Category: Humanity

Who Are Our Enemies?

There is this tendency to identify the bad guys with the assumption that we are the good guys: If we (the good guys) only got rid of all the problem people, all the vermin, things would be so much better. If we simply excluded or neutralized certain kinds of people, maybe whole categories of people, the ones we view as threats, who are the enemies of our communities and our nation, then things would be made right.

Running for president a second time is a man who makes a pledge: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”

He tells us that there are people who are “poisoning the blood of our country, it’s so bad and people are coming in with disease, people are coming in with every possible thing that you can have.” “Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons, we know they come from mental institutions, insane asylums, we know they’re terrorists.”

It has been noted that this kind of rhetoric has similarities to the language that Hitler used to enthrall the crowds that came out to hear him.

Donald Trump is often accused of creating divisions in our nation, when he is mostly stoking the divisions that are already there. The fear of others, the experience of threat from this or that group of people, the identification of our major problems as being outside of ourselves (those others) rather than within, sets us up for manipulation. Trump simply hooks into our tendency to ignore our own sin and make the place of evil external. The truth, as Paul tells us, is that “we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are all a problem. We are all in need of spiritual transformation.

We have this tendency to see the problem as being mainly out there in “those people.” Exclude them or get rid of them and things will be okay. This tendency runs deep; it can be tapped into and is tapped into by wannabe authoritarians who need us to have an enemy they can promise to vanquish.

Jesus speaks to this tendency to see the problem mostly outside ourselves: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?” He makes it clear that until we take the log out of our own eye we are in no condition to help our neighbor, to see the speck in order to take it out of their eye.

When we operate with this kind of blindness and “have religion,” we are particularly dangerous. We are the good ones. We have God on our side. We are the ones who know where the problem comes from and what must be done.

It was religious leaders that handed Jesus over to Pilate to be crucified. When given the opportunity to choose the release of either Barabbas, an insurrectionist, or Jesus, they chose the insurrectionist.

When we remain unaware of the depth of our broken condition and project our disorder on others, blaming others for the very things we are guilty of, blaming them for the state of our nation, then we may seek judgment upon them. We gravitate to a leader who will put them in their place. And then, whatever afflictions they experience, we deem those afflictions as something they deserve.

The divisions we maintain with these attitudes run deep. They are ideological, cultural, ethnic, religious, and political. The attitudes that support these divisions are moralistic, judgmental, hardhearted, resentful, merciless, oppressive, and unloving.

The truth is we are all related, children of God, made in God’s image. We are all siblings of the same humanity whatever the differences of culture, ethnicity, religion, and vocation. And we are all broken. And the decisions we make affect others, all children of the same Creator. Therefore, St. Paul writes, “Let each of you look not to your own concerns but to the concerns of others.”

We must stop listening to someone in a position of power or desiring power badmouth our siblings. We must listen to our siblings, far and near, living under different circumstances from ours, facing difficulties, some of which, as with us, are of their own making and some of the making of others. Some experience societal forces pushing them to the margins. Others experience forces that ease them toward the center.

Whoever and wherever they are, we must seek to understand what others are going through, what forces affect their lives and their relationships. Get to know their needs. Get to know them. Have them on our minds, in our prayers. When a so-called leader tells us who threatens us, who we must be afraid of, who must be eradicated, we must refuse to listen. He or she is talking about our siblings. Even if there is someone who makes themselves our enemy, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for them.

When we make decisions that will affect others (when we vote, for example), “let each of us look not to our own concerns but to the concerns of others.” Therefore, get to know the experiences and concerns of others. Hold them in our hearts so that, rather than trample over them, we respond to their concerns.

“Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night
I will go, Lord, if you lead me
I will hold your people in my heart.”

Filed under: Compassion, Fear, Grace, Humanity, Mercy, SocietyTagged with: , , ,

Christmas Reflections 2023

At Christmas, those of us who find our center in Christ celebrate our humanity. We celebrate our true humanity in union with God. Traditionally we have used the term “incarnation” to speak of this union: God revealed in the flesh; God among us and in us.

St. Paul writes of the glory of God in the face of Christ and of Christ as the image of God. With these words, he connects Christ to the story of creation in the book of Genesis, where we are told that humanity is created in the image of God.

Humanity, when it is being true to itself, is the expression of the God who is love. Our true humanity manifests love, compassion, mercy, justice. It reveals God’s love.

The attraction that brought crowds out to Jesus was the love of God that shone in his life as he reached out with compassion to heal and to liberate. Jesus said he did not come into the world to condemn the world but to seek and to save the lost. And that is what we see in him. He came in humility and openness to hurting human beings joining himself to the suffering of others, even to the point of death on a cross.

What we see in Christ is our true humanity as the expression of God who is love. We have needed to see this example of humanity, because we see, in ourselves and others, much that is false to our humanity. We see our inhumanity, the ways we put down others and operate with arrogance and selfishness, passing on the other side of the road when encountering one who has fallen, hurt and broken.

In Christ, we come to participate in our true humanity, for we experience our relationship with God. In Christ, we come to trust God. Christ’s faith becomes ours. Christ’s love and hope become ours. In Christ, the way into union with God is open.

In a world at war, divided, torn apart by our inhumanity toward one another, the words of the angel to the shepherds in the field speak to all who have ears to hear: “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Anointed One, the Lord.”

Therefore, many of us join the shepherds watching over sheep at that first Christmas; we join with them and the angels in rejoicing and giving glory to God.

Filed under: Humanity, Love, Praise, SpiritualityTagged with: ,

Unattractive Religion

Unattractive Religion Type 1: Repulsed by what is false.

There is much religion that must be fled, if we care about reality. It is one of the reasons many leave churches. They do not find truth there. They do not find life-giving reality. They do not experience the reality of love—a love that is welcoming and supportive and includes all.

Some are repulsed by a church’s bondage to dogmatism and legalism, by the central place given to doctrines, principles, and morals, and the roles that categories play in defining its members. They feel that the experience of humanity’s depth is missing, the experience of the Spirit, of Holy Mystery, and of grace and freedom.

There are many who are repulsed by the eroding of Christian experience by that which is foreign to the Christ reality. There is something terribly false about a White nationalist Christianity that makes an idol of nation and whiteness, or a prosperity Christianity that displaces the will of God with our prosperity. There is something critically false about a legalistic Christianity that has left grace and mercy behind in judging and condemning others.

Many global religious traditions began with an enlightenment or revelation or experience of Holy Mystery that opened, freed, and deepened our humanity. Their beginnings were like a spring of fresh, inviting water bubbling up on the side of a mountain, fresh at its source, but then picking up various debris as it traveled down the mountain side.

It did not take Christianity long to pick up ingredients foreign to its beginnings, becoming conformed to cultural and political values, taking on forms of “worldly” power and dominance, making its doctrines the thing that had to be protected—even by violence, rather than (with Christ) losing its life for the sake of the world. Early on, in the New Testament and with Jesus, there were warnings about false prophets and false religion.

What is true for Christianity has been true for other religions as well, at times with horrific results: Religion becoming simply a mask for evil.

As with other religious traditions, Christianity can be critiqued from within its own tradition. Simply go back to the source, the fresh spring. From the source we begin to recognize the debris that has accumulated over time. We discern what about our Christianity has simply become a cover for our cultural commitments and values instead of being the spiritual reality that critiques our ways of operating in the world and restores us to our true humanity.

Jesus speaks to the heart of his movement when he says that others will know his followers by their love, which he calls the central commandment: Love God above all things and love your neighbor as yourself.

When we move away from this reality, repulsion to what we have become can be the beginning of coming back to what is true.

Unattractive Religion Type 2: Repulsed by what is true.

Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.” But there is that, in us, which runs from the truth, especially inward truth which will have us facing up to what is false in us, false to our true humanity created in the image of God who is Love.

Jesus called us to a recentering of our lives which involves the relinquishing of ourselves to God. Jesus said, “Lose your life and you will find it.” His was a call to trust the whole of ourselves to Holy Mystery. All true religion calls us to let go of our lives in order to find ourselves.

Our egocentric selves revolt against this “letting go.” Our egocentric values revolt. What we have built of our lives apart from God, revolts. Our false self wants to hold on to what it has been building and therefore is repulsed by anything that would take its place. Our false self refuses to recognize a self created in the image of God for love.

Our false self is repulsed by what is implied of such a true self, a self that loves enemies, forgives those who persecute us, loves those who hate us instead of hating them back, a self that relinquishes its idols (the centering of its life around its own control, power, pleasure, riches; its own nation, people, and political party).

People were repulsed by Jesus because he spoke truth to power—to self-centered power. He told his followers that they could expect the same repulsion from others and be blessed for it. He said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice.”

It is no wonder that we will craft a religion of our own making, one that fits our idolatries and values. Repulsed by the truth and desiring a god who is on the side of our idols, we make for ourselves a religion that our false ways can be comfortable with.

Or we decide it is simply easier to have no religion or at least one that does not need a god. (Atheism can be such a religion.)

Being repulsed by what is false in religion opens the possibility of being open to what is true. Being repulsed by what is true calls for a turn to the truth wherever it is found, but especially to the truth of ourselves, the truth of our inward reality.

The Spirit will help us come to the truth of ourselves, so that we distinguish the false from the real through the relinquishing of our lives to the Source of all reality. Jesus tells us that if we continue in the truth, the “truth will set us free.” We will be on a journey of getting real.

Filed under: Humanity, Love, SpiritualityTagged with:

The Present Age and the Age to Come

St. Paul writes of the “the present evil age.” Jesus speaks of the “age to come”—as Paul does also.

We experience the present age as evil. We experience violence, mass shootings, road rage, all kinds of rage, deep divisions in our society, breakdown in relationships and families, mental health struggles with our youth, racism in police departments, politicians motivated by personal power rather than a holistic vision, and, of course, the roots of our problems in the selfishness, arrogance and greed that are a part of the human condition. We live in an evil age.

The flip side of all this, of course, is that it is our experience of the goodness and beauty of creation, including of humanity made in the image of God that enables us to see the starkness of evil. It is human compassion, mercy, care for justice; it is human beings forgiving one another and being reconciled to one another that puts the existence of evil into sharp relief. As we grow as children of God made in the image of God, we increasingly recognize what we have lost of our humanity. We recognize something of the depth of evil in this age, and we long for a time when everything will be made right.

When Christians celebrate the resurrection to eternal life, they look, in part, beyond the present evil age to the age to come when we will know the fullness of our true humanity in God.

In this present age, we get a taste of this resurrection life. In Christ, we have the experience of dying and rising, dying to a false self and becoming alive to our true humanity in God. But we remain in a battle. We are up against “spiritual principalities and powers of darkness.” We are in a great struggle, and so we look forward to the day when the battle will be over and all things will be made right.

We stretch out for that day. We view what we are going through in this present age with a vision of the age to come when “God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”

St. Paul kept hold of this vision which sustained him in the midst of the evil of this age. He was able to face battles because he believed in the resurrection. Paul made it clear that this belief enabled him to put himself in danger. He was able to fight, in his words, “wild animals at Ephesus” where a crowd came against him. He was able to face the mob and jail and beatings because of the resurrection from the dead. He could freely face death because it was not the end.

When I think of movements toward justice, I think of those who have kept the future before them—a future with hope that makes present action possible. It is a vision of what could be, what ought to be, a vision of a world where justice reigns that sustains present action for change. The most expansive vision for such action is that of the age to come when everything will be made right.

In this present age, we journey into mystery toward that future age. St. Paul: “Look, I will tell you a mystery! …. We will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye…. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).”

There is no blueprint for this journey, for living out our days in this present age, but there is the leading and empowering of the Spirit. And there is the assurance of faith that there is an age to come when we will know fully what we now only know in part: We will know the fullness of the resurrection in the presence of God.

Filed under: Humanity, Spirituality, WitnessTagged with: ,

Jesus and Trans Persons

There has been a plethora of legislation crafted, or in the process of being crafted, by state legislatures across the country, that affects transgender persons and the people who love them. Generally, these laws being considered or already passed affect transgender children, their parents, doctors, and educators. They tend to make life more difficult for those directly affected. They further marginalize those already marginalized in our society.

There are many situations that do not need laws. There are many decisions that need to be left to those who are most affected—who live close to the issues. And there is this reality, also: There are many attitudes present in our society that will support oppressive laws.

Not all societies marginalize trans persons as ours has. There have been societies that have had very different attitudes toward transgender persons than our society. As I understand it, indigenous peoples of the Americas have historically simply recognized the gifts and special place of trans persons in their communities. Their recognition provides an alternative.

Laws motivated by fear, discomfort, and prejudice will end up being oppressive; they will further “disinherit” and put “people’s backs to the wall” (Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited). This is particularly true when politicians, concerned with maintaining power, tap into the fears and prejudices of others in order to gain standing for their next election.

As a follower of Jesus, I tend to ask, “What would Jesus do?” Where is Jesus on this matter of laws that further marginalize people? What do we learn from his life and teaching?

What is clear about Jesus is that he spent his time with the marginalized and outcasts—with the poor, the beggar along the road; the sick, the blind, the deaf, and the lame; with lepers who lived outside the community; with those experiencing mental breakdown. He spent time with those in need, the brokenhearted, and those who were bound. He brought healing and deliverance.

When he was invited to a religious leader’s house and noticed the kind of people who were invited, he said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind (Luke 14:12).” It is clear where Jesus’ heart was.

When a woman was about to be stoned for adultery in accordance with the law, Jesus did not join the religious leaders (all men) forming a circle around her. He joined the woman.

Jesus’ harshest words came against those with social standing who set themselves over others. Many are familiar with the beatitudes or blessings of Jesus, but not so familiar with Jesus’ “woes”:

“Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep (Luke 6:24-25).”

These words speak to those who have “made it” in society, who have position and influence, and who may also have leadership roles that directly affect the lives of others. Jesus calls all to turn from positioning themselves over others and oppressing others.

He calls his followers to lives of compassion and serving others. He calls us to enter into the lives of others. No more making decisions about others from a distance, decisions that continue to marginalize.

Do not further marginalize. Do not add to people’s experiences of being bullied. Enter, with compassion, into the lives of parents who are raising a child who experiences their gender as opposite to their biological sex. Listen to parents who demonstrate loving acceptance of their child and their child’s experience of themselves. Support them, and encourage teachers who are trying to provide a loving, welcoming space in their classrooms and schools.

Jesus is with the trans child and the trans adult. He comes to them with compassion and acceptance. Like every one of us, trans individuals must make their own decisions about their lives, take the steps they see to take. They will seek guidance from those who love them. They may seek God’s guidance as well.

At the heart of it all is this: we are to love others. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is open to the other person’s experience. Love listens.

Legislators, if you are not listening to trans persons or the parents of trans children, do not craft laws for them. Do not further burden them with your fear, discomfort, prejudice, or that of your constituents.

What is required of you as a human being is to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).” Justice does not add to the wrongs but makes right what is wrong. Mercy sees the burdens others are carrying and does not add to the burdens but lifts them. Therefore, walk humbly, listen, and be open to the experience of those who are being marginalized. They are in a better position to speak of their needs than those operating from fear, discomfort, and prejudice, or from a desire to maintain power.

Filed under: Compassion, Humanity, Justice, MercyTagged with: , ,

Politics Won’t Save Us

When traveling recently, I saw a very large sign that read, “Save America. Vote Republican.” I can imagine a similar sign from a Democrat.

I believe that politics matters and therefore who we vote for matters. When I consider who to vote for, I look for those who demonstrate some sense of social justice, mercy, and faithfulness. I have in mind the prophet Micah’s words about what God requires of human beings: “Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”

I expect that those who are committed to justice will have some understanding of what is unjust in our society, what government policies and actions are unjust, and what steps a government can take to address injustices. I also want people in government who demonstrate mercy and compassion, who are not entirely self-absorbed and out for personal power. As far as walking humbly with God, I will settle for a demonstration of some humility. I tend to avoid politicians who do a lot of God-talk.

Politics are important and I take voting and participation in the political process seriously. But I expect very little from politics when it comes to salvation. The unethical ways that political campaigns are run and the ways that many voters are manipulated by appeals to the worst in us do not indicate much in the way of a rescue from what is tearing us apart.

We have ways we talk about our torn selves and society. We use psychological terms (repression, suppression, denial, avoidance, wishful thinking, rationalization, anxiety, obsession, addiction, etc.) and sociological terms (systemic racism, ethnocentricity, discrimination, sexism, power structures, class conflict, etc.). But there is another term that, outside religious circles, gets little mention. And that is the word, “sin.” It points to the underlying spiritual condition of our fragmentation.

In the New Testament letters of Paul, “sin” is often used to refer to the underlying power that affects our lives. Indicative of this are various phrases he uses: “power of sin,” “enslaved to sin,” “freed from sin,” “captive to the law of sin,” “sin that dwells within,” living “under sin,” and not letting “sin reign.” With this language, Paul indicates that sin is at the root of all human brokenness. He, therefore, rejects the idea of listing various sins that we must then work on eliminating in order to better ourselves. Our problem goes much deeper than something we can simply work on.

The problem of sin is the problem of our alienation from the source and center of our being and identity. Ultimately, the change that is necessary is spiritual. All other solutions to this fundamental problem are simply ways of managing our emotional, mental, and physical brokenness so that we can, on some level, maintain relationships, employment, daily business, some semblance of “success,” and the ability to “carry on.”

That is why scriptures, in one form or another, call us to the recentering of our lives. Our deepest need is to be reconciled to God. And, given the depth of our problem, only God can do this. So, Paul writes, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to God’s self.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)

The Gospel of John points to an enlightening that must happen for us to begin to acknowledge the depth of our problem. We are told that the Spirit of truth comes to prove us wrong about sin (It is worse than we think). The Spirit brings us to a point where we acknowledge that our problem is something we are unable to manage. It is more than all our psychological and sociological descriptions and solutions.

Furthermore, the Spirit must prove us wrong about sin, “because we do not believe in [Christ].” (John 16:8-11) We do not believe in the need for God as our Rescuer. We think we can solve our problem. We do not need outside help. We do not need the work of reconciliation that God has accomplished for us in Christ Jesus. So, the Spirit comes to enlighten us.

When we find ourselves giving up on ourselves to fix our problem; when we come to recognize our radical need for help and begin to turn to God, our Liberator, it is the Spirit proving us wrong about the nature of our condition and drawing us toward the help we truly need. Spiritual change is on the way.

Filed under: Grace, Humanity, Spirit, TruthTagged with: , ,

Light In The Darkness

I have previously written about “The Coming Collapse” and the sowing of injustice that operates like a parasite eating its host. It reaps the death it sows.

The words from Psalm 10 express this reality: “In arrogance, the wicked persecute the poor—let them be caught in the schemes they have devised.” They are caught in what they have devised! They reap what they sow and do not see it coming. But how much will evil destroy before there is nothing left to destroy? In the face of evil, love must act, doing the work of justice and mercy.

It does not matter how we think about what we are sowing, the seeds we sow will determine what is produced. We can put a religious facade over our actions and deceive ourselves about our oppressive ways, but the outcome will reveal what we have sown. We reap what we sow, and we know the activity of both love and evil by their fruits. The one will produce justice, mercy, and life, the other oppression and death.

The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures often proclaimed a “word of the Lord” directed to what is being sown—to the evil sown—and what is about to be reaped. The reaping is seen as God’s judgment, but that judgment is also inherent to human actions. If we act against our true selves, as beings created in the image of God, we experience God’s judgment as the judgment of our false selves, our phantom selves that are being wasted away by evil.

It is possible to think of human history in this way—and our present time. Frederick Douglass recognized the destruction that slavery brought not only to those enslaved but to slave owners. Abraham Lincoln viewed the Civil War, which brought a greater loss of life than all other American wars combined, as the judgment of God inherent to the evil of slavery.

In our own time, we see democracy—which our nation has made so much of, whatever its form—being eaten away from within. A growing number of people would prefer autocracy if it were their autocracy, their hold over government, in order to maintain or achieve their positions over others. Many are afraid of equality in a multi-cultural nation. They are afraid of the voices they have sought to silence. In their actions, they end up silencing love and justice. They sow oppression and reap destruction, theirs and their nation’s.

With evil sown comes much hurt and breakdown and injustice. What we hear over and over again in the Hebrew prophets, the Psalms, and the New Testament is that God is with the broken: the poor, the needy, the outcasts, the imprisoned, those who are oppressed. God is their comforter, protector, and deliverer. If we want to be where God is, be with those experiencing oppression. Sit with those who hurt (It makes no difference, their class, ethnicity, gender identity, political party or any other way they may identify themselves). Be with those our former president called “losers.”

And also call out those who are oppressing others so that they may be warned of the coming judgment (the reaping) and turn back to their true humanity made in the image of God. Call them back to the love of God so that they may receive mercy and be changed. And then each of us must keep turning to God so that, in the words of the old Shaker hymn, “by turning, turning we come ’round right.”

God calls forth those who will be light in a world of oppression, who will do justice, love mercy, and operate with compassion. Such people may or may not have a set of “religious beliefs” but they will have the experience of real compassion which literally means to “suffer with” and which always comes from the God who is Love—as does all that is expressive of our true humanity, all that is real. Those who act with compassion will be witnesses to a humanity made in the image of God and will be light in the darkness.

Filed under: Compassion, Evil, Humanity, Justice, Racism, Suffering, WitnessTagged with: , ,

Where Is The Resurrected Life Found?

A reflection on Acts 10

Peter, a Jew, found it in a Roman soldier, who, as a soldier, represented the oppression of the Roman empire.

It took a vision and the leading of the Spirit to bring Peter to the point where he invited three Gentiles sent by a Roman centurion named Cornelius into his house and “gave them lodging.” And then went with them and entered into the home of Cornelius.

Peter shared with Cornelius the change he underwent: “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.”

The distance Peter traveled could hardly have been greater: He was in the house of a Gentile, a soldier (in Christ, Peter had become a man of peace) and a Roman who represented the occupying power of Rome. Because the distance was religious as well as political in nature, it was a longer way to travel than that of a progressive ideologue sitting down with a conservative ideologue.

What made it possible was a spirituality that recognized the humanity in all. Peter had his eyes openned by the power of the Spirit. He had died to the old way of seeing others and made alive to what God was doing in places where he had not expected to see the resurrected life. The new life that he had found was not far from anyone, if they would turn to receive it.

Peter shared with Cornelius and his household what he had come to see: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

Peter speaks of “what is right” as a sign of God’s work in a person’s life. He also refers to the fear of God. But here it is not a slavish fear of punishment, but rather fear understood as taking God seriously, having reverence. The “fear of God” in Cornelius was seen in his life of prayer and care for the poor. This was a man who was open to what Peter had to share concerning Jesus of Nazareth who “God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

Where is the resurrected life found?

It is found where love is practiced, where there is goodness and healing. Peter says nothing about what Cornelius believed but about what he did. The resurrected life is not, first of all, about beliefs or a particular Christian theology. It is about the lived life. Above all, it is about openness. One who thinks of themself as an atheist but is implicitly open to Incomprehensible Mystery and to our true humanity is closer to God than a Christian who has a well-worn Christian ideology, but whose heart is closed to others, particularly to others very different from themselves.

We have seen Christian ideologues operate by falsehood and manipulation, who live for power and are far from “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power” for “doing good and healing all who were oppressed.”

Resurrection to new life is open to all who will receive, wherever and whoever they are. It is not far away. As with the reign of God, new life is near.

Filed under: Grace, Humanity, SpiritualityTagged with: , ,

The Love of God and the End of War

My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine, to the children who are being traumatized and to their parents who are trying to protect them, comfort them, get them out of harms way, as they endure the shelling and bombing of their cities. Along with the rest of the world, I have watched the massive gathering of Russian troops and their entrance into Ukraine in an effort to bring Ukraine under the control of Vladimir Putin’s government. The blatant disregard for the will of the Ukrainian people, the bombing of their cities, the growing number of civilians killed, and the largest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II has focused the world’s attention and brought widespread condemnation.

I also feel for the situation of young Russian conscripts who thought they were involved in a military training exercise and would soon be back home, only to find themselves sent across the Ukrainian border into a war where their mission was to kill other human beings, many of whom had deep Russian ties. They were being treated as fodder for a war machine.

And then I think about this war in relation to the wider global reality of war. Our world is at war. Wikipedia names 5 current major wars in which there have been 10,000 or more combat-related deaths in the current or past year, 18 current wars with 1,000–9,999 combat-related deaths in the current or past year, 41 current minor conflicts (100–999 combat-related deaths in current or past year) and skirmishes (fewer than 100 deaths in current or past year).

Afghanistan has experienced 1,450,000–2,084,468 fatalities; Yemen, 377,000; Myanmar, 150,000–210,000; Tigray, 23,600–100,000; Ukraine (beginning in 2014), 13,300+.

We are a world at war. Nations go to war regularly. Autocracies go to war. Democracies go to war. Autocracies and democracies both do wars of aggression. Russia has gone into Ukraine on the pretense of addressing Nazism and genocide. The United States went to war in Iraq on the pretense of addressing weapons of mass destruction. Over 100,000 civilians were killed in Iraq. I felt for the children of Iraq the way I feel for the children of Ukraine. In the case of Iraq, children were being traumatized by American bombs. Whatever nation goes to war, the outcomes are the same: people killed, maimed, traumatized, and their support systems destroyed.

Furthermore, it is apparent that humanity sees little in the way of an alternative. The United States has been involved in war somewhere for most of its history. And a nation’s citizens generally support their nation’s wars, anti-war protests not withstanding. War has had a kind of inevitability attached to it. It is an extreme symptom of our spiritual condition: we are a humanity centered in upon itself rather than in God (who is Love), our true center.

If we have begun to experience a recentering of our lives in God, we must bear witness to what we have come to know which includes a growing spiritual understanding of why humanity chooses war. Given the human condition, war appears to be the only thing available for the people of Ukraine in their situation—and they take it up with courage and determination against great odds. Thomas Merton, in a journal entry for March 1, 1966, speaks to this. He writes these words at a time when the United States had over a 184,000 troops on the ground in Vietnam. He writes of his “sorrow at the fabulous confusion and violence of this world, which does not understand God’s love.” And then he states what he must do: “I am called not to interpret or condemn this misunderstanding, only to return the love which is the final and ultimate truth of everything, and which seeks all [humanity’s] awakening and response. Basically I need to grow in this faith and this realization, not only for myself but for all.”

It is the experience of God’s love that allows us to step out of the inevitability of war and of killing one another. This love encourages us to not “sign up” for war but rather witness in word and action to the spiritual reality of an unconditional love that Jesus says is capable of loving our enemy. Operating from this love means, in Jesus’ words, praying for those who persecute us and, when hit, rather than returning the same, turning the other cheek. But this love does not only mean not reacting to another’s aggression with the same kind of aggression; it also means confronting evil, confronting injustice. Jesus called out injustice. He was a “sign that was opposed.” His words and actions were subversive to the established order, and they brought about his execution. The unconditional love of God involves being willing to die for the sake of others.

We have seen this kind of action, at times, on an individual level, and we got a sense of this kind of action on a social level in the non-violent action of the civil rights movement. We do not expect it on a national level. There would have to be a massive spiritual awakening for that to happen. So, we do not spend time “condemning this misunderstanding” of how to respond to aggression, but rather witness to “the love which is the final and ultimate truth of everything.” Jesus said that he did not come into the world to condemn the world but to seek and to save the lost. In a world that condemns itself to war and death, those who have experienced the unconditional love of God must live more deeply in it and bear witness in word and action to that love so that, in Jesus words, we are a light in the world, a light that reveals the only alternative to war.

Filed under: Humanity, War, WitnessTagged with: ,

Trump, White America, and Our Humanity

After all that Donald Trump has done, all the misery he has caused, all the racism he has aroused, all the immigrant families he has destroyed, all the people who have left this life because of his mismanagement of a pandemic, still roughly half of the country voted to extend this horror show.

White people—both men and women—were the only group in which a majority voted for Trump. (Charles M. Blow)

I have thought of Donald Trump as a mirror by which we could see ourselves as a nation. After all, we had managed to put him into the office of the presidency. My hope was that, after four years of looking in the mirror, we would not like what we saw. I had not expected Trump to grow his base by several million voters. Apparently, many looked in the mirror, saw themselves, and liked what they saw.

Many, who have been the opposition to Trump, have been alarmed by the breaking of democratic and institutional norms, practices, and mores; the narcissistic, demeaning, dishonest, and immoral behavior; the utter lack of leadership and care for the real issues of our time. We have an incredibly self-absorbed human being heading our government. He is a mirror of self-absorption. In fact, Trump has mirrored our ability, as a people, to be absorbed with our most narrow interests, to see not far beyond our personal issues and those of people like us. When Trump has expressed grievances, prejudices, and fear of others different from us, we may have seen ourselves in the mirror. When Trump has demeaned those viewed as the opposition or “not us,” we may have seen ourselves, having craved their demeaning. If we have been a part of the opposition to Trump, we may have seen ourselves in the mirror of those who have demeaned Trump and his supporters.

It is apparent that we can look into a mirror that represents something of ourselves and be blind to the defacement that is present. We need a different mirror. We need the mirror of Christ, the mirror of our true humanity, a humanity turned outward to others, not merely looking out for its own interests. In Christ, we see compassion that recognizes the needs of others and reaches out with healing and liberation. We see mercy that enters into the lives of the “least” of the human family, those marginalized by our inhumanity towards others. In Christ, we see justice that works to make right what is wrong. In Christ, we see one who loses his life for the sake of the world. We need to look into the mirror of the humanity we see in Christ. This humanity—which is compassionate and merciful—is near, as near as God is to us, the God who is in all things. But we must turn from our false humanity to our true selves made in the image of God.

If we look into the mirror of Christ, the mirror of compassionate humanity, we will begin to see truthfully. We will see the disfigurement of our humanity by sin, the spiritual roots of our blindness. We will also see that neither Trump nor support for Trump is an aberration. As Jamille Bouie expresses it, “The line to Trump runs through the whole of American history.” Trump mirrors our history. Whatever our democratic ideals, ours is a history of the degradation and subjugation of people, of native Americans and people of African descent and others. Ours has been a history of White supremacy—what many have called our nation’s original sin. The majority of Whites voted for Trump. He represented them more than the alternative that at least expressed the desire to address racial disparities and injustices and to stop the mistreatment of children and families at our border. When we look into the mirror that is Trump, we see White supremacy. And White supremacy has supported him.

White evangelicals, who saw in Trump a protector of “Christian values” or, at the least, “religious freedom,” need to turn to Christ, who said that if we seek to secure our lives, we will lose them, but if we lose our lives for Christ’s sake, we will gain them. Only when we relinquish our lives to God will we be witnesses to Christ, rather than witnesses to our fears and self-absorption and White nationalist values that exist under a guise of “Christian values.”

Dear reader, if you are finding your true self in Christ, you know that you are called to be a witness to what is on the heart of God whose image you are. We are to be witnesses in a world plagued by inhumanity. We are to be witnesses before a false Christianity. We join with others who are discovering their true humanity. They may not call it Christ, but they are increasingly living from that humanity, and we recognize them by their compassion and share with them a common labor to do justice, love mercy, and live faithfully.

Filed under: Humanity, Justice, Racism, Society, WitnessTagged with: , ,