to it. And we have the means to take it.

“Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring.”

And while we are at it, having the military power we have, why not make Columbia bend to our will and Mexico as well? Why not take over Cuba and Greenland and Canada?

“Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring.”

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:46)

Filed under: Evil, Society, War, WitnessTagged with: ,

Christmas Reflections 2025

At the heart of the meaning of Christmas is Incarnation:

“The Word became flesh and lived among us.” John 1:14

The Word became flesh. God is revealed in the flesh. The implication is that God is expressed in our humanity. While that is true, we, who are human, are not all there is to flesh. We have many animal kin who are flesh. I feel like God is revealed in my dog, and the squirrels, rabbits and birds outside my window, and the deer and coyote that I encounter in the woods, and in the trees and flowers. God is present in all of creation.

Certainly, what we celebrate at Christmas is the union of God and humanity—the Word or Expression of God joined to our humanity as we exist in the flesh. And yet, we are not separate from the rest of creation. As the theologian, Karl Rahner, puts it, “Our bodies do not end with our skin.” The reality of our fleshly existence and its survival is part of a whole, the flesh and matter of the cosmos.

Our evolution from a speck of life makes us part of a tree of life. We are life that has become conscious of itself and reflective. In their book, Journey of the Universe, Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker, write that “every time we are drawn to look up into the night sky and reflect on the awesome beauty of the universe, we are actually the universe reflecting on itself.”

Even more so, we are the coming-to-be of the universe in its reflection of its Creator. And, in our infinite openness, we are the universe reaching out to its Creator. All of creation shares in our reaching out and glorifying God our Maker.

So, Jesus tells us to consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air and how God cares for them. We share in the same care of the Creator. And all of creation joins us in glorifying God for God’s creation and care.

Francis of Assisi, in his Canticle of Creation, sings of God’s praise through all of creation, through Brother Sun, Sister Moon and Stars, Brothers Wind and Air, Sister Water, Brother Fire, Sister Earth, our Mother.

“Praise be yours, our Lord, through all that you have made.”

The Word became flesh and dwells among us. God is present in and through our humanity and through all of creation. Thanks be to God.

Filed under: Creation, Humanity, Incarnation, Nature, Praise, Unity

Consider

”Consider whether the light in you is not darkness.” (Luke 11:35)

Jesus addressed a crowd with these words. He addressed people who were swept along by a crowd. He addressed those who were unable to discern what was happening around them. Many of them, without discernment, may have ended up in the crowd that cried out for Jesus’ crucifixion.

Jesus would have those in the crowd do some considering: “Consider whether the light in you is not darkness.” Consider whether what you call the light is actually darkness.

Jesus would have us discern the “signs of the times,” to recognize what is happening around and in us. So he spoke of spiritual blindness, the inability to discern our times and our motivations and our purpose.

Jesus said, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?” It is possible for a whole crowd of people to be blind and guide each other toward a pit.

Therefore, ”Consider whether the light in you is not darkness.”

How do we go about the task of “considering”? We say we are enlightened, that we see, but what if we are blind? What if we assume we are in the light when we operate in darkness? Consider it.

The act of considering means we stop assuming. We ask the question, “Am I actually in the light or am I in darkness?” Is what I call light, actually darkness? Is what I call true, a lie? Is what I go after false? Is what I have been daily choosing false to my true humanity made in the image of God?

Jesus says, “Consider.” Consider motivations. Why do we choose what we choose and go after what we go after? Why do we choose the leaders we choose? What is it that we want when we make choices? Do we tend not to get beyond asking what is in it for us? Do we consider the effects of our decisions on others?

Does what we consider for ourselves bring light into our lives and into the world? Does it make us more open to others, more loving—since love is what makes relationships possible. Do we consider love? Do we consider and seek after the ability to love, to have compassion, to see the needs of others and respond.

”Consider whether the light in you is not darkness.”

These words call for self-examination. Jesus, addressing the crowd, may be speaking to those who have given little place in their lives for self-examination. They may have gone through life giving little care to their motivations, impulses, priorities—why they do what they do. To them he says, “Consider.” Finally, get around to considering.

Consider why you choose what you choose. Consider why you choose what you let into your life. Consider whether you let in light or darkness, love or hate, joy or bitterness, peace or war, hope or despair.

What we choose obviously affects not only ourselves but others. Our darkness adds to the darkness in the world. Our light adds to the light. Therefore, “consider whether the light in you is not darkness.”

Our nation and world need people of the light, people who see and speak from the light, and therefore are witnesses in the midst of darkness.

Filed under: Discernment, Humanity, Mindfulness, Spirituality, WitnessTagged with: ,

Lawlessness and the Law of Love

The lawlessness of the president of the United States has often been noted as he has ignored the United States Constitution, its laws, and the legislation passed by congress, in order to increase his power and press forward with his agenda which has included avenging himself against his perceived enemies.

Beyond the laws of a nation, however, their is a deeper law that binds us together. It is the law of our fundamental humanity. St. Paul expresses it: “The whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14)

Jesus speaks in a similar way when asked what is the greatest commandment: “The first is…‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 12:29-31)

The love of neighbor is powerful for healing our divisions.

Jesus is asked, “Who is my neighbor?” So, Jesus tells a story of a man who “fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead.” Two very religious people, who see him lying to the side of the road, pass by on the other side, afraid to get involved. But a Samaritan comes upon this wounded Jewish man (there was enmity between Samaritans and Jews) and is “moved with compassion” and “bandaged his wounds” and “took care of him.” Jesus asked who “was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The hearer of this story, answered, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:29-37)

Recently, in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago, ICE agents raided an apartment building overnight, breaking down doors, and removing people from their beds along with children. The apartment occupants were zip tied and forced into waiting vehicles. A witness across the street said, “she saw agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without any clothes on and into U-Haul vans.” A 67 year old man tried to reason with the ICE agents, telling them he was a US citizen and asking if they had a warrant for breaking into his apartment. He was left outside in zip ties for several hours before they let him go. (WBEZ Chicago)

When we move away from love and compassion, we become capable of all kinds of inhuman acts. If any of those ICE agents could see their own children in the children that they put into vans, it is hard to imagine they could operate in the way they did. That is true also for everyone who oversaw the action and those who were the policy makers for such actions.

It is because of this distance from our true humanity rooted in love that Jesus calls us to repent, to turn to back God. Rather than operate as if we were the gods of our own lives (and the lives of others), Jesus tells us to relinquish our lives to God. He tells us to lose our lives and we will find our true selves, and we will find the love of God poured into our hearts by the Spirit.

The movement into loving our neighbors as ourselves is a spiritual movement. It is a movement of the Spirit of God who enables us to let go of our lives to God, so that we become available to God for the work of love in the lives of others.

Paul writes of the Spirit of God at work in us to bring us to our full humanity as children of God. He lists the kind of fruit that the Spirit produces in us when we let go, and let God. We come to bear fruit that the Spirit produces.

He gives examples of this fruit of the Spirit: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” And then he adds, “There is no law against such things.” (Galatians 5:22-23) No other law is needed, if we are coming to know and live out the law of love in Christ by the help of the Spirit.

Filed under: Compassion, Justice, Love, Mercy, SpiritualityTagged with: , ,