the harder we try

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“Just keep your eyes on Jesus”

They say

“Be BOLD Christians”

They implore

 

God has this

God has your back

God will take care of you

 

Trust and Obey and it will be OK!

 

All those aphorisms that are true

Not True

 

I personally think it makes a difference to believe

That God is

That God is love

That God is woven into the fabric of the universe,

The planet

 

That God is somehow present in me

The secret of joy, hope, peace, and love

 

But what does it mean to live that out?

Cause damn!

 

There are those people who say that Jesus saves

but live as if they have to save Jesus

 

Who insist that if they don’t put God back

In the schools

The government

The bedroom

 

The world will be Godless.

And we’ll all go to hell.

 

(they could write a song about that – when we all get to hell…..)

 

Who insist they must set up a bunch of laws

Elect a bunch of control freaks into office

Grab all the power and wealth,

 

and then control, coerce, and punish people into obedience

so as to create a “Christian Nation”

 

Oddly, the harder they try to create a Christian Nation

the less like the Kingdom of God that nation seems

 

I appreciate the zeal of the overachievers

I just wish they would take a Xanax

 

There are also those who spend all of their time

Trying to connect with the Sacred

They pore over the Bible

And fill their head with words they arrange

 

To fit their preconceived notion of God

 

They pray and worship

And look to the heavens,

Trying to “see” Jesus

 

Maybe I have it wrong.

But I think Jesus told us.

That if we want to see God,

All we have to do is look at flowers

And children

 

All we have to do is look in the face of every person we meet

(Hi Jesus)

In the face of the homeless man,

The immigrant

The person living in poverty

 

All we have to do is look in the mirror.

 

I think Jesus said that being a bold follower

Is not about beating people over the head with our Bibles

Or oppressing and suppressing people in the name of faith

Or conquering and subduing

(or eradicating an entire civilization with our missiles)

 

But about trusting God enough

To share what we have with those around us

To welcome those who are different from us

To listen to those we disagree with

 

To see every person we meet as a child of God

As full of the Sacred as we are

As loved by God as we are

 

Maybe I have it wrong.

I probably do

But I’ll keep on keeping on

Trying not to tire of doing good

 

I’ll keep looking in the mirror

And trying to see Jesus in this face.

 

And I’ll keep working to act justly, to love mercy,

and to walk humbly with my God

 

Love is messy

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Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is not about maintaining the status quo. “Bad” people didn’t kill Jesus; conventional wisdom crucified him. Jesus taught an alternative way of being instead of the maintenance of the social order. When we can weep, when we can identify with the humble ones, when we can make peace, when we can be persecuted and still be joyful—then we are doing it right. The Beatitudes are describing what holiness looks like in the kingdom of God.

          Richard Rohr   Daily Meditations 7/16/2026

_________________

 

Who are the “bad” ones?

It is interesting that it wasn’t the radical left

That killed Jesus

 

It was the conservatives.

The ones determined to preserve the status quo

The law-and-order folk

 

Make Israel Great Again

Make Israel a Holy Nation!

 

There was no room in that time, in that place

For a radical

Not even one whose message was radical love

Especially not one whose message was radical love

 

Radical love is messy.

It is inconvenient

Maybe even risky

 

Love the lepers?

Love the Romans?

Love the Tax Collectors, and the women of ill repute

The poor?

Love the “lazy moochers?”

The women?

 

That is not good for the bottom line

That is not how you amass power

 

Love often meets resistance from power.

It should be expected, really.

 

And the question is, what do we do

When we try to love

When we try to resist injustice and inequity

And the system resists us!

 

We can get angry

We can feel offended

We can respond in kind

With name-calling, harshness, personal attacks

 

I do

All too often

 

And we should resist!

There is no question about that

Paul didn’t say, “be an observer.  Look at evil from a distance”

Paul said, “overcome evil with good”

 

So we have to stay in the mix

But we have to stay in the middle of the hate

Chaos and conflict

 

As people who feel deeply

Care deeply

Act compassionately

But keep our joy

 

When we are resentful, retributive

When we see ourselves as victims

When we carry a sense of affront

 

Our resistance turns into something other.

Than resistance. 

We become

Part of the problem

 

I am not sure I can do it

But I am sure I am called

To be joyful

always

Becoming what we despise

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You will always become the thing you fight the most.

          Carl Jung

 

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

          Friedrich Nietzche

 

We become what we hate. The very act of hating something draws us to us. Since our hate is usually a direct response to evil done to us, our hate almost invariably causes us to respond in the terms already laid down by the enemy.

          Walter Wink

________________________________

 

I made a mistake today

I make mistakes most days, I fear

But this was one that struck home

 

I became what I detest

I read a comment (wrong)

And responded vindictively

 

You hypocrite, I wrote

I should have been looking in the mirror

 

This is the thing about fighting people like Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and Stephen Miller.  It becomes too easy to become what we despise

 

It is a Catch-22

We must call out evil

But when we engage with evil, it gains power over us

We can pretend it doesn’t

But it does

 

I don’t know how Jesus did it

He got angry

At those who hurt others

As for those who hurt him?

He forgave, he blessed

He did exactly what he taught his followers to do

Bless and do not curse

Love your enemies and pray for them

 

I believe we must resist evil

I know that racism and prejudice against my LGBTQI+ friends is wrong

I know that what ICE is doing is not OK

I know that it is not acceptable to lie and steal

And that sexually preying on children is wrong

 

And I know that somehow we must resist

But how?

How do we fight monsters without becoming monsters

 

I don’t know

I do know that it is important to

Stop

Breathe

Then think

 

It is important to seek to understand

To listen

 

That we must make sure we have it right!

 

I do know we must start with humility

And lead with love

 

And I know we have to ask for help!

Come, Holy Spirit, come