Into Every Troubled Breast

 it seems to me that there are two qualities that ease our suffering more than anything else:  the ability to forgive and a sense of gratitude.  as i observe several people i love deeply, i long for them to forgive past wrongs.  i understand how their feelings of anger toward another have come to be.  i agree that they were wronged in the most hurtful ways.  yet their refusal to deal with their injury by talking with the person who caused it, their insistence on reliving the incident that caused their initial pain, and their failure to forgive that person cause their suffering to be prolonged.  it is as if they derive some perverse pleasure from their victimhood.  in cutting themselves off from someone i know that they love, they say to themselves and to those who listen to them describe their pain over and over that their isolating themselves from the offender will prevent another such hurt, but still the pain that is at the root of their suffering continues to fester like an infected wound that goes untreated.  the offending party can never make amends because the one who was injured will not have anything further to do with them.  often both parties continue to feel aggrieved, each blaming the other for their parting of ways.

in such situations, if we can try to place ourselves in the shoes of the other person, we may see why they behaved as they did.  understanding goes a long way toward finding forgiveness in our hearts but it doesn't excuse wronging another.  still, the person who was wronged must accept that the one who hurt them did so because of their own hurt.  they lashed out because of some hurt in their own lives, perhaps an injury that happened long ago that was never dealt with.  when we are able to see another's pain in the midst of our own pain, we can see that we are all the same and admit that suffering is universal.  we ease our own suffering by recognizing the suffering of others and forgiving them for allowing their suffering to cause more suffering for us.  

like forgiveness, gratitude enables us to see that we are not alone in the world.  we enjoy so many blessings because others have enabled them.  we can't lie down in our beds at night without countless people having made our rest possible.  those who felled the trees to provide the wood for our bed frames, those who grew the crops that made it possible to weave the fabrics of our bed linens, those who devised and manufactured the machines that enabled the trees to be felled and the crops to be harvested, the person who placed the linens on the bed in which we rest, the person who purchased our beds and our bed linens--the list could go on--to all of those we owe a debt of gratitude.  in every aspect of our lives, there are such lists of countless others who have made everything we enjoy possible.  we must be grateful to our ancestors who went before us, who made it possible for us to be where we are and as we are.  none of us is self-made.  in a real sense, each person in the world is our own mother, our father, our sister, our brother.  without them we could not exist, and to each of them we ought to be grateful.

may we be filled with boundless gratitude.  may we recognize that all is interconnected and that we are members of a vast network of relationships to every person and to the environment of which we are a part.  may we open our hearts so that our ability to forgive is infinite.  shalom.

The Profit Soon Turns Strangely Thin

 during this time away from church attendance brought about by the pandemic, i've been doing some thinking about how our beliefs about God affect our attitudes and actions.  it seems to me that those who believe that God is a god with a plan for every individual, that each of us must constantly try to find "God's will" for our lives and live in accordance with what we think that plan is, in short, a god who is controlling, behave very differently from those who believe that God's only plan is that we try to love one another as God loves us.  

the first approach concerning God leads to faith in a god who is a god of rules, watching each of us to make certain that our i's are dotted and our t's are crossed, a God who punishes us either in the present life or in life after death when we fail to live by the rules.  this sort of god brings a big attendance register to sunday worship to place a check or an x by our names to indicate whether we are there or not, a sort of naughty and nice list.  if we follow this sort of God, we feel that it is our duty to control how others live, as well.  we want our elected officials to make laws that prohibit behaviors that break "God's rules."  we want our legal code to tell women when they can and cannot have children, to tell doctors how to care for their transgender patients, to decide when and where we can buy alcoholic beverages, for instance.  we think that those who live in poverty, who struggle to provide for themselves and their families, are in such circumstances because that's part of God's plan or because such people are not following God's plan for their lives.  by the same token, the wealthy must be prospering because God has ordained it, so what right do we have to limit their wealth by requiring them to pay their fair share of the costs of society.

this sort of god controls our health.  if we are sick, have a disease, or are injured in an accident, it is because God wills it.  when a loved one is ailing, then we must pray that God will intervene and heal our sick or injured loved one.  when someone dies, it is because God wills their death.  we say that God is calling them home or needs them more than we do.  congenital maladies must have been ordained by God, since God controls every birth.  being born with the anatomy of one gender and the psyche of another is impossible, according to this way of thinking about God, since God wouldn't create such a person.  therforefore, transgender people are as they are by their own choice, not by an accident of birth.  medical and psychiatric attempts to reconcile one's anatomy and psyche are wrong-headed and contrary to God's will, say those who believe in this way.

if we believe as the writer of 1 john says that "God is love; whoever abides in love, abides in God," we live by a very different set of guidelines.  the author of 1 john goes on to say, "if anyone says, 'I love God,' but hates his brother, he is a liar."  believing these words about God, we view others with compassion and refuse to try to control them.  we seek to alleviate poverty rather than blaming those who are poor for their lack of resources.  we take responsibility for the harm we and our ancestors have done by making amends.  we recognize that all creation is beautiful and worthy of protection; we do not try to make the world conform to our own views or use the world's resources without thought to the damage we may be doing.  we vote for leaders who share our compassionate concern for others.  

we accept that bad things happen to all of us, no matter how "good" we are and that those bad things are not part of some grand scheme devised by God but rather just random life events.  if God doesn't cause these harmful events to happen, then we mustn't ask God to undo them.  if God could intervene to cure disease, then God could have prevented the disease in the first place.  praying for healing is futile.  it is better that we should give thanks for those with the skill to care for our maladies and for medical advances that make it possible to treat and sometimes cure disease.  believing that "God is love," we then know that our pain causes God to suffer along with us.

may we give thought to what sort of God we worship, if we believe that there is a God.  may our hearts be filled with lovingkindness and compassion, not with rules by which to judge others.  may we accept all humanity with its myriad permutations and refuse to condemn that which we do not understand.  may we stop seeking a divine plan for our lives and start loving and caring for one another.  shalom.

We Catch the Vision of Your Tears

 each night as my wife and i watch the evening news, we see images of children crossing our southern border from mexico after having made their way north from their homes in central america.  the most haunting of these images was the young boy walking alone through desolate country and encountering a border patrol agent.  we hear him ask the agent for help as he describes having been abandoned by those with whom he crossed the border.  seeing his innocent eyes brimming with tears, our hearts go out to him.  for me, his story captures the plight of those who are seeking our help.  his cry, "can you help me," must be answered in the affirmative.

this is one of the few points on which my wife and i disagree.  as she watches the stories of those seeking asylum, her response is that we can't possibly take in so many unaccompanied minors.  we don't have proper facilities to care for them.  they are crowded into shelters with little room to spread out on the floor to sleep.  those responsible for their care are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of those who are coming to us.  the conditions in which they must live are intolerable and their suffering must be great.  they've left everything that is familiar to them to come to a strange country.  i see my wife's point and agree with her that the present circumstances can't be allowed to continue.  yet, i know, too, that what these asylum seekers suffered in their home countries must have been horrific for them to have made their way all this distance to seek refuge in this country.  how can we turn our backs on these children as they cry, "can you help me."  

a solution to this crisis must be found.  knowing the compassionate heart of mr. biden, i feel certain that his administration is doing its best to establish a humane system to deal with this situation.  my wish is that we would hear something of what plans the government has to ease the suffering of these children.  we must find places for them in better facilities and with family members here in the usa.  we need to know what steps are being taken by our government to ease the situations in their home countries that cause them to leave their families there to find a better life here.  in the meantime, we can't turn our backs on these children.  we must help them.  they must be assured that our hearts are filled with compassion for them, that we will care for them as best we can,  and we will do what we can to ameliorate conditions for those left behind.

may our compassion outweigh the difficulties of caring for these struggling children.  may we see that easing their suffering is an opportunity to make the world a better place one child at a time.  may we realize that the wealthiest country in the world has the resources to care for these refugees who cry, "can you help me."  shalom.

Christ Is Near with His Cheer

 another easter has passed.  my wife and i stayed home, visiting with our son and his girlfriend who were here for the weekend.  it was a relief not to be in church this easter sunday.  i always dread easter, especially when i have to play the service.  i've never liked easter, perhaps because my family didn't make a big deal of it when i was a child.  the easter bunny didn't come to our house delivering a basket of eggs and chocolates, as he did to my friend's homes.  i didn't envy them because of their visit by the easter bunny.  we always dyed our own easter eggs, and for me that was much more fun than having them delivered to me by a fictitious rabbit.  i didn't like to eat boiled eggs and hated hunting for easter eggs, a pastime i thought boring, even as a small child.  rather, i enjoyed looking at the pretty eggs and trying to experiment with making mine as interesting as i could.  i suppose other children thought me strange, but i didn't care.  their excitement about the coming of easter with its bunny was just as weird to me.

as an adult, i find the music of easter, with its lyrics about victory over death and the conquering jesus, somehow disturbing.  it doesn't fit with what i believe about jesus.  for me, the fact that jesus was willing to die for what he had stood for in life is heroism enough.  when i think of the death of jesus, i remember his words in john 15:13:  "greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."  and so he did, refusing to back down in the face of accusations in the sanhedrin or when brought before the roman authorities.  he was not cowed when he was ridiculed and beaten by roman soldiers, nor did he curse those who caused his death.  even as he hung on the cross in agony, he forgave his accusers and the thief hanging beside him, according to luke's gospel.

to live and die as jesus did is enough.  tales of rising from the dead, reappearing to his follower after his death, or ascending into heaven do nothing to increase my devotion to the teachings of jesus--they are a distraction from what he taught, obscuring the point of his life and death.  we like to make those who accomplish extraordinary feats something that they were not, imbuing them with supernatural powers.  maybe that is because we think that, because their accomplishments exceed ours by such a great degree, they must be more than human.  it was not enough that a human jesus inspired great devotion from his followers, challenging the foundations of the jewish religious establishment and the power of rome.  he had to be turned into a god.  following his teachings was not enough for those who were left after he was executed.  he had to be worshiped, and in the very act of his deification, his teachings were perverted into something he never intended.

may we honor the very human jesus.  may his life of humble service and his bravery in the face of his enemies inspire us to live as he taught us.  may we understand that his brief time on earth changed the course of history, not because he was God incarnate, but because he showed us that each of us could attain greatness by serving others, that "whoever would be great . . . must become a servant."  shalom.