Me too

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Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

Judging a person does not define who they are. It defines who you are

Kristen Stewart

 

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

Mother Teresa

 

Before pointing fingers make sure your hands are clean.

Bob Marley

________________________________________

 

Sitting in a box

With thousands of precious souls

 

Seeking discernment and direction

For a flawed church

A church blessed and cursed with human creatures

 

I am gathered with people who love God

And embrace God’s way

But still manage to make a mess of things, as often as not

 

Who love each other,

Or at least try to

Wildly and imperfectly

 

We do not all agree

We are not all alike

 

There is every color of the rainbow here

Varying theologies

A full spectrum of genders (and yes, there is a spectrum)

 

There are liberals and conservatives

Farmers and bankers

Urbanites and people from towns so small

You’d miss them if you blinked

 

All seeking to hear

All desiring to be guided by the Sacred

All wanting to be the church,

 

The feet, the arms, the hands

Even the voice of Jesus

Now

 

But we struggle

 

Our problem is that we are convinced

Of our rightness

 

That we have a right view of Jesus

Salvation

Ministry

Gender

All of it

 

My understanding (we say to ourselves)

Is right!

 

Maybe

Maybe not

 

And we don’t know what to do

With those we think are not right

Whose views differ from ours

 

Because in our rightness

They are wrong

Dead wrong

 

And so we judge this person or that

For this stance or that

Because

 

We are right, and they are wrong

And meanwhile, they return the favor

 

So there we are

Divided

Judging (yes, we are)

 

As I sit in the middle of all this

Feeling more righteous at times than I should

 

Two thoughts come to me

 

I have to step away from my rightness

Because even if I am right and in some ways

It is likely I am not right in others

 

I need humility

I need to embrace unknowing

 

I might be wrong

 

I also need to leave space for grace

I am not sure how else to put it

 

But that person, who believes so differently from me

Got there by their own path

 

Would I be different if I had walked that path?

How would I believe if shaped by the parents, teachers, pastors, and life events that person has been shaped by?

 

Can I, even if I still strongly disagree, seek to understand

Seek to find a place of grace from which to

See that other

Who is, after all, as much a child of God as I

 

I am aware it is complicated

What do we do with belief and people who harm?

Who reject, exclude, and diminish?

 

I know I must stand for what I believe is right

And stand up for those who are minimized and oppressed

 

But how do I keep that

Awareness

Of my own fragility

Of the ways in which I, too, am “not right”

 

That keeps me humble and open

Full of love and compassion

 

It is going to be a long week

#GA227

 

Better or bitter

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All I am now going through

Will make me better or bitter,

Break down or break through

Learning this patience – it takes so much patience

It’s a great education

But why is the tuition so High?

Why God, why?

          Brian McLaren – Naked Spirituality

_____________________________________________

 

 

I watch as people like "Dr" Oz and RFJ Jr. spew inaccuracies.  While people like MarkWayne and Mr Mortgage Guy take over critical services they know nothing about.  I listen to tRump and JD and Rubio lie.  I suffer while Huckabee spews Zionist nonsense.  I read the comments of the MAGA faithful as they talk about "true American culture" (white, European-based) and about immigrant "trash."

 

I see America kill kids by shooting missiles at them, or denying them healthcare and food via funding (USAID).  I see us support genocide and apartheid.

 

I watch us dismantle systems that reveal the truth about what we are doing to the planet, like the Oceanic Observatories Initiative, to save 48 million a year, while we spend a billion a day blowing up things in Iraq (and losing).

 

I see our current government destroy the agencies that serve people while bankrolling the agencies that control and abuse people. 

 

I see all the ugliness that permeates our country from the top (Trump) to the bottom (the MAGA faithful on FB, Threads, and Truth Social).

 

And I hate it.

 

Brian McClaren talks about the fact that sometimes we end up in what he calls the “season of perplexity.”  Times when there is “no winning.  There are no solutions, answers, or consolations in sight…”

 

This may be such a time.

The words for perplexity are when, no, and why

 

When will it end?

No, this is not right!  No.  You should not allow this to happen, O Sacred One.  No, this person should not flourish.  What the…..

 

Sometimes we pray with Meister Eckhart, “God save me from god.”

 

Why?  I do not understand.  OK, perhaps I understand that some of these people who are causing this are those who, in order to gain the world, have lost their souls, who are no longer who they were created to be: people, children of God, creatures reflecting God’s image.  Trump.  JD Vance.  Lutnick.  Musk. So many of the MAGA leadership.  They know what they are doing is wrong.  They don’t care (IMHO).

 

There are those who have just been seduced by power and wealth and are being used by the evil ones.  Poor MarkWayne.  He doesn’t have a clue (IMHO, it's all just how I see it).

 

There are those who may actually believe the garbage they are spewing.  RFK Jr., maybe.

 

There are those who are misled, misinformed, ignorant, programmed, acculturated.  All those White Nationalist Christians programmed by intense White Nationalist preachers who have left the Gospel of Jesus far, far behind.  Those who watch FOX, and OAN, and all the others.

 

There are those who for whatever reason, perhaps fear, choose to see what they want to see.  That the butt naked Emperor has clothes, that Trump is strong, sane, mentally with it, effective, and the greatest President ever, like never before.

 

All I know is that it sucks the life out of me.  The joy out of everything.

 

I am tired of “no”

I want to get back to “yes”

 

I want to be in that place where, in the midst of the fury, doubt and feelings of abandonment, I sense that God is, and reach the point where even in the midst of it all,

I catch glimpses of sacred, of love

 

And so this morning, and every morning, I say the words from a 15^th century prayer book.

 

God be in my head, and in my understanding;

God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;

God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;

God be in my heart, and in my thinking;

God be at mine end, and at my departing.

 

God, be

 

 

 

Just out of reach

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I cannot reach up

Or rather I can, just not very well

And when I have stretched my arm as far as it will go

I can’t do anything with it

At all

 

That repaired supraspinatus

Just can’t bear the weight

 

And so I am left

Looking at that object on the shelf

And cursing

 

Then I ask for help

 

I hate it

Having to ask for help

Not being able to make that reach upward

Myself

 

Please

I’d rather do it myself!!

 

But that is the thing

I can’t

I can’t reach that file box, high in the closet

I need help

I can’t be the person God would love for me to be

I need help

 

Not just the help of the Holy Spirit

Although that, for sure

But the help of others

The encouragers

The ones who hold me accountable

The ones who have gifts I don’t have

 

Which is why I still believe in the church

Even though it is tainted

Even though, instead of being a servant church

It seeks power and wealth

 

Even though it can be dysfunctional

Fragmented

Judgmental

Exclusive

And self-absorbed

 

Because we need each other

 

And if we don’t do this faith thing together

Seeking (in the power of the Holy Spirit)

To be the presence of the Sacred

The hands, feet and voice of Jesus

In this world

Together

 

We will find so much

That is good

That is powerful

That is love

 

Just out of reach

 

Living "yes"

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I love the story of Jesus and Peter

Back at the lake

Besties who have had a falling out

Putting the relationship back together again, again

 

Peter, do you love me?!

You know I do?

Then tend my sheep, feed my sheep

Do you love me? Then

 

A trifecta of love and commitment

 

But that is not the end of the story.

 

Follow me

Jesus said

Follow me into the way of costly love

Follow me into this messy, ugly world

With it emperors and emperor-wannabes

With its inequity and injustice

Its fear and hate

 

And there

Tend my sheep, feed my lambs.

 

It will cost you everything.

Even your life

 

Peter did not say “yes.”

He said, “Look over there.”

“What about him?”

 

How often, Lord, do we want to

Pass the pain along.

Pass the cost along.

 

We don’t want to share the wealth

So we cut funding for the poor

And deport the immigrants

 

We don’t want to be uncomfortable.

So we demonize people who are trans.

 

Peter eventually lived “yes.”

He did follow

He did let go of things dear to him

He did give up his life

 

But it wasn’t easy

And it is not easy for us either.

 

So, help us, Lord

May our “yes” be “yes.”

May we worry most about the person in the mirror

May we be able to live into costly love

 

For we love you

 

 

 

   

 

 

The Path Jesus Chose

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It is easy to get hooked into talking about the evil I see happening around me

It feels important to point it out.  After all, we have a huge number of people who have decided to trust people who lie and twist the facts, who push hate in the name of supremacy (and even Jesus), and who carefully nurture fear.

 

We have a government that is extremist, controlling, and determined to grab all the money and power it can, no matter what the cost is to truth, freedom, compassion, and love.

 

And there is a side of me that wants to call out what I see as violating God. 

And there is a lot of that.  A frightening amount.

 

But I keep remembering that Jesus chose the path to the cross.

The path of love and non-violence.  And while he called people out, mostly those who were being oppressive in the name of God, he did not, for the most part, attack.

 

Instead he loved.  The dialogued.  He provided an alternative way of thinking, seeing, and yes, living. 

 

Paul picked up on this when he said, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  A high calling.  I feel that all too often I am indeed overcome by the evil that flows like a never-ending stream.  And I respond in kind.

 

So how do we fight evil?  Perhaps we fight it by constantly putting out there what it looks like not to be evil.  What does it look like to be good?

 

To me, we have to be for those things that value each human being as a child of God

We have to be for those things that give all people a chance to live out their full potential.

We have to be for those things, then, that create equity, equality, justice, and people.

We have to be for those things that comfort the afflicted and set the prisoner free.

 

Being for those things is not always safe

It is not always beneficial to us.  Sometimes there is a cost.

But no cost we can pay would be higher than the cost paid by Jesus.

“No greater love is there than this, than to lay down one's life for one's friends.

 

And so we are called to love those around us, our neighbors

And who is our neighbor (remember the parable of the Good Samaritan)

 

Everyone

 

So I have to be for the immigrant.  The person born LGBTQI+.  The person who is poor, mentally ill, and aged.  To those who are vulnerable in any way.  I even have to be for those who have been programmed to believe that might makes right, and the one who dies with the most money wins.

 

So how does this work?

When I read that the administration that is has decided to dismantle all programs that monitor climate change, I have to respond by reminding people that creation is sacred.   It is the incarnation of Sacred, and that by encouraging people to support anything that protects our planet.

 

When a choice is made to arrest immigrants and put them in concentration camps, I have to keep bringing up the command of God to welcome the stranger.

 

I need to know WHY I am against what ICE is doing, and why I am against us supporting wars, and why I am against racism, and why I am against cutting programs that help the vulnerable.  I am against those things because they are a violation of the Sacred.

 

They are against the way God showed us in Jesus.

 

The trick is to do that by advocating for good, fighting for good, without slipping into hate.  It is OK, I think, to be angry, but not to get pulled into the endless cycle of enmity and violence.

 

I encourage us all to really think about what Jesus taught

I want us all to remember how Jesus lived and died

 

Jesus is an example of how we all should live

He embodies the values we all should have

We cannot abandon the way of good in our attempt to get rid of what is not good.

 

I know this sounds foolish.  But then the cross was foolish.

 

I am not saying I can do it, but I am saying I want to try

Because we know that if we fight fire with fire, everything is consumed

 

My beloved English Professor at Whitman, Thomas Howell, once said to us (this was in the early 70s, so think Vietnam, Civil Rights, et. al) 

 

“When civilization is working at cross-purposes with human nature (which he saw as good, we are created in the image of God after all), you have real problems.  Your generation knows this.  What remains to be seen is if you can keep your tempers long enough to do something about it.”

 

God, grant me patience and compassion.

Grant me the strength not to rely on the power of the system, the power of money, the power of power,

But to rely on the power of love

No matter how hard

No matter what it costs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting back to "Yes"

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All I am now going through

Will make me better or bitter,

Break down or break through

Learning this patience – it takes so much patience

It’s a great education

But why is the tuition so High?

Why God, why?

          Brian McLaren – Naked Spirituality

_____________________________________________

 

 

I watch as people like "Dr" Oz and RFJ Jr. spew inaccuracies.  While people like MarkWayne and Mr Mortgage Guy take over critical services they know nothing about.  I listen to tRump and JD and Rubio lie.  I suffer while Huckabee spews Zionist nonsense.  I read the comments of the MAGA faithful as they talk about "true American culture" (white, European-based) and about immigrant "trash."

 

I see America kill kids by shooting missiles at them, or denying them healthcare and food via funding (USAID).  I see us support genocide and apartheid.

 

I watch us dismantle systems that reveal the truth about what we are doing to the planet, like the Oceanic Observatories Initiative, to save 48 million a year, while we spend a billion a day blowing up things in Iraq (and losing).

 

I see our current government destroy the agencies that serve people while bankrolling the agencies that control and abuse people. 

 

I see all the ugliness that permeates our country from the top (Trump) to the bottom (the MAGA faithful on FB, Threads, and Truth Social).

 

And I hate it.

 

Brian McClaren talks about the fact that sometimes we end up in what he calls the “season of perplexity.”  Times when there is “no winning.  There are no solutions, answers, or consolations in sight…”

 

This may be such a time.

The words for perplexity are when, no, and why

 

When will it end?

No, this is not right!  No.  You should not allow this to happen, O Sacred One.  No, this person should not flourish.  What the…..

 

Sometimes we pray with Meister Eckhart, “God save me from god.”

 

Why?  I do not understand.  OK, perhaps I understand that some of these people who are causing this are those who, in order to gain the world, have lost their souls, who are no longer who they were created to be: people, children of God, creatures reflecting God’s image.  Trump.  JD Vance.  Lutnick.  Musk. So many of the MAGA leadership.  They know what they are doing is wrong.  They don’t care (IMHO).

 

There are those who have just been seduced by power and wealth and are being used by the evil ones.  Poor MarkWayne.  He doesn’t have a clue (IMHO, it's all just how I see it).

 

There are those who may actually believe the garbage they are spewing.  RFK Jr., maybe.

 

There are those who are misled, misinformed, ignorant, programmed, acculturated.  All those White Nationalist Christians programmed by intense White Nationalist preachers who have left the Gospel of Jesus far, far behind.  Those who watch FOX, and OAN, and all the others.

 

There are those who for whatever reason, perhaps fear, choose to see what they want to see.  That the butt naked Emperor has clothes, that Trump is strong, sane, mentally with it, effective, and the greatest President ever, like never before.

 

All I know is that it sucks the life out of me.  The joy out of everything.

 

I am tired of “no”

I want to get back to “yes”

 

I want to be in that place where, in the midst of the fury, doubt and feelings of abandonment, I sense that God is, and reach the point where even in the midst of it all,

I catch glimpses of sacred, of love

 

And so this morning, and every morning, I say the words from a 15^th century prayer book.

 

God be in my head, and in my understanding;

God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;

God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;

God be in my heart, and in my thinking;

God be at mine end, and at my departing.

 

God, be

 

 

 

Interupt injustice

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Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free.

          Shane Claiborne, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

____________________________

 

I am sick of injustice.

If the creator wants anything for the created

It is justice

 

Love would be nice too.

And peace

We all want world peace

 

But there is no peace without justice

And justice is loved lived out

Institutionalized

Systemized

 

Justice is evasive

Perhaps rare

 

It is when all things are equal

When everyone is treated the same way

When things are fair,

morally right, and have spiritual integrity

 

It is complicated

Very

 

Aristotle more than two thousand years ago

Said that justice is the principle that

"equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally.”

 

Well crap

 

Apparently adjustments have to be made

Because some people have privilege

And some people have been systematically oppressed

 

And justice is not just about creating rules

That contain, control, and perhaps protect

It is not just about creating consequences for those who behave

Poorly

 

But it can also be distributive and restorative

Correcting wrongs

Adjusting for privilege, or the lack of privilege

 

Justice is about interrupting injustice

It is a society, a culture,

Looking at prejudice, oppression, and worse

And saying “this stops here.”

 

But interrupting injustice is a tricky thing

It must be done with care

 

Yes, we need to create relief for those who have suffered injustice

But we must do so without creating a new version of injustice

 

We so easily slide into a justice that is retributive

That seeks not just to relieve, but to punish

Then the oppressor becomes the oppressed and the oppressed the oppressor

And we have gained little (except a switch in roles)

 

True justice heals

It restores

It reconciles

Justice is embodied in the peaceable kingdom of God

Justice heals systems

It also heals souls, and relationships

 

True justice changes the rules,

It changes systems

But above all it changes people

 

Until the vision of Isaiah becomes more than a dream.

With Martin Luther King Jr., we must all have a dream

 

The dream of a world where,

 

“The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

the calf and the lion will feed[b] together, and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.

They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11)

 

May we be the ones who faithfully and arduously

Interrupt injustice

So that justice

May roll like a river

And righteousness like an everlasting stream (Amos)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good people, bad choices

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 Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri, she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well, and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.

          Steven Weinburg

_________________________

 

Some people ooze hate and vitriol.

Some people are divisive and violent

Some people live their fear and anger, their racism

As naturally as they breathe

 

You can see the enmity in their eyes

Arrogance, like a foul fog, rolls off of them

 

Their values, beliefs, words, and actions

Are a symphony of malice

 

Jesus had the affrontery to look down from the cross

At his tormentors and murders

And say

 

Forgive them

 

Yet people like Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump,

People like Elon Musk and the rest of the oligarchs

Aren't people I can easily forgive

I struggle to “wish them well.”

 

Honestly, that bothers me only a little

(perhaps it should bother me more)

These people are doing such harm to so many

They are abusing the kind of people on whom Jesus lavished his love

 

Let the little ones come to me

Welcome the stranger

Feed the hungry

 

I see such souls, and I am angry

My anger is not for myself as much as for others

And Jesus (I think) got angry FOR others

Angry at the vulnerable being neglected

The little one’s being harmed

 

The people I really struggle with are the basically good people

(yes, they are good)

The people who would, in fact, help their neighbor, give to the food bank

And be kind and compassionate

 

Who have chosen to support people who are hateful and destructive

Who somehow have no problem voting for a serial adulterer

A person who has committed fraud

A person who is racist

A genuinely bad person

 

Who are willing to embrace leaders, and a movement

Whose values violate their own values

 

WTH?

 

Does charisma blind them?  (Halo effect)

Are they myopic?  Putting so much weight on one issue (like abortion) that they can’t see anything else? 

Are they programmed into toxic patriotism (my country right or wrong)

Is it bad theology that allows them to be manipulated and used?

 

But these people are my greatest challenge.

How to work with them?  Talk to them? 

How does one embrace what is good about them

and not support what seems so very” off”?

 

Most of the time, I try to listen and seek to understand

Sometimes I have to embrace silence

Sometimes I try to correct misinformation or add information

 

I always try to return

To the perspective of the cross

 

Everything looks different from the cross!

 

It is a conundrum

I am not comfortable being silent, which feels like acceptance.

But I want to reconcile and change, not condemn and repel

(some WILL feel judged, and will balk at the attempt to “change their mind”)

 

I want to stay in community with them

I want to radiate the love of Christ

I want to be a good teacher

I want to help people embrace the way of Jesus

 

What do I do with the good people who right now,

Are embracing what (I believe) are bad things?

 

For me, this is the challenge of these times.

Tired of waiting

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“Wait on the Lord,” we are told.  Don’t slide back into anxiety and anger.  Don’t rush ahead in a rush to judgment.  Don’t demand a quick solution…  Don’t assume the worst… do not presume that an answer is forthcoming.   No, wait. Relax. Rest. Don’t feel the situation has to be fixed.  Hold on, and keep your eyes open, and you will eventually BEHOLD what you do not see now.

          Brian McLaren

_____________________________

 

Wait.

Wait?

Wait!

 

For what?

Sometimes I wonder

How long can we wait?

 

We watch the world unravel around us

We see hate in high places

We see immigrants caged worse than animals

 

We see villages in Lebanon destroyed

And politicians taunt prisoners

 

Wait?

While desperate people in detention centers kill themselves?

While the BIPOC community loses the vote, and hope?

While UFC fighting cages go up on the White House lawn?

While our leaders push performative religiosity, but abandon the core principles

Of the religion they push (like a drug)

 

Yes.

Wait

Stop, for a moment

Breathe

Let Sacred surround you, embrace you, fill you

 

Don’t let this world

With its horrors

Squeeze you into its mold

But be transformed by the renewing of your mind

By presence

 

Behold

Behold God

Behold a God who is too big for our minds, and hearts, to contain

 

There is no thought we can have of God

That is too good

Everything good about God is true

 

This God we behold

With awe

 

This God, who if we wait

Will give us new minds

New hearts

New eyes

 

God can help us see people, in a new light

God can help us see God’s presence in creation

God can keep us from rushing in blindly

And flailing madly

 

God can help us choose love

 

If we wait

And Behold

 

“All shall be amen and alleluia

We shall rest and we shall see

We shall see and we shall know

We shall know and we shall love

We shall love and we shall praise.

 

Behold our end which is no end”    St. Augustine

God in Sandals

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Jesus was God in Sandals…

 

If he was indeed God in sandals, then that means he cared about what God cared about, hated what God hated, and loved what God loved.  The incarnation gave God a face.  It gave God literal tears, literal laughter, literal hands, literal feet, a literal heart, and a literal mind.

          Rachel Held Evans

 

__________________________________

 

If Jesus were to show up today

He might wear sandals

 

Or perhaps he would wear Hokas.

Maybe even Florsheim wingtips, although I doubt it

 

I have no clue

But I think I know where Jesus would hang out

And it wouldn’t be at the political rally “Rededicate 250.”

 

He wouldn’t be admiring the newly added gold leaf

On the walls of the Oval Office

 

And he wouldn’t smile beneficently as

Pete Hegseth abuses the gospel and talks about a “holy war.”

 

It is more likely that he would be sharing a sandwich with a homeless dude

In a doorway

 

Trying to comfort immigrant children in Dilley Detention Center

And walking in a Pride parade with his queer brothers and sisters

 

He probably would be totally uncomfortable standing behind

The resolute desk, or sitting in the pew of a White Nationalist Church

But totally at home in a homeless shelter, or a soup kitchen

 

If Jesus was God in sandals

And if Jesus, as GodInUs, the Spirit

is with us still

 

then maybe we need to take another look

at what it means to follow

 

Because I don’t think Jesus is looking for us to

Line up behind the church or the state

 

I think he is looking for us to become so permeated

With love, with his presence

That we start to think, feel, and act

More like him

 

I think he wants us to hang around and value

And love, and help

Sick people and people with mental health issues

Homeless people and helpless people

Straight people and queer people

 

Hurt people

Recovering people

Searching people

Doubtful people

Even angry and fearful people

 

I think he wants us to love

Even our enemies

To give, even if we get nothing back

To serve, without recognition

To live simply (and give away what we don’t really need)

 

I think he wants humility, not arrogance

Non-violence, not missiles and bombs

Truth not deceit

Generosity not greed

 

I think Jesus doesn’t want a fortified palace (ballroom)

For a dictator

Nor a 250 ft arch

 

I think he wants universal healthcare

And housing

And food security

 

Jesus was a radical

He loved with radicality

He taught radical things

And he forgave while nailed to a tree

 

And he calls us to be “ordinary radicals” (Thanks Shane Claibourne)

 

Following Jesus is not about intellectual belief

(Christianity is crazy illogical anyway)

But about embracing love

 

It is not about closing ourselves up to

Others (and of course, sin)

As it is to opening ourselves up to God, to love

And to all those we would rather ignore

It is not so much about prayer and praise

As it is about getting into the mix of the worlds

Hate and pain

 

And loving like crazy

 

Faith (and hope) is lived

A performative mess

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Recently, a flock of religious types and political types

gathered to “rededicate” a nation to “God.”

 

Sounds good, right?

Lofty

Pious

 

Who could possibly be against

One nation under God?

 

One nation! Whose nation?

God, which God?

The Jewish God, the Christian God?

The Muslim God?

 

What about the Buddhists and Hindus

Those who participate in the Baha'i faith

Do they get to be a part of this one nation?

 

Or is it just Christians, ala Franklin Graham, and

God help us

Paula White or Robert Jefress

 

And if Christian, which version?

Because only Nationalistic, Dominion-oriented Christianity

Will be on that stage

The kind that drop bombs in the name of Jesus (Hegseth)

And exclude rather than welcome the stranger.

 

I, as a Presbyterian, would not be welcome

Not that I would welcome the chance.

 

I know our money says, “In God we Trust”

But we don’t

We trust strongmen (yes, men, and they are not really strong) and bombs

And the Stock market

 

And that is not the motto under which our country was born.

Try  E Pluribus Unum: “Out of many, one.”

 

We were not a country built for religious exclusivism

But were a country designed to bring diverse people together

Under some unifying values (not Christian BTW).

The values of freedom and justice

FOR ALL

And all should mean all

 

But just for fun, let say we are a nation under God

That means we should reflect God’s intention for a nation,

Right?

 

What does that mean?

That we are the biggest and meanest?

That we destroy civilizations?

Bomb Kids?

That we are ‘”hot”?

 

In my faith system, God has had a long

And contentious with those nations

That claim to be “God’s People.”

 

In fact, once Jesus showed up the idea that God

had a favored earthly nation

disappeared

 

Sure, God still had a people

But those people who those gathered in love

To praise, worship, pray AND SERVE

 

Jesus was pretty blunt.  My Kingdom is not of this world!!!!!!

Hear that Pete?  Hear that Doug Wilson?

 

But still, even if there WERE a country that belonged to God

What would it look like?

 

Not like the United States of America

Especially not MAGA States of America

 

Its complicated, but if I were to summarize what God wanted

From the people of Judah and Israel

Who were, at one point, supposedly dedicated to God

I would do it this way

 

SEEK JUSTICE AND DEFEND THE VULNERABLE:

God’s country would care for the poor, the vulnerable, the immigrant

It would protect women (not subjugate them)

 

In God’s country, justice would be blind

The Supreme Court would work to create equality and equity

(and not erase Voter Rights and not side with the Oligarchs)

 

SHOW COMPASSION AND KINDNESS

It would not spend most of its money on a Department of War

It would not spend more on guns and missiles than on healthcare

and education, and roads, and food support, and housing

 

It would not be racist

It would not be retributive, a global bully

Fund USAID

(Not funding USAID will mean 14.5- 25 million preventable deaths, many of them children, over the next 10 years.  Those deaths are blood on the hands of our country, because we could easily prevent them.  A side note.  A year of USAID funding was equal to a little over a month of the war in Iran)

 

HAVE HUMILITY

An awareness that life is a gift.  This land we live in is a gift.

That we are servants, not masters

Caretakers not owners

 

Most of all a nation that says it belongs to God ought to actually

LOVE GOD

More than a demented narcissist

More than earthly power

More than wealth

More than anything

 

Loving God means loving creation, not plundering it

Drill baby drill is not consistent with love God

Because this planet is another incarnation of God

 

Loving God means loving all those God created

AS GOD CREATED THEM

 

BIPOC people

LGBTQI+ people

Yes, trans people

People on the spectrum

People with other mental health challenges

People with disabilities

Female people

Male people

White people

Poor people

 

People of all faiths

Even arrogant, domineering, cruel Christians

Get to be loved

 

Maybe if they find love, they will be nicer

Maybe if we all understood we are loved

We would all be nicer

 

I just know that a political rally

Does not make for a country that actually loves God

 

It is merely one particular brand of Christianity (a toxic one at that)

Asserting its domination over the nation

under the guise of “rededication.”

 

On this day, 72 years ago, the SCOTUS (a much better one than we have now it seems)

Declared the segregation of schools unconstitutional.

And 72 years ago, we also changed our motto, out of fear of communism

To “One nation under God.”

 

Now our better angels have been silenced, and we are affirming racism

As a nation (not Godly)

And we are doubling down on a motto that has been weaponized

Against immigrants, LGBTQI+ people and so many others

(also not Godly)

 

On this day, we would do well to ignore the

Performative mess in Washington, DC

And remember the words of Amos

 

I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" -Amos 5:21-25

Enabling the beast

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We all see it

Or rather, we should all see it.

 

That if you enable evil

Even if that enabling is passive, you create a monster.

 

And that monster,

Call it hate, prejudice, greed, racism

A beast,

Often personified in a person, or a movement

 

Becomes uncontrollable

Rending the fabric of morality and decency

Gnawing on the flesh of the vulnerable

Eradicating justice

Gorging itself on precious resources

 

Until the world becomes enmeshed in violence

A place where people are marginalized and minimized

Where cultures are destroyed

Where children lie crushed under the rubble of their school

And Palestinian villages are flattened

And strangers are brutalized, not welcomed

 

And people with empty heads and inflated egos

And no moral compass at all

Plan ballrooms, and dream of arches

And fortified bunkers

 

We reach a point where the cancer

That is killing a culture, a nation

Even a planet

Is beyond cure

 

It will destroy

 

And it will be because

Too many people did not stand up and speak out.

 

This is not new

We have seen many cultures die

Many empires stumble and fall

Crashing to the earth

 

We have seen the world slowly

Practice resurrection

Rebuilding

Restoring

(only to see it happen again)

 

There is a reason Jesus said

Be Yeast.  Be salt.  Be light.

You

Not someone else.  You

 

Be the change you wish to see

Be compassion, welcome, and generosity

Be people who fight for justice

Be love

 

Because if you don’t, who will?

Wise people throughout history have warned us.

 

Albert Einstein famously noted, "The world is not a dangerous place because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

 

Dante Alighieri expressed a similar sentiment in Inferno: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality."

 

Edmund Burke concisely warned, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

 

Martin Luther King Jr. stated, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer highlighted the enabler's dilemma:

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

 

The monster is awake.

The rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem

Seeking incarnation

 

We dare not be silent.

We cannot stand by and do nothing

(even if it seems as if nothing can be done)

 

We cannot watch as a person who does not care

For anyone but himself, slouches along

Playing King Midas and seeking to turn everything gold

 

While Elon dances like a dervish

And greedy souls destroy the planet for profit.

 

May it never be said that

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst  

Are full of passionate intensity”  (Yeats)

 

We cannot let MAGA win.

We cannot let Putin, Trump, and the oligarchs

Shape the world

 

The stock market is not a measure of wellness

Nor is the wealth of the oligarchs a sign of success

 

For underneath such shallow victories

Racism, hate, and greed grow

Fear too

 

We must be salt and yeast

We must be light

Jesus told us that even small acts are important

 

Yes, it may look as if it is all for nothing

As if we are powerless

The cross looked like a defeat, a failure

But it was magnificent

 

So we must do what small things that we can

We must protect our LGBTQI+ friends

We must stand side by side with those beautiful trans people

In our midst

We must feed the hungry,

Welcome the stranger

 

We must vote

 

Because even if we do not win

This time

Even if evil is not impeached or deposed

Now

 

We will have planted a seed,

Sprinkled a little yeast

 

We will have followed

Jesus

 

 

Blessed or Bitter

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All that I’m now going through

Will make me better or bitter,

Break down or break through,

Learning patience – it takes so much patience.

It’s a great education,

But why is the tuition so high?

Why, God, Why?

                     Brian McLaren

_______________________________

 

I wish it were easy

I wish the formulas worked

 

Bad things happen to bad people

Blessings are poured out on the good

 

Love wins

If you just have enough faith, all will be well

 

I wish there were five holy hops to happiness

 

But frankly, it’s a mess

A liar is believed

Cruelty is justified

Injustice and racism (they go together) are endemic

Bad things happen to good people

And blessings flow down on the brutal rich

 

Black and White is BS

Gray is the way

It is

 

I am tired of missiles killing children

Liars being believed

Good people blindly following and supporting bad people

War being made in the name of peace

Evil being perpetrated in the name of God

 

It would be so easy to get bitter

Hate filled

Despondent

 

It would be so easy to stop

And sit

Immobile

In the valley of the shadow of death

 

Frozen

Lamenting

Why, why God, have you forsaken us?

Uncomforted

 

Life is a lumpy, ripped, ragged mess

 

It is so tempting to build naïve theologies

Where all is nice and clean

And logical

To mutter reassuring banalities

 

But life intercedes

And we realize it is beyond our understanding

And we are perplexed

Anxious

Questioning

Why?

 

Have you forgotten us completely,

God,

If you are there?

 

I have no easy answers.

The formulas lie shattered and useless

 

And yet, I am still casting my questions

Into the darkness

 

My God, My God

Why?

 

Hoping, trusting, believing?

That Love is there.

 

Why not now

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One minute you are yelling “No, it can’t be this way!” and then you are whispering, “Why?  Why must it be this way?”  That why – the prayer of lament – is the prayer you offer on the longest night of the year…

 

It acknowledges, “I don’t have an answer, but still dares to hope there is an answer, so it asks.

          Brian McLaren

___________________________

 

I don’t have an answer.

Perhaps there is no good answer.

 

We don’t like that answer, and so we get creative.

 

God knows

God only knows

There is a bigger purpose we can’t see

God is working God’s purposes out as year succeeds to year

 

Maybe

Or maybe not

 

I don’t understand cancer

Or Donald Trump and his wrecking crew

I don’t understand why people can cheer a cruel, hate-filled man

And thus cheer hate and cruelty

 

I don’t understand why God would let bad people flourish

And put their picture on money

And let beautiful, innocent people suffer

 

Why God would allow bombs to fall

And missiles to fly

And people to starve

And children to die

 

Why?

 

Maybe we are just out here,

On this decaying planet on our own

Making bad choices

And wandering toward a bad end

 

Maybe it is about free will (seems like a stupid idea)

 

Why?

Is it ridiculous to hope for an answer?

To believe that someday love will win?

 

Maybe someday, Trump will wake up and feel a momentary pang of compassion

Maybe someday a CEO will suggest that a slight increase in the profit margin

It is not worth the destruction of the planet

And that bigoted white supremacists will call a black man his brother

And mean it

And that ICE officer will look in the mirror and see what he or she has become,

And resign

 

Maybe

 

Why do I still dare hope?

Because I see something sacred in most (I wish I could say all)

People I meet

 

That spark of the divine

It is there!

Because I watch people do random acts of kindness

And march on No King's Day

And give to the food bank

And help their neighbor

 

Because I see love and joy

Blossom in the most unlikely places

 

Sometimes I think it is true

That life sucks, and then you die

 

But sometimes I know better

And simply ask why

Why not now!

 

Today would be a good day

For love to win

Shaking a fist at God

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I aspire to faith

I aspire to confidence

 

I do not want to join the throng that says

There is no God

 

But there are times when my aspiration turns into

Resignation

Perhaps despair

 

There are mornings when I wake up soul-hungry

Wanting nothing more than to curl up

Fetal

 

Wanting nothing more than to raise my fists

And scream at God

 

The disappointment and anger

Hot

Boiling over

 

At the lies, the manipulations

The injustice

At the torrent of evil that flows from people

 

People who, if I am honest, I see as evil

Who, if I am honest, I hate

 

(is it wrong to hate evil?)

 

I rage not because I don’t think God is there

I rage because I believe there is a God willing to be raged at

 

A God who seems to have failed

The poor

The immigrant

The children, buried in rubble in Gaza, and Lebanon, and Iran

The victims of greed and hate

 

I guess it is better to raise my voice to the heavens

Then to sit in stolid silence

Frigid and silent

In the face of evil

 

Better to believe there is a God who cares

Who can heal and reconcile

Who can make them better

Who can make me better

Even if at times that God seems silent.

 

I cannot accept the God of MAGA

The God of the Evangelicals

Who have turned the good news into bad news

 

“God loves me and hates you” is not good news

 

I cannot accept the God who guides missiles to kill children

And destroys civilizations

 

Whose fault is it

That God seems so hidden and distant?

Some would say it is all my fault

I haven’t “surrendered.”

I am too proud

I have too little faith

 

Perhaps

I will not let go of God

But neither will I let go of my questions

I will not allow shallow, unsatisfying answers

To be my opiate

 

So here I sit

Refusing to accept what is happening

Seeking a God I often cannot find

Shaking my fist at heaven, not because I do not believe,  but because I do