Choosing Life For Our Planet

I have visited Methuselah in the White Mountains of California, the oldest documented tree on earth. As Sarah Kaplan noted, “It was a sapling when the ancient Egyptians built their pyramids more than 4,500 years ago.” So, when I read Kaplan’s article concerning what is happening to bristlecone pines (hundreds are dead or dying in Death Valley National Park), I realized the dire warning they represent for the effects of climate change. Kaplan writes of the stress on trees all over the world. But bristlecone pines! They have survived so many crises over the thousands of years of their existence, and they have managed to flourish in the harshest of environments. And yet, they are now in danger of survival.

And Congress has been unable to pass urgent legislation that would only begin to address the extreme weather situation we are increasingly producing. We are in the midst of a mass extinction that is moving faster than any of the five previous mass extinctions our planet has undergone. We continue down a path of making our planet unlivable and show little awareness of what we are doing to ourselves and our earth home. And we do not have the leaders we need (although, they are the leaders we have chosen) for such a time as this.

We have individuals in positions of leadership whose narrow vision is defined by how they can retain personal power. Life on our planet is being destroyed, mass shootings are rising, divisions sap us of a common vision and power to bring about change, and we have leaders who spend time working people up over false issues. (For example, worrying White parents over their children learning the White-supremacist history of our nation.) These kinds of issues sidetrack others from the truly pressing matters of our time, like taking the necessary actions to truly care for our planet, its creatures, and ourselves.

I think of words from a time when Methuselah, the bristlecone pine, was still young, words from the book of Deuteronomy, where Yahweh, who brought the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, speaks:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.

This continues to be a message for us. We have before us life and death. We can choose. The word of the Creator is “Choose life!”

Can we see that anytime we do not choose to love; anytime we do not choose to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8), we choose death? Justice, mercy, and faithfulness are life-giving. They are life-giving for our planet because they move us into action to make right what is wrong and to do it with compassion.

Anytime we choose to be motivated by fear, prejudice, hate, or choose to disdain or condemn others (Jesus reminds us there is one judge and it is not us!), we choose death. It does not matter how much “religion” we wrap our choices in. These choices cut us off from others and from the needs of our earth home.

It is hard for me to imagine the kind of movement necessary for us truly to choose life, without a great spiritual awakening. Without a renewal of life in the spirit, life directed outward in openness, receptive to the Spirit of God, our decisions will be locked into our physical desires, our arrogance, and our rationalizations. We will be unable to see beyond our most immediate experienced needs and our self-absorption.

Gracious God, free us from our in-turned bondage, the bondage of our wills. Liberate us to love one another, to truly see the needs of others, including the needs of the creatures who share our earth home. Free us to see with compassion and to act. Amen.

Filed under: Climate Change, Compassion, Environment, SpiritualityTagged with:

Pro Life. Pro Choice.

I am pro life. I am pro choice.

(Dear reader, This is the longest post I have ever posted. My hope is that you read it to the end. Thanks.)

I am pro life. I am for life in the womb and out of the womb. I am for nourishing life in and out of the womb. I am for the health of mothers and their children and for women before they become mothers and whether or not they become mothers. I am for a society that cares about life, all life, and supports life with loving compassion.

I am pro life. Therefore, I am against death in our streets, schools, grocery stores, theaters, and for addressing underlying causes of these deaths. I am against capital punishment. I am against war. When my draft number came up during the Vietnam War, I sought a conscientious objector status and was grateful for a nation that allowed me to serve by doing alternate civilian service working with youth.

I am against the huge amounts of money spent on war preparation, funds that could be used to support life, humanitarian aid, learning the ways of peace, and operating justly in the world.

I am pro life. I am for the care of the other creatures who share our earth home. I am against the disregard for these creatures and the choices that lead to their extinction.

In almost all circumstances, my wife and I are not for choosing to end life in the womb. At what point that life becomes a human person, I do not know. I know that it is potentially a human person. The first speck of life on this planet was potentially human in the evolution of life. I think of what happens in the womb as something similar. I am quite simply for life, for being.

I am pro choice. I am for facing the choices before me and making a decision. Sometimes the choices can be very narrow. For example, whether it is time to enter hospice or not. Nothing can take the act of choosing from me. Even in prison, there are choices.

Of course, the kinds of choices I make are affected by the choices others make. Some people have a wider range of choices than others, and one person’s sphere of choices limits another’s. White supremacy, patriarchy, classism, etc. affect and limit the choices available to others. (And affects the choices of those caught up in White supremacy, patriarchy, classism, etc.)

Laws can narrow the choices. Laws and governing bodies historically have limited the choices for women and especially women of color. Men in power (White men), by the means of laws, have exerted control over women’s lives, and more so with women of color. Of course, laws can be defied. The civil rights movement is a powerful example of choosing to defy laws in order to bring about change.

Lawmakers make choices that affect our choices. They make choices from many different life experiences, motivations, attitudes, commitments, and agendas. They make just choices and unjust choices.

I have taken part in many actions and demonstrations over the years witnessing against unjust choices, laws that have brought about the mass incarceration of people of color, laws that have treated drug abuse as a crime rather than a health problem, laws that do not prevent banks from creating predatory loans, laws that diminish various human rights, etc. I have demonstrated against our nation’s wars. Still, our government has decided for one war after another and brought great suffering and loss of life across our globe.

Nevertheless, I view government and lawmakers as necessary and capable of doing good. Government is capable of providing laws that regulate health and safety, address environmental concerns, and respond to inequalities and injustices that are present, if it would.

But government is also very limited in providing help for our personal decisions and adds much to our confusion and breakdown. From a place of solemn silence, Thomas Merton viewed the governments of the world:

“It is necessary to be present alone at the resurrection of Day in solemn silence at which the sun appears, for at this moment all the affairs of cities, of governments, of war departments, are seen to be the bickering of mice.”

There are critical limits to what bickering mice can provide us in the way of help for our choices. The decision of the Supreme Court concerning Roe v. Wade now moves to Congress and to state governments where discourse often breaks down into power plays, disingenuous appeals to culture issues in order to hold onto power, grandstanding, dishonesty, and self-righteous moralism, ways of operating that are not conducive to decisions that encourage life and love. Lost are the experiences of real human beings who cannot simply be forced by law into a decision, particularly when there exists other pressures, circumstances, and life situations. Many women will still feel constrained by circumstances and life experiences to seek an abortion regardless of laws passed by legislators.

Like others, my wife and I have a faith stance and a view that gives form to our choices. Other people have their own stance and view, as well as circumstances—often of an intense and complicated nature—that give form to their choices. We make decisions based on what we see and others do the same. We each must make our own decisions without judging the other. Adding the power of government (the bickering mice) to decide for women only complicates and aggravates the choice they have to make for themselves.

As it is, the issue of abortion is complicated by a culture that makes much of individual choice and little of life—a problem for those on the right and the left. They each have their favored freedoms and rights. And they each have their varying attitudes toward life.

Many in the pro-life movement support war and capital punishment and tend to minimize society’s responsibility for equitable sources of nurture, health care, and resources that support life. While making much of personal responsibility, many do not exercise responsibility for changing the societal context of people’s circumstances and decisions. The pro-life movement undermines its message by its anti-life stances in relation to life outside the womb.

Many in the pro-choice movement undermine their message when they diminish the significance of the choice. Simply having a choice (a right) is not the fundamental issue (although, when we do not have the right, it certainly moves to the forefront). It is what we decide in every situation that is critical, whether the available choices are many or few or very hard.

With every exercise of a right, with every choice we make among the choices available, we are deciding about ourselves and what we are becoming. We are deciding what kind of a society we, along with others, are building. We cannot escape making choices about life in one way or another.

We decide to love or not to love and how we are to love others and how to love ourselves, at times in the midst of great trials. We decide whether or not to undergo struggle or suffering in order to lovingly serve others. We decide for life and wholeness or decide to find a way out of making the hard choices (the life-changing choices) that life and wholeness require. And we often make choices based on what we think we are capable of, not realizing that with God we are capable of far more.

But the cultural reality is this: In a society that accepts some laws almost unanimously (laws against murder and theft), a majority of Americans see a place for abortion, at least within limits. This fact (among other issues, including suggestions above) tells me that, with abortion, we enter an area where laws are incapable of addressing this issue. In the end, each of us must make our own decisions; we must each engage questions of right and wrong and the ways of love and life.

We all have many ethical choices to make without norms set by civil law. This appears to be one of those kinds of choices. Like most choices this one has to be left to individuals to make in times of “solemn silence” and in consultation with their doctor, their families, and those they choose to go to for guidance.

Furthermore, as a society, we can address some of the underlying reasons women have for choosing abortion. For example, we can ensure that all have a living wage—a wage that can support a family. We can ensure that child care and health care are available to all equitably. We can also provide, at the least, a thoughtful “comprehensive sex education” for youth (who are bombarded by sex through various mediums of communication and often left without guidance). Faith communities can offer a holistic spirituality that provides a foundation for healthy decisions and healthy relationships as well as providing a community of support.

Finally, those of us who are pro life must be more persuasive, not by our talk, but by the lives we live, by our compassionate care for all life: for the weak and the vulnerable and the dependent (which is all of us). And by doing justice, loving mercy, and living faithfully. We may find that what the law cannot do, a change in our culture can.

Filed under: Decision, Justice, SocietyTagged with: , , ,

How to Pray for Lying Leaders

One of the things I love about the Bible is its humanity, its expressions of a wide range of human experience—the good, the bad, the ugly, and the sublime. This diversity of expression is true of the Psalms, a book of prayers and songs. The Psalms express our fears and joys, despair and depression, sin and guilt, grace and mercy, rescue and deliverance, gratitude and praise to God.

There are psalms that express deep suffering at the hands of others. The praying person cries out for deliverance from enemies and often calls God to bring judgment down upon their oppressors. Sometimes their prayer includes specific suggestions on how God should act. Some of these suggestions, I cannot imagine praying. But these prayers come from experiences of brutal oppression. And God hears our prayers, our deep suffering. But God does not necessarily do what we ask.

Still, we need to pray out what we are feeling. I had a member of my congregation share with me his anger toward God for his wife’s debilitating illness. His anger kept him from praying. He had been told that he was not to question God. I pointed to a psalm where the person praying was definitely questioning God. This member of my congregation could go to God and share freely how he felt toward God; it was not as if God did not know. And God was certainly “big enough” to take his anger, which was not so true with the people in his life.

Which brings me to Psalm 59, a prayer for deliverance from enemies. I do not feel free to pray for every manner of God’s wrath that the psalmist calls down on his enemies. But I can pray this:

“Make them totter by your power and bring them down,
O Lord, our shield.
For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips,
let them be trapped in their pride.
For the cursing and lies that they utter.”

How do we pray when our petitions concern leaders and people of influence who lie, distort, and put out all manner of disinformation, who, in their pride and arrogance, show no compunction about leading people astray, who prey upon people’s weaknesses and self-absorption, their fears, prejudices, grievances, misplaced anger, and gullibility? How do we pray for leaders who bow down to and serve the god of personal power?

While many people are concerned with the undermining of democratic institutions (I have this concern as well, along with the undemocratic aspects of our institutions.), my main concern has to do with our basic humanity. After all, our democratic institutions allowed “we the people” to put Donald Trump into the office of president. The deeper issue is the way those in positions of leadership lead us further into our self-deceit and further away from our humanity created in the image of God.

All the lies and distortions ultimately take us away from living out our essential humanity as expressed by the prophet Micah: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?”

Lying leaders and influencers lead others away from their true humanity. They beguile people away from doing justice, loving mercy, and living faithfully. Which means that we, as a nation, are being led deeper into injustice, hatred, the despising of others, division, and violence.

So, how to pray when lying leaders refuse to change, refuse to repent. Considering St. Paul’s words about reaping what we sow and pride going before the fall, pray for the reaping and the fall that is coming:

“Make them totter by your power and bring them down. For the sin of their mouths, the cursing and lies that they utter, let them be trapped in their pride.” Amen.

Filed under: Justice, Leadership, PrayerTagged with: , ,

A Spirituality for Ending Gun Violence

You do not need guns. It is possible to live without them. And yet you are very possessive of your guns. You feel that you cannot give them up. But that is an addiction, a false dependency. As an addiction, it looms large in your life. It constrains you to give yourself reasons why guns are necessary and to fight for your right to own the guns of your choice. But you do not need guns; you need a Higher Power.

We can live without the second amendment. Other nations do. It has not made us a better or more exceptional nation because we have it. We can live without it; we cannot live without Love.

Our children can grow and flourish without guns and without violent video games and entertainment; they cannot grow and flourish without Compassionate Love.

Weapons of war will never secure us. They have only added to our insecurity, whereas, the One in whose image we are created holds our lives together, even in the midst of trial and tribulation. Rooted in God, our true center, we find that, rather than live in fear of others, we can enter into the suffering of others in order to serve them in love—even in the face of death.

By the love of God, we can grieve with those who grieve. We can grieve in a way that is true to grief, to the way the Spirit of God grieves. We can grieve with compassion that engages others, not with platitudes, but with repentance and change that moves toward healing.

Love constrains us to act. It will have us act in concrete ways that align with true needs. Love does not pit one addiction against another. Love does not pit one kind of politics against another, one ideology against another, one set of beliefs against another. Love responds to the needs present in a way that is timely and real.

With the love of God, we are freed from trying to force others to conform to our way of thinking (or to our addictions). As St. Paul says, “Love does not insist on its own way.” Love does not have us fighting others over beliefs and values as if they too were addictions that we cannot live without. Rather, love will simply direct us to the actual needs of the moment and will have us work for true life-giving change.

The change we desire for our nation, the end of the stream of mass shootings, will make little progress without the relinquishing of our addictions, our political tribalism, and our insistence on having our own way—surrendering these (and ourselves) to the God who is Love. Let love act! Do what love directs us to do!

Filed under: Healing, Love, SocietyTagged with: , ,

A Young Man and His Nation

My heart goes out to the families and the community grieving the loss of 10 African Americans murdered in Buffalo by a young White man, murdered by White supremacy. I also feel the deep brokenness of a nation in which such violence is fomented and released—and of which I am a part.

The 18-year-old White man who walked into a grocery store with the intention of killing Black people operated from both an inner and outer landscape to his life. Within himself, he made choices that allowed hate to take root, and he decided to act on what he had received into his life. But there was also an outer landscape to his life, a breeding ground for what entered into him and eventually took over his life and took the lives of others.

It is this outer landscape that we are all responsible for: our decisions, our actions, what we say and do deposit love or hate into the world. Justice or injustice, mercy or judgementalism, compassion or complacency, trust or fear are woven into the fabric of our society by our choices and actions.

Our news sources and social media bubbles, our indifference, and our choosing escapism over participation in the struggle for justice rob our society of the compassionate change it so desperately needs. Our ignorance, our ignoring of what love would have us pay attention to, contribute to a landscape devoid of true knowledge and love (they go together).

We allow White supremacy to remain and grow. We, who are White, when we refuse to acknowledge our supremacist history and attitudes and the “privileges” racism has given us, contribute to the landscape of our society what we have hidden from ourselves. When we allow our fears and prejudices to choose our leaders, we add to the fertile ground for hate and violence.

Because there is a receptivity to the idea, politicians are able to spout a “replacement theory” (the idea that people of color are going to replace White people). This idea is part of the landscape and breeding ground for division and hate. The truth is that there is one human race, one human family made up of a beautiful diversity, and yet, we can choose a lie and choose division and choose leaders who feed us the lie and division.

We are tempted by both the inner and outer landscapes of our lives. (St. Paul writes of the temptations of the flesh and the world.) Consequently, spiritual discernment and true self-awareness are necessary for real change. The terror, pain, and death unleashed in the grocery store in Buffalo come not only from the actions of one young man. They also are the outcome of years of White supremacy felt, thought, lived out, allowed, reinforced, and also expressed in the leaders Americans choose.

Jesus says, “Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.” Every society bears fruit. The fruit that is borne tells us something about our society and ourselves: the good and the bad.

A major theme in the New Testament is one of dying. We must die to a false self and falsehood and the loss of love. So Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.” The fruit that Jesus has in mind is the fruit of justice and compassion which bring healing and liberation. We have much to die to, much to turn away from that is destroying us.

Filed under: Justice, Racism, SocietyTagged 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: ,

Those of us who are White need Black history.

My White children grew up in a Black neighborhood and Black church. They went to Black schools where they sang the Black national anthemn and learned Black history. This experience deeply enriched their lives and expanded their knowledge and understanding. Above all, it gave them a truer view of American history than they would have received in many other places. I would like something of their experience for all children.

It is deeply troubling to see the current White backlash to teaching children the realities of American history—the good, the bad, and the ugly. This determination to keep the truth from our children, will only hurt and stunt their lives and close them off from others whose experience is different from their own.

In a speech last year, Richard Corcoran, the Florida education commissioner said, “I’ve censored or fired or terminated numerous teachers. There was an entire classroom memorialized to Black Lives Matter and we made sure she was terminated.” (Washington Post) And this action helps our children?

Many states have introduced new laws on how history and current events are taught. It is clear that the impetus for these laws is a fear of students receiving viewpoints of American history other than that of a White view. Without history seen through the lens of the Black experience and that of Indigenous peoples and others, we are left with a skewed and White supremicist view—a view that makes the White experience and perspective the norm: Our revolution, the constitution we created, the leaders and presidents we put in place, and the laws and policies we instituted. We then operate as if the only history is the one we tell ourselves.

The history of this nation as experienced by African Americans is very different from those of us who are of European descent. We need Black history—as well as the history of Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans without which we do not have American history.

We especially need to receive from those who have experienced oppression, the “underside of history.” We love stories of “our” heroes. We need the stories of those victimized by our heroes; we need their struggles, their overcoming of oppression, and their leadership in movements for change. We simply need reality. Our children need truth. It will set them and our nation free.

I look at this issue as a follower of Jesus who sends me out to all. I need to hear from the experience of those Jesus sends me to. My family and I need others; we need the views of others—those whose experience is very different from ours. We do not need to remain in a White bubble or a particular class bubble. We do not need to remain in our “comfort zones”—nor do our children.

We do not need to be afraid of the truth, including the truth about ourselves, our brokenness, our nation’s history, and our complicity in the racism of our nation. With God who is Truth Itself, there is forgiveness and healing and liberation.

Filed under: Justice, Liberation, Racism, TruthTagged with: , ,

Martin Luther King On Spiritual Blindness

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

These words of Rev. King are from a sermon entitled, “Love In Action,” in his book, Strength To Love. This sermon has for its text the words of Jesus from the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” The quote above comes from King’s reflection on the last part of Jesus’ words: “They know not what they do.”

For King the reality of these words—“they know not what they do”—runs through all of human history. Wars, slavery, and Jim Crow were “perpetuated by sincere though spiritually ignorant persons.” Therefore, “sincerity and conscientiousness in themselves are not enough.” We can be sincere and conscientious about all the wrong things. King lifts up the Apostle Paul’s words concerning those who “have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened.” So, it has been with a White nationalist Christianity.

King is pointing to the problem of spiritual blindness. He speaks of “head and heart—intelligence and goodness.” King calls us to an intelligence that is spiritual in nature. (I think of Jesus calling upon his followers to “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”) King makes clear that what he means by intelligence does not come merely by formal education:

I know many people of limited formal training who have amazing intelligence and foresight. The call for intelligence is a call for openmindedness, sound judgment, and love for truth. It is a call for [people] to rise above the stagnation of closedmindedness and the paralysis of gullibility. One does not need to be a profound scholar to be openminded, nor a keen academician to engage in an assiduous pursuit for truth.

King reminds us of words from the Gospel of John:

“This is the condemnation,” says John, “that light is come into the world, and [people] loved darkness rather than light.”

The point is this: The “sincere” embrace of what amounts to false values, ideologies, and commitments keeps us from the truth and in the darkness. If we refuse to acknowledge the false thinking that we have used in order to secure us from addressing our fears and insecurities, and to secure us in our prejudices, we will remain closed. We must relinquish our false ways and false thinking—false to our true humanity, false to love toward others. We must let go of what we are guarding in order to be open to the truth. We must be committed to the truth no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. We must stay committed until the truth sets us free. We must let the truth break the bondage of our fabrications about ourselves, our nation, and its history.

This is a word for our time. King speaks of “gullibility.” We have massive gullibility. When politicians and corporations so easily hook into our passions, prejudices, fears, insecurities, and self-absorption, we end up directed away from our true needs and the needs of our life together as a nation. We devolve into ever deepening divisions. The way out is for individuals to become aware of why they make the decisions they make and contrive the rationalizations they give for their decisions. We must each turn from what is false and take actions directed to what is real. As we read in the Gospel of John, “Those who do what is true come to the light.”

Filed under: Justice, Spirituality, Truth

Christmas Reflections 2021

Jesus came into the same world we live in, with the same pressures and fears and brokenness. He was born in an occupied land, a province of the Roman empire. Like us, the nation in which he was born was occupied by oppression, injustice, and violence. He was born as an outcast. There was no room for him in the inn.

We who have come to know Jesus, who have become his followers and have a taste of God’s reign, are not surprised by how the Messiah and Savior came into the world, how he came to us vulnerable as an infant born in a stable. Everything about his birth points to his life as a whole. He came to outcasts, to the poor, the broken, the sick, the leper, the deaf, and the blind. He came to those that the self-righteous put on their list of sinners. He did not come to condemn people, but to seek and to save the lost.

If we have experienced God’s grace through Messiah Jesus, if we who were lost are now found, we know this is the way God is. We are not surprised that the Savior’s birth is announced to shepherds in the field, rather than to those in positions of wealth and power or to religious leaders who make much of their righteousness and talk down to others.

Shepherds were among those at the bottom rung of society and as far as the religious leaders were concerned, they were ritually unclean. The announcement of the Savior’s birth is made to them. Is not this the way it is with God our Rescuer? God proclaims good news to those who have been marginalized. Our Liberator comes to us in our brokenness and need.

Shepherds in the field “keeping watch over their flock by night” are told that “this will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” The sign that this child is the liberator the world needs is that he is wrapped in rags and lies in an animal trough. And this is good news for us!

God our Savior, who comes to us in Jesus, comes where we are, in our low places, when things have gone wrong, when there is no room for us, when everything has broken down. In fact, when we are at our most vulnerable, most broken, we know, right then and there, that rescue and liberation is present for us.

Of course, when we are full of ourselves and thinking we have it together pursuing life on our own terms, our salvation is still near, but we hardly know it or experience it—until we are knocked off our high horse and perhaps blinded like Paul on the road to Damascus. He went from being full of himself and his self-appointed mission to being vulnerable, broken, and open. At that point he started to let God his Liberator direct his steps, and his mission completely changed.

Jesus described this spiritual reality. He said, “The humble are exalted and the exalted are humbled”—which is good news for both the humble and the exalted. The Savior meets us where we are. God will bring us down from our high horse in order to get us to a place where we will receive what God gives. And when we have hit rock bottom, God will raise us up. Either way it is grace. God’s grace is sufficient in every situation and time of need.

Because God has come to be with us in Christ Jesus, we are finding that we can rejoice in all circumstances. God our saviour is near, whatever we face. With the shepherds on that first Christmas eve, we join “a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!'”

Filed under: Grace, Mercy, Society