A Labyrinthine Journey

Sorry for the lack of posting, not even sure why, but know that I want to get back. Here is one way I am going to try, spiritual quotes. I am currently working through Benedicta Ward’s The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, (Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, 1975)

Abba Anthony says:

A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, “You are mad, you are not like us.” [#25, p 6]

My immediate thought is that we are in that time. And which mad am I?

In a big sense, that lays out the essence of what many of will be doing during this American holiday. Many of us will gather with family (ours will be just 4 for Thursday) and others will not. One of the things I have been sensitive to for many years of meeting a few Native Americans, some of whom became friends, is that some of our celebration days are days of sadness for them.

There was a time when some sensitive people had the idea of denying those historical remembering days. While I have been one to not overplay some of those days, I have not been too much in favor of forgetting history.

I think we need to face these mixed heritage days (joy for some and sorrow for others) with an eye for learning and then remembering the fuller stories. Yet, isn’t that what most of our celebration days have become? War-based rememberance days like Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day are days to honor those living who served while also remembering with sighs those who served and died. And if we want to remember those days more fully we must stop and mourn the loss to other nations in terms of people and infrastructure because of those wars. Too much needless loss, needs to be remembered but then should spur us to live so it will not happen any longer.

Anyway, that wasn’t where I really started to go: thanksgiving. I found a good article written by a Keetoowah Cherokee Indian teacher and pastor on the site for Sojourners magazine.

Rev. Randy Woodley on God’s Politics

According to Barack Obama’s new book, white guilt has already run its course, so my sense now is to move quickly past how bad it really is - and it really is bad - and on to suggesting a way for us to heal.

There does come a point where the remembering and the honoring and listening and sharing need to be turned toward the purpose of healing. This is especially true when the contexts are broken relationships and cultural injustice. Healing does not come through overplaying the stories or forgetting them, healing comes by living through them to a new reality of relationship and society. A new culture of respect and commitment to be trusting and trustworthy.

The best point in Randy’s article (go read it if you haven’t yet) is the importance of humor in healing. A humor that can both gently and sharply lead us all to take ourselves less seriously and to find common ground in our humanness.

So, eat, laugh, remember, and sigh this Thanksgiving. It is good for the soul.

This year we are hosting a delightful girl from South Korea through EF Foundation (I will call her Teresa, a name given her by some other students). I haven’t had a chance to talk with her about her reactions to the whole buildup of words and fear coming from the North Korean part of the peninsula. Today, she brought it up.

A teacher was asking students what they thought of North Korea seeking to build nuclear weapons. Our Teresa said that she couldn’t answer. She couldn’t say anything bad about the people of North Korea because they are Korean like her.

But the President of North Korea is Crazy, she said.

That is a very wise and healthy way to look at any group of people whose leaders do things we do not agree with. How would we like the idea that all Americans are painted with the brush of the actions of whoever our current President would be? Not very kindly. Can anyone really honestly say that “all United Methodists” think this or that? Not at all.

We do best not to try to represent our viewpoint as that of our group or our country. And we must practice the kind of just respect for others to separate the views and actions of a few with the hearts and minds of the whole.

We have been watching first with disbelief and then sorrow at the story coming from the Amish community in Pennsylvania. A story of deep illness that reaches out and touches children with death and infects a quiet community with grief beyond our imagination. How would we feel? How would we react? At what point do we set aside the words of Jesus and at what point do we set aside our own anger and hurt?

Then we have watched as a community of believing people do the unimaginable. They hold onto their hurt, but allow their anger to be transformed into forgiveness and compassion. Whatever we think about the backwardness of the Amish culture, here we see them being examples to all of us who call our selves Christian. They have embraced the family of the man who brought this pain into their core. And I even read today that they attended his funeral.

That is all I want to say at the moment. What I really want to do it point you to an excellent blog post that says it so much better. Go ahead, click and read; pray and live.

Ben Witherington: Lessons from the Amish– the Power of Pacifism

This quote from M. Scott Peck (via Arthur Silber; hat tip to John Amato):

Once again we are confronted with our all-too-human laziness and narcissism. Basically, it was just too much trouble. We all had our lives to lead–doing our day-to-day jobs, buying new cars, painting our houses, sending our kids to college. As the majority of members of any group are content to let the leadership be exercised by the few, so as a citizenry we were content to let the government “do its thing.”

My first question is when did Dr Peck write these words and in what context?

He wrote that as part of a task force of psychiatrists who investigated on behalf of the Surgeon General the context of the soldiers who participated in the My Lai Massacre in Viet Nam in March of 1968. Arthur Silber brings the quote up in considering the situation that has led to the killing of Iraqi citizens in Haditha and other events that are sadly all too similar. I will leave to your own judgment whether or not Silber supports the similarities between what is happening in various places in Iraq today with what happened in My Lai.

I want to apply Peck’s quote in a couple other places though that while they are not part of such disastrous events as Haditha or My Lai, they are still situations for us to be concerned about.

One is the state of citizenship in our country today. All too often, we are too content to do just the day to day things that concern us directly that we are willing to surrender the larger issues to others without a thought until it is too late. Then when we are awakened to things not being right, we then too often spend al of our energy seeking others to blame. Because if we can find others to pin the failing on we can more quickly go back to our stuporous shells and not change our style of living in any way.

I confess that too often I have chosen that sort of apolitical-apathy because it is easier, simpler and not very messy. I am learning that building that kind of personal levy only hides the problems in our world and society until my protection is broken down and I am awash in what others have created.

Yet can I really blame anyone else for that? No, I have to accept responsibility for my flight from appropriate responsibility. When I stop paying attention, when I stop asking questions, when I stop thinking about issues, I will be brought to a place where I no longer have choices and options and opportunities. I have lost my freedom by failing to live the stewardship of freedom. I think I am a long way from being a full-time activist citizen, but I am beginning the journey toward responsibility by opening my eyes to the issues that events that are really a part of my day to day life.

Doubt that those things matter? Consider the price of gas you put in your car. There is no simple answer to why they are that high, but I am convinced that a series of smaller decisions all along the way by governments (ours and others), businesses, and individuals (including me) have all cascaded into the current price of gas. What is next?

The other situation where I want to apply Peck’s quote (hopefully appropriately) is the local church.

I will boldly say that one of the biggest problems facing the church in the United States (and possibly everywhere) is that we have accepted the idea that it is the job of the leaders to do the work of ministry in the church. (There are some churches that are truly alive who have learned that and are changing that self-contained culture.) Could this way of thinking be a part of why leaders (clergy and lay leaders) burn out? drop out? act out? or simply go through the motions of life devoid of vitality?

I will just leave that question with you.

I believe it is true. Our troubles in our local churches can be turned around as leaders and members accept the idea that we are all a part of what the church is doing.

The difficulty and the challenge is that it is usually only the leaders who will hear the idea and see it and want it to happen. Sadly, many of the others will just find someone to fault for the troubles we see.

Today’s Independence Day Video.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1968, Washington, D.C. This is the full speech he gave in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I had only previously heard about 5 minutes of the 11 minute speech. It is all worth hearing again.

!vb:yt,iEMXaTktUfA!

A good dream that many are still waiting for no matter what the color of their skin.

I normally don’t just simply link to other blog articles, but this time I will. A view of those events on July 4, 1776 as if a blogger was there to write about it. The blogger in this case is Citizen Smash, an American Soldier, also known as the Indepundit.

Congress Declares Colonies Independent

Yesterday as a prelude to the sermon (on the healing of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the women with the 12 year old bleeding disorder, which was the real focus of the service and message) I had a few words to say on the upcoming July 4th Independence Day celebration us Yanks in the USA use as a good excuse to grill, play outside and shoot off fireworks.

I reflected a little on our 230 year old experiment in independence, an experiment in freedom. It is still an experiment because we have to keep relearning what living in a free society is all about, reaffirming the principles of true democracy, and recommitting ourselves to being citizens in a just society with each new generation and with the continuous changes in our history and our world. Some times in our history we have done better and some times in our history we have done worse. I will leave it to the historians to later filter out when those times are because it is hard to really see everything when we are in it. Though I will confess that I am more than a little bit worried lately.

I considered the example of freedom of speech and expression. It is easy for us to promote this when it is our own speech and the expression of a point of view which we like, but it is more difficult to trumpet freedom of speech when the views expressed are ones we do not agree with or the means used to relay the message are hard for us to understand.

As another example, I reflected on freedom of worship. For us it is very important when we feel threatened that we cannot worship in the ways appropriate for our faith and belief (for us now in Protestant USA the threat is much less than we might feel) and we are grateful for the opportunity to live out our heart’s choice of faith. Yet it becomes difficult to also honor the choices of others with different beliefs to be true to their own hearts and souls in faith and to live out their own manner of worship and spiritual expression.

There is a lot of tension in the challenge these and other situations present to us in living and continuing to build a society that upholds freedom as its cornerstone. Yet, as we celebrate this Independence Day with picnics and fireworks and time at home or wherever we are (I have a cousin in Baghdad who has more interesting context for this day) we should be thankful for what we have so far, but we must also know that the greater challenges to living out our freedom might come from simply living with our neighbors in our own towns and cities who also desire freedom and who by virtue of being different than how we see ourselves find it harder if not impossible to find. That will be the true acid test for our affirmation of being part of a society based on freedom.

Happy Independence Day USA. May the experiment we are an active part of continue to be truly lived out for many years to come.

Enough preaching for tonight.

For those who are celebrating, have a fun and safe day.

“…and it is Us.” - Pogo

It is hard enough for Christians to live out Jesus’ words “Blessed are the Peacemakers” in our society today with many leaders linking uncritical support of war with the message of the church. It is difficult enough for us to practice forgiveness and respect (not to mention love) for all of our neighbors when we struggle with our own interpersonal hurt and pain. We even find it more of a challenge when we and our children are desensitized to violence through news, television, movies and secular video games. Now we have to try to preach the Prince of Peace with the name of Christ being used to justify a fantasy world based on the old Inquisition idea of convert or die. I found many references to the following story in my blog-reading today.

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission — to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is “to conduct physical and spiritual warfare”; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game… Talk To Action | The Purpose Driven Life Takers (Updated)

Frankly, this is pretty sick. There is a part of me that is hoping this isn’t true, but there is another part of me that is afraid it is.

I am ashamed that there are people who created and who will promote this in the name of Christ and will mess up many people’s view of what the rest of us in the church are trying to do to bring the transforming and healing grace of Jesus to a hurting world.

The tragic irony of the premise of this game is that the very kind of religious based hate and persecution that is promoted in the game is what is condemned in every other part of the world by non-Christians. We see it in Iraq with the sectarian civil war there. We see it in Israel and Palestine. We hear about it in Indonesia or Chad or Sudan or anyone of dozens of places in the world. As long as it is against Christians we cry out in anguish. But by embracing the idea of this game the world sees Christians as having no integrity and no righteousness.

And they will not believe anything we now say because some have usurped the name of Christ for personal and political power and gain.

I am angry and deeply saddened. God weeps for the Church that thinks this is gospel, good news. It isn’t.

Here are some other blogs I have seen who have commented on this. I can see how the true message of Christ is being lost.

• Crooks and Liars
• The Moderate Voice
• Pandagon and Pam’s House Blend
• Independent Christian Voice
• Dependable Renegade

Stewardship is one of those issues that we tend to want to limit. If we limit our attitude toward stewardship to just include the money we give to the church then we can make a choice based on how we feel about the church and feel good about what we have done and then try not to think about it anymore.

But stewardship is a question of how we live our entire lives. This is harder to accept because then there is no limit to what in our lives comes under the realm of God. Yet isn’t that what a disciple is about? Living our entire lives under the transforming grace of God?

One of my weaknesses is television (the other big one is the computer). This little article got me thinking about stewardship of time and life.

ReligioNews: You’re watching too much TV if…