Defy the darkness

“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”

                                                              Anne Frank

Endure the injustice and take the opportunity to put the extravagant love of Christ’s Kingdom into practice; bring the audacious and everlasting love of God into the daylight and dazzle those whose eyes have never seen or imagined such overwhelming and sincere love. This is how we change the world. This is how we transform our enemies into friends. This is how we end the violence. This is how we push back the darkness – not with more darkness – but with true, undeniable light; the light that only comes from God.  If the best we can do is take an eye for an eye, we will never escape this world of blindness.

                                                              Keith Giles (Our Christless Christianity)

____________________________________________

What do we do in times like this?

We know the litany of ills

The exclusion of the needy from our shores

The neglect and oppression of the poor and vulnerable

The proliferation of lies

The rise of hate

The destruction of the earth

We know them all to well

They are encroaching darkness

That threatens to smother us

And rob us of sight

And sound

And feeling

Leaving us

With nothing

Our hearts pound

Our heads scream with a thousand voices

As we are consumed by it all

And yet

And yet

And yet

We believe

Not in the power of the darkness

But in the power of the light

And we

Beloved children of God

Spirit carriers

Precious souls

Are the candle

We defy the darkness

For blown by the Spirit

Consumed by the flame of Sacred love

Through us sacred love

flames out (like shining from shook foil)  (Hopkins)

and we

by how we live

By how we accept and welcome

By our kindness and caring

By our generosity and service

By our love

Reveal the darkness for what it is

We define it as small

Empty and ugly

Powerful but powerless to defeat

And we shine on

Pushing back the darkness

Bringing “the audacious and everlasting love of God

into the daylight”

destroying the darkness with overwhelming and sincere love.

Bringing sight to the blind

Giving voice to hope

Thawing the frozen heart

We do this

We

One by one

Gathered

We shine on

With the “true, undeniable light; the

light that only comes from God”

and darkness define

and darkness defied

the kingdom comes

Do not be afraid

“Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

                                                   Corrie Ten Boom

“I've spent most of my life and most of my friendships holding my breath and hoping that when people get close enough they won't leave, and fearing that it's a matter of time before they figure me out and go.”

                                                    Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet

“A psychiatrist once told me early in treatment, “Stop trying to make me like you,” and what a sobering and welcome smack in the face that statement was. Yet somehow, every day of my life is still a campaign for popularity, or better yet, a crowded funeral.”

                                                    John Waters

__________________________________________________

I don’t know when it started

this endless litany in my skull

you are not enough

you are not enough

no matter what you do it will not be enough

but I cannot remember a time when my stomach did not hurt

and each day

as life assailed me

I chewed an anti-acid

Even my grade school body

Revealing my anxiety

I know I wanted to please

I know I wanted to be liked

And the judges were out there

Real and imagined

My father

My classmates

That cute girl in 7^th grade math

And soon my life became

A test

Of value

Of worth

An examination in worthiness

And all too often

I failed

Not perhaps in other’s eyes

But always in my one

Do they like me?

Am I “in”?

Will she admire me?

Will he respect me?

And life was shaped

by my attempts to be

what I thought others wanted me to be…

and the voice in the head

that bully brain

continued the refrain…

“how am I doing?”

And still today

As I write my blog

Or give a sermon

Or work with a Mental Health client

I worry

And I want to make everyone happy

Everyone

Just try that these days !!!

I suspect there is plenty of evidence I do just fine

but then that comment comes

and it all floods in

the doubt,

the anxiety,

the pain

that I carry, carry, carry

in the aging body

and still at 68

as at 8

my stomach hurts

and my heart hurts

and I am haunted

by failures real and imagined

and then there is nothing to do

but to turn to the One

who always loves

always accepts

always sees me as a precious soul

there is nothing to do but to breathe

and sink into the depths

where love lives

and in that deep place seek God, and seek, perhaps myself

St. Francis of Assisi would spend whole nights praying “Who are you, my most dear God, and who am I . . . ?”

It is a good question

But who God is love

Unfailing

Unreserved

Unencumbered

And in that love one experiences

the absolute safety of God

one finds a God who is “always and forever larger than we expected” (Rohr)

and in that Sacred space, one finds one’s True Self,

I have become a fan of self-compassion

And there are standard phrases (metta phrases)

But here is mine

“As I wander deep within

May I find myself again

In the context of Sacred love

May my body be healed

May my mind be healed

May my heart be healed

May my soul be healed

May I be at peace”

It is in those moments when I find that peace

That I can quit trying so hard to please

Quit trying to make people like me

And just be

Honest

Brave

Kind

Loving

An agent of reconciliation

So that others

Do not have to be afraid

And do not have to wonder

Am I enough?

close to the ground

Life in the desert is not easy. It does not offer moderate temperatures to please the human desire for comfort nor abundant water to quench inevitable thirst. The caves that offer shelter likely don’t provide a soft place to lay tired bodies. And yet, the desert abbas and ammas sought out these conditions, believing they would find new and abundant life—even where life seemed impossible. We invite you to take a few breaths and to slowly and contemplatively read this passage from Howard Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart, in which he describes an encounter in another kind of mountain wilderness

It was above the timber line. The steady march of the forest had stopped as if some invisible barrier had been erected beyond which no trees dared move in a single file. Beyond was barrenness, sheer rocks, snow patches and strong untrammeled winds. Here and there were short tufts of evergreen bushes that had somehow managed to survive despite the severe pressures under which they had to live. They were not lush, they lacked the kind of grace of the vegetation below the timber line, but they were alive and hardy. Upon close investigation, however, it was found that these were not ordinary shrubs. The formation of the needles, etc., was identical with that of the trees further down; as a matter of fact, they looked like branches of the other trees. When one actually examined them, the astounding revelation was that they were branches. For, hugging the ground, following the shape of the terrain, were trees that could not grow upright, following the pattern of their kind. Instead, they were growing as vines grow along the ground, and what seemed to be patches of stunted shrubs were rows of branches of growing, developing trees. What must have been the torturous frustration and the stubborn battle that had finally resulted in this strange phenomenon! It is as if the tree had said, “I am destined to reach for the skies and embrace in my arms the wind, the rain, the snow and the sun, singing my song of joy to all the heavens. But this I cannot do. I have taken root beyond the timber line, and yet I do not want to die; I must not die. I shall make a careful survey of my situation and work out a method, a way of life, that will yield growth and development for me despite the contradictions under which I must eke out my days. In the end I may not look like the other trees, I may not be what all that is within me cries out to be. But I will not give up. I will use to the full every resource in me and about me to answer life with life. In so doing I shall affirm that this is the kind of universe that sustains, upon demand, the life that is in it.” I wonder if I dare to act even as the tree acts. I wonder! I wonder! Do you?

                     Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart (Beacon Press: 1999), 123-124

                     Richard Rohr (meditation 1/25/2020

________________________________________________________

This morning

as on many mornings lately

I did not want to get out of bed

call it depression

call it despair

call it hopelessness

the world seems stunted and barren these days

and only the limbic mewing of the cats

and the unbounded enthusiasm of my  dog

drag me

even while darkness lingers

into the barren and uneven terrain of a new day

I am tired to the bone these day

Tired of the vindictiveness,

The lust for retribution

The need to win

To dominate and control

I am tired of

the evil

the duplicity

the hypocrisy

the greed

the abuse of power

the lost of justice

the growing inequity

the racism

the fear

the hate

and yet

if I look

closely

near the ground

I see caring and kindness

Compassion and generosity

Grimly hanging one

Their roots clinging desperately

To the hearts people

Who in such an inhuman world

Would be fully human

Children of God

Bearers of the Sacred

Reflection of the divine image

There close to the ground

As the winds of hate blow

And the freezing power of greed oppresses

And people obsessed with power

Discarding all semblance of honesty, and integrity

call evil good and good evil

and stunt all that is sacred

There close to the ground

Love grows

Tortured and oppressed

But still alive

Striving toward the light

There close to the ground

People sit by the side of dying friends

And listen to hurting friends

And do acts of random kindness

And welcome the stranger

And wrap the vulnerable in acceptance and compassion

And love lives

So I will not give up

And I will seek

With every fiber of my being

And with the help of the Sacred Presence

Which lurks in my soul

To answer life with life

who am I

St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) would spend whole nights praying “Who are you, my most dear God, and who am I . . . ?” It is through encountering the absolute safety of God that we discover our True Self, and in finding our truest self, we find a God who is always and forever larger than we expected.

                                                                        Richard Rohr  (Meditation, 1/24/2020)

May I be happy.

May I be at peace.

May I live with ease.

May I be free from suffering.

                                                                        Traditional Metta Phrases

___________________________________________________

Ah compassion

that moment when we step ourselves

when we notice

those empty eyes

the tears that cannot quite

flow

the body bend

the hands clenched

when for a moment we step outside our own

pain

and see, and hear

the other

Ah empathy

when we move past noticing

past vague feelings of pity

and enter in

walking into the pain

the fear

the loneliness

when we feel not for the other

but with the other

when we stand with them

sit with them

when we grieve and weep with them

entering into the world

seeing as best we can through their eyes

feeling with their heart

people drawn together

we know there is too little compassion

and too little empathy

there is faux compassion and empathy

often called sympathy

where those in position of power

or relative comfort look down

condescending

on “lesser folk”

but this act of joining

ah that we could learn

for those limbic driven

friends, from that dog who lies

as her person’s feet when he

knows her person is hurting

or the cat who usually aloof

snuggles next to her suffering person

where does it come from?

This ability to have compassion, and ultimately

Empathy

It comes from our ability to have self compassion

A compassion that emerges for many of us

Only when we are able to access the reality of divine compassion

And divine empathy

We talk incarnation

God entering into our world

Our space

But we must realize that incarnation is what God does

Always

It is who God is

God with us

And this God

Whom we can find in the sunrise

And stars

and wind

we also find at our own center

in that deep place where angels and demons dwell

which is also where we find ourselves

and in that place we sit together

our self and the Sacred

and we learn that God understands (has empathy)

and we learn of God’s compassion

and in the safety of Sacred love

we learn to sit with our own pain and fear

and sitting with ourselves

we learn to have compassion on that self

and then…

we are safe in our hearts

safe enough to look past our own “stuff”

our own loss, and regret,

our own anger and fear

and see

and feel

and have a little empathy

and a little compassion

in a world that has far too little

then we can sit with others

and let our hearts ache

and the tears come

and generosity flow

because we have found and accepted ourselves

and we have found a God

“who is always and forever larger [and more loving] than we expected.”

Use your brain, it works!

“Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?”

                                                   Peter Hitchens

“In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?”

                                                    George Orwell, 1984

“Most people do not have a problem with you thinking for yourself, as long as your conclusions are the same as or at least compatible with their beliefs.”

                                                    Mokokoma Mokhonoana

_______________________________________________

I sat with my elderly friend

as we talked about days gone by

of long lost fathers, and brothers, and sisters

of her husband

gone these many years

attendants came and went

with eye drops and pills

and then through the air

unrelenting

came the sound of a TV

turned up to the thunder level

as an elderly man sat

literally 2 feet from the screen watching the news

the hosts were pleasant and chatty

happy folk in their extreme whiteness

and they overwhelmed the space

with a reality I did not recognize

an alternative truth

and it hit me

profoundly

to what degree we shape our own realities

or allow others to shape them

Listening to the hosts of the show

I came to understand that if I trusted those voices

I too would see the President as the savior of America

A gifted leader leading us to greatness

If I trusted those voices, as they talked about immigrants

and democrats,

and liberals

I too would fear the immigrants, despise the democrats

and hate the liberals

It struck me so powerfully

That if I had not had the experiences I have had

That person in front of that TV could be me

What I saw was a man who

I am sure

Loves his country

Loves God (as he understands God)

Loves his family

What I saw was a man who probably worked hard

And was generous

And a good neighbor

What I saw was a good person

Shaped by the family that raised him

The preachers who preached at him

The teachers who taught him

The people and the culture that surrounds him

And, those voices…

Coming loudly, out of that TV

I could see how that reality

That I see as false, alternative

Could be his total reality

How there could easily be no hole in the bubble

No crack in the wall

I cannot accept this alternative reality

Where I believe

Good is called evil, and evil is called good

I cannot accept this reality where greed is accepted

Corruption is ignored and excused

And others are see not only as less, but without true value

(Even as I write those words I realize that

Those inside that alternative reality do not see greed as greed but success and power

And see corruption as “the art of the deal”

And do not understand that they are caught up in privilege and even supremacism)

So I struggle to understand

To have compassion

To love

While watching the hate roil

And the waters become poisoned

And the earth wither

And people, so many people, be harmed

By poverty, injustice, hate, racism, exclusion,

And in this painful place I struggle to remember

That I too have been shaped

I have been shaped by my Mennonite, pacifist heritage

By my father who served his patients and community so diligently

By my uncle, a Wake Island survivor

Who hunted down the Japanese commandant who brutalized him and almost killed him

And reconciled with that man, on the 50^th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

I have been shaped by my education (I admit it, my amazing times at four great schools have shaped my capacity to gather facts, evaluate them, and think, critically)

I have been shaped by my time as a pastor

By time sitting in hospital rooms and by death beds

By time sipping coffee, an extravagant gift, in a house touched by poverty

By time working with the poor

The mentally ill

The addicted

I have been shaped by time in Northern Iraq, Azerbaijan, Israel, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Romania, responding to war and natural disasters

I have been shaped by holding a dying Kurdish child in my arms

And looking a decimated villages

And ravaged people with empty eyes

I have also been shaped by my whiteness

Maleness

And economic privilege

So I have a reality shaped by many things

And I know my grasp of reality is not perfect

I know I do not see everything clearly

I know I am biased

I know I may well, all to many times, be wrong

And so I have to be honest about how I am shaped

And who shapes me

And I have to constantly, daily, even hourly

Return to my center

To that place where the Sacred dwells

To that place where the Spirit

Advocate

Comforter

And Guide roams

And I have to let the Spirit help me sort out

The fine line between opinion and fact

Truth and that pesky alternative truth

Do I always succeed in finding the truth?

Of course, not but I try

I try

And I listen to many voices… not just one

Not just the same ones

And the truth is

I fear too many people have be told what to think

Rather than taught how to think

I fear there are “People of the Lie” out there

Who are peddling lies for profit and power

And I fear some very good, decent people

Are actively supporting evil, unawares

So what do we do with this?

Here are my meager thoughts…

Turn on our hearts

Become open to the Spirit

Use our brains

Keep humble

Keep kind

Keep loving

And pray

That we can be mustard seeds

That we can be yeast

And help all of us

Together

Find truth and love, and

Build the kingdom

the price of love

“The pain of grief is just as much part of life as the joy of love: it is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment. To ignore this fact, or to pretend that it is not so, is to put on emotional blinkers which leave us unprepared for the losses that will inevitably occur in our own lives and unprepared to bereavement little help others cope with losses in theirs.

                                                   Colin Murray Parkes

_____________________________________

It seems as if every day my heart breaks

This is the price I pay for love

Not romantic love

But that deep earthy love

that comes from the Sacred

for all things Sacred

and everything is Sacred

the earth is sacred

the mountains, and streams, and oceans

all of it

the sky is sacred

as it flashes neon orange in the morning

and stretches blue during the day

only to die flaming

Animals too

All creatures great and small

Are fashioned by divine design

And humans

Ah yes

Those beings created in the image

Carriers of divine love

Those in whom the sacred dwells

Those who have so badly blurred the divine image

And my heart breaks

As I watch people who seem

Somehow

To have lost their hearts

(and their minds too)

Do things that so assail

Everything good, and bright, and beautiful

And sacred

It hurts my heart to see

The comfortable, the powerful, the rich

The hard, the cruel, the empty, the angry,

Make decisions that hurt the planet

And hurt people

It hurts my heart to see justice perverted

To see equity vanish

To see the rule of law ignored

To see our freedoms destroyed

It hurts my heart to hear our leaders lie

To see people who are supposed to provide justice subvert justice

To see the rich enriched

And the poor abandoned

Each day it gets worse

Each day evil grows bolder

I watch it all

and I grieve

I grieve for the LGBTQI person who has lost rights

For the woman who has been minimized, or worse, assaulted, and abused

I grieve for the homeless, the hungry, the poverty stricken

I grieve for the immigrant who fears each day the arrival of ICE

(and you don’t have to be illegal to have that fear)

I grieve for the refugee who comes to our borders and is put in a camp

Whose child is taken away

I grieve the daily assault on truth

On kindness

On integrity

On compassion

On justice

On morality

Sometimes I wonder, do they know what they are doing?

These “People of the Lie” (Scott Peck)

Are these conscious intentional acts of evil, of injustice, greed, and immorality,

or have these people truly become deluded, incapable of seeing, speaking and doing truth?

Do they simply not see the damage they are doing,

or do they see, and just not care?

Are they simply so shortsighted that they cannot see

beyond the next election?

What goes through the mind of a person who participates

in a farce, in a coverup?

What goes on in the mind of a person who allows a small, retributive person

destroy the earth?

What goes on in the heart of a person who can casually watch children be caged?

I have come to the conclusion that it does not matter

I must grieve for them too

And I must grieve for those who have been led into the darkness

I know they do not understand

They have chosen to believe people of the lie

They are wrapped in lies

Fed a steady diet of false information,

and thus are consumed by hate and fear

Those who cheer brutality and retribution

and cheer their own destruction?

I grieve for them too

I do not know what to do with this grief

Any more than Jesus knew what to do with his grief

As he approached Jerusalem

All he could do is weep

Weep that they would not and could not see

(If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes)

Weep at the horror that was to come

But he wept for everyone

Without distinction

Because that is how the heart of God works

I want to be angry

I want to hate

But instead I am called to grieve

As I believe God grieves

It is the price of love

love will remain

“We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.”

― B.F. Skinner, Walden Two

“I'm the caring type also. I care aggressively. That's just who I am.”

― Salman Rushdie, Quichotte

___________________________________

What it about the lust for power?

What is behind this need to have power “over” others,

And why this need to use that power,

Often abusively?

This is the question that lingers in my head

as I watch camouflaged mostly white mostly men

parade through the streets

posturing

with one intent

to intimidate

to bully

that is the question

as I listen to right wing church leaders

back evil

as I watch those who claim to follow

the way the truth and the life

back a person who lies

support the minimization of women

exclude LGBTQI people

cheer the incarceration of vulnerable immigrants

This is the question

As I watch my country

Attempt to bully the world

Siding with other abusive nations

Why do husbands, sometimes wives

Parents

Teachers

Bosses

Police

Soldiers

Politicians

Abuse power?

Perhaps it is hardwired into our nature

With Adam and Even

Who had it all

Wanting more

Wanting to “be like God”

a wish for power

Perhaps it is something pathological

Something alien to our nature as

Sacred Children

Something found in all

A hint

But found in some

A drive a hunger

That defines

And shapes

Becomes a gun packed

A fist curled

A harsh word spoken

Violence

Perhaps it is

As some suggest fear

Those swaggering camo clad

Gun carrying

Slogan shouting

White power symbol toting

Facades hiding

Fear

That they are losing

That they are less

That they are not superior after all

As if equality were not enough

And yet there are different kinds of power

Power over

Is not the only option

There is aggressive compassion

Aggressive kindness

Aggressive love

Paul once reminded the early followers

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves..”  (Phil 2:3)

Asking those who would walk in the steps of Jesus,

To truly walk in the steps of Jesus

“who, though he was in the form of God,

    did not regard equality with God

    as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

    taking the form of a slave,

    being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

    he humbled himself

    and became obedient to the point of death—

    even death on a cross.”  (Phil. 2:6-8)

the bottom line is this

straight from God’s heart

those aggressive ones

who use force

to create fear

to dominate and control

to minimize and subdue

do not show their strength

they simply show how frail they really are

strength is not to be found on the streets of Richmond, Virginia

Or in the White House

Or in the US Senate

Or in drones

Strength and power are to be found

In the woman who sits by the bed of her dying friend

In the sons who also sit

Holding their mothers hand

True power is held by

The one who is strong enough to listen

Strong enough to give

Strong enough to forgive

Strong enough to lift the other up

Strong enough to be vulnerable

And love

It is an odd kind of power

A cross kind of power

But in the end

When dictators and their kingdoms

Have fallen

The kingdom of love

Will remain

love or perish

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

                                         Martin Luther King, Jr.

“They want us to be afraid.

They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes.

They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children.

Their aim is to make us fear life itself!

They want us to hate.

They want us to hate 'the other'.

They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism.

Their aim is to divide us all!

They want us to be inhuman.

They want us to throw out our kindness.

They want us to bury our love and burn our hope.

Their aim is to take all our light!

They think their bricked walls will separate us.

They think their damned bombs will defeat us.

They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends.

They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed.

They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid,

we will never hate and we will never be silent

for life is ours!”

― Kamand Kojouri

___________________________________

Is anyone tired of all the hate?

The name calling?

The bullying?

The fear mongering?

Is anyone tired of all the division?

And distrust

It seems patently true that there are those who seek to divide us

It seems as if those souls are everywhere, everywhere

With their memes, and articles, comments

And we,

Most of us

Walk around with emotional shell shock

Vigilant

And either silent and cautious

Or outspoken and aggressive

And it is taking its toll

On our nation

On our communities

On our churches

It has made it hard to sit down together and worship, together

it has made it difficult to sing praise, together

It has strained the bonds of affection

I cannot help but remember the words of President Lincoln

Who, in his first inaugural address

As the dark cloud of the civil war loomed on the horizon

(it would begin one month later)

Uttered these words

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

I cannot share, adequately

The depth of pain I feel when the bonds of affection are broken

By political passion

By hatred, planted, watered, and nurtured

By those who would use it for their own purposes

My heart is torn as I see the faces of people I care about

People whom I have visited as a pastor

People whom I have prayed with

People whose loved one’s I have buried (and perhaps married)

Harden

When they see other people whom I have visit, with whom I have prayer

Others who have lost someone dear, or whose family has been stricken by illness

Harden because instead of community, there is division

This is a difficult time

People with strongly held beliefs think a person is the savior of our nation

People with strongly held beliefs think that same person is its greatest threat

There are many points of division

But the point is these are all people who are trying to do the best they can

And the reasons for the differences are complex

They have to do with family and local culture, with whom a person chooses to trust, with sources of information, with what is being taught in a person’s church…

And we can judgmentally say (to ourselves)

They should be able to see the lies, see the damage see, the evil

(as we perceive it)

But those who believe differently from us are saying exactly the same thing in their head and hearts.

And everyone (OK, many) are totally sincere

Richard Rohr, in this blog (1/20/20) made this observation, when talking about the desert fathers and mothers, who were clearly people of faith and passion, but sometimes wrote things that make us cringe.

“Contemporary philosopher Ken Wilber offers a helpful distinction between stages and states. Your stage is your outer awareness. Your state is your inner aliveness. The goal is to be both holy and whole, saintly and wise. But your state and stage don’t always coincide; many of us are stronger in one area than another.

You can be a high-level thinker and be quite astute about psychology, theology, history, or philosophy (a high stage), but do it all from a perspective of individualism and arrogance about that very information (a low state)—because it is still all about “you.” Conversely, you could be quite unified within and with others, in a high state of loving consciousness, but be poorly informed, lacking in exposure and education to helpful and informative knowledge.”

In short this mixture of stage and state make us inconsistent

Confused

And sometimes inexplicable

In terms of what we think and believe, and

In terms of who and what we support

And so, I have decided, that even though I have my passions

And even though my great passion is Jesus, and his way of

Generosity and servanthood

I must find a way to be in the same town

The same pew

The same space

As those who do not agree with me

My job, if I am really going to take Jesus seriously

Is just that

To be in the same space

And to talk with those people, kindly

And listen to those people, openly

And hold the tension that arises

Hold it carefully, so that the bonds are not broken

So that we can continue to be

In community

And in communion

Gathered around the same table

Breaking bread

And drinking from the common cup

Of Sacred Love

This is not easy

It may not always work

The bonds may sometimes snap

But this pain, the pain that comes when I see

Tight angry faces

Read hateful words

See empty places in the pews

And at the table of the Lord

Impels me

I will not be silent

But I will not hate

And I will not exclude

And I will not avoid

And I will not hold back from doing good,

Even for those with whom I do not agree

I will pour as much of my time and ministry

As much of my love into those with whom I disagree

As into those with whom I agree

(to the best of my ability – come Holy Spirit, I need a lot of help)

For we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters,

or perish together as fools.

love or perish

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

                                         Martin Luther King, Jr.

“They want us to be afraid.

They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes.

They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children.

Their aim is to make us fear life itself!

They want us to hate.

They want us to hate 'the other'.

They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism.

Their aim is to divide us all!

They want us to be inhuman.

They want us to throw out our kindness.

They want us to bury our love and burn our hope.

Their aim is to take all our light!

They think their bricked walls will separate us.

They think their damned bombs will defeat us.

They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends.

They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed.

They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid,

we will never hate and we will never be silent

for life is ours!”

― Kamand Kojouri

___________________________________

Is anyone tired of all the hate?

The name calling?

The bullying?

The fear mongering?

Is anyone tired of all the division?

And distrust

It seems patently true that there are those who seek to divide us

It seems as if those souls are everywhere, everywhere

With their memes, and articles, comments

And we,

Most of us

Walk around with emotional shell shock

Vigilant

And either silent and cautious

Or outspoken and aggressive

And it is taking its toll

On our nation

On our communities

On our churches

It has made it hard to sit down together and worship, together

it has made it difficult to sing praise, together

It has strained the bonds of affection

I cannot help but remember the words of President Lincoln

Who, in his first inaugural address

As the dark cloud of the civil war loomed on the horizon

(it would begin one month later)

Uttered these words

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

I cannot share, adequately

The depth of pain I feel when the bonds of affection are broken

By political passion

By hatred, planted, watered, and nurtured

By those who would use it for their own purposes

My heart is torn as I see the faces of people I care about

People whom I have visited as a pastor

People whom I have prayed with

People whose loved one’s I have buried (and perhaps married)

Harden

When they see other people whom I have visit, with whom I have prayer

Others who have lost someone dear, or whose family has been stricken by illness

Harden because instead of community, there is division

This is a difficult time

People with strongly held beliefs think a person is the savior of our nation

People with strongly held beliefs think that same person is its greatest threat

There are many points of division

But the point is these are all people who are trying to do the best they can

And the reasons for the differences are complex

They have to do with family and local culture, with whom a person chooses to trust, with sources of information, with what is being taught in a person’s church…

And we can judgmentally say (to ourselves)

They should be able to see the lies, see the damage see, the evil

(as we perceive it)

But those who believe differently from us are saying exactly the same thing in their head and hearts.

And everyone (OK, many) are totally sincere

Richard Rohr, in this blog (1/20/20) made this observation, when talking about the desert fathers and mothers, who were clearly people of faith and passion, but sometimes wrote things that make us cringe.

“Contemporary philosopher Ken Wilber offers a helpful distinction between stages and states. Your stage is your outer awareness. Your state is your inner aliveness. The goal is to be both holy and whole, saintly and wise. But your state and stage don’t always coincide; many of us are stronger in one area than another.

You can be a high-level thinker and be quite astute about psychology, theology, history, or philosophy (a high stage), but do it all from a perspective of individualism and arrogance about that very information (a low state)—because it is still all about “you.” Conversely, you could be quite unified within and with others, in a high state of loving consciousness, but be poorly informed, lacking in exposure and education to helpful and informative knowledge.”

In short this mixture of stage and state make us inconsistent

Confused

And sometimes inexplicable

In terms of what we think and believe, and

In terms of who and what we support

And so, I have decided, that even though I have my passions

And even though my great passion is Jesus, and his way of

Generosity and servanthood

I must find a way to be in the same town

The same pew

The same space

As those who do not agree with me

My job, if I am really going to take Jesus seriously

Is just that

To be in the same space

And to talk with those people, kindly

And listen to those people, openly

And hold the tension that arises

Hold it carefully, so that the bonds are not broken

So that we can continue to be

In community

And in communion

Gathered around the same table

Breaking bread

And drinking from the common cup

Of Sacred Love

This is not easy

It may not always work

The bonds may sometimes snap

But this pain, the pain that comes when I see

Tight angry faces

Read hateful words

See empty places in the pews

And at the table of the Lord

Impels me

I will not be silent

But I will not hate

And I will not exclude

And I will not avoid

And I will not hold back from doing good,

Even for those with whom I do not agree

I will pour as much of my time and ministry

As much of my love into those with whom I disagree

As into those with whom I agree

(to the best of my ability – come Holy Spirit, I need a lot of help)

For we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters,

or perish together as fools.