An American Lament

Vincent Castiglia – “Lament”

When life began shuttering for all of us back in March, I found myself once again on the run and beginning to feel as if I couldn’t breathe.  If you read back to the blogs I posted back in March, the sense of darkness was surfacing, tossing and turning at night, overwhelmed by once again the feeling of drowning.  It was the sense of loss, feeling homeless, a looming pandemic, and admittedly, the humility it takes to move home, even if temporarily, after more than twenty years away.  I could literally feel it on my chest, like I couldn’t breathe.

If you’re a regular reader, you know it’s nothing new for me, the sense of having my breath taken away.  One of the most pivotal moments in my life was nearly drowning while whitewater rafting on the Ohiopyle River in Western Pennsylvania.  It was not only the weight of a raft atop me, but the weight of the handful of men in the raft, and even the weight of a life flashing before my eyes, my life as it seemed to be coming to an abrupt end in a matter of seconds although feeling like minutes.  I couldn’t breathe.

If we can ever admit, or take the time to become aware, most of us at one time or another know that feeling of drowning or being unable to breathe.  We’ve witnessed the story of George Floyd this past week, a man pinned to the ground for what we now know to be nearly 9 minutes with a knee to his throat.  I’ll never admit to understanding I know what it feels like, but I do know the feeling of oppression and the weight of the world and all powers plopped down on top of me, unable to move, breathe, or even live life fully.  It’s the point which often goes unspoken, but believe it has more to do with the fact most don’t know their drowning because it’s often in their own grief.

It takes a great deal of humility to admit something is wrong and needing help, especially for men.  It’s not a surprise to anyone, men are more prone to suppress and repress how they feel and takes a lot of pushing before it begins to spill over.  We’re much better at taking it out on others than we are on allowing the pain to be transformed within us.  If we compound years of anger, hurt, and resentment, with now nearly three months of quarantine and lock-downs, it shouldn’t shock us when it begins to reach a boil and no one willing to turn back the heat.  It becomes, sadly, a political game with each of us as pawns, pushed to stand against so-called beliefs rather than with a hurting people.

We have before us many failing institutions.  It doesn’t mean their surmise; however, it does mean change is necessary, now more than ever.  We find ourselves surrounded by institutions which have become self-serving, which naturally take an oppressive approach because they become about power, and inevitably, an abuse of power.  We certainly see it in our political system, crumbling infrastructures, waffling cities, irrelevant religious institutions driven more by politics, money, and keeping the natives intact.  Is it any wonder we find ourselves now at a boiling point with the fear of only getting worse as this political season heats up?

I, of course, can only speak of my own experience.  There is even a part of me lamenting the rush of churches reopening.  As someone who’s been on the inside, there is great value and still have a resounding faith, but like most institutions, we refuse to look at the whole.  Now more than ever, churches need to move beyond the walls and out into the streets.  The thought of closing church into the confines of a wall gives the sense of suffocation, unable to breathe.  Over time we gradually are lulled into believing the world is bad, dark, evil, or any word you choose to describe.  However, it’s no different than an individual closing in on him or her-self. 

Over time, we become isolated, self-consumed, and breakdown communication.  It doesn’t mean we can’t function in the world; we still work, gather around people, and do what we need to do, but all in anticipation of locking ourselves back up again, feeling like we can once again breathe as we “leave” the world.  Before we quickly return to get our “fix” of comfort, we need to take a look at the world and what’s happening.  Again, I must say, I’m not against any of it; however, more needs to be expected of such an institution claiming transformation at its heart.  It’s also not simply my own faith background; it’s religion in America which fears the world and change and yet paradoxically choosing death over life by not changing systemically.

There is much to lament these days.  There are the countless people killed, hundreds of thousands dying of disease and viruses, at times looking like we don’t care, inequalities we prefer to make judgment of than deal with, failing institutions, increasing debt, anxiety through the roof, thousands upon thousands on prescription drugs for depression and other mental health issues, people yelling at one another unable to listen, pain boiling over, lack of care or concern for the other, selfishness, survival over living, transactional mindsets, empty words and speeches, generational trauma, and the list goes on an on.  Who are the people benefiting from this “normal”?  Is it “normal”?  Why is there a rush to return to “normal”?  Do you see why we shouldn’t rush to once again close off from the world?  It’s understandable why we make it “normal”; who wants to confront the pain of others when we can’t deal with our own!

When we break it down, we’ve lost our ability to dialogue as humans.  We’ve disconnected from our heart and try to understand through an ego which will always try to defend and protect.  Our greatest lament is the loss of our humanity in our institutions and beyond.  People are suffering on levels requiring self-aware leaders, free of the confines of institutional boundaries of cufflinks, dress and three-piece suits, a willingness, as Pope Francis says, “to smell like the sheep”.  The more we allow ourselves to be immersed in the pain and suffering of the world, we find ourselves unable to breathe by our own hypocrisy as a fellow human on the journey.  I know; I’ve been there.  Even writing about it brings up the feeling within me, reminding me of a life once lived not my own.  We lament the institutional freedom for true freedom.

As Americans we must lament.  We must grieve in these days.  We must learn to let go of our expectations, dreams unlived, our resentments and anger.  We must go out among the ones we deemed “profane” and listen to their story as well.  It’s not only our story which we find crumbling; it’s everyone’s story.  We need to write a new story for future generations, weaving together the great parts of our tradition with their own vision for tomorrow.  It’s not going to be the same.  It can’t be the same.  It mustn’t be the same.  We need to lament, most of all, a return to “normal”.  If one does not benefit from a return, then none of us do.  We must understand the one who’s been pushed from the top, being held underwater.  They have a perspective and a voice which must be heard, whether we agree or not.  For lamenting is not about agreeing or disagreeing.  It’s about grieving a heart which has hurt, a heart which will continue to scream out from underneath the raft until it’s given its voice to speak.  As Americans, it’s time to lament…

Unknown Truth

It’s not wrong to go without, even if it means confronting some of our deepest demons of safety and security or even the “warm fuzzies” we often come to rely upon in our lives. It has become too easy for any of us to go and get what we need or want when we want or need it. I wouldn’t think twice about running to the store, the computer, Amazon, a church or place of worship, whatever it may be to satisfy often the unease I desperately try to avoid within myself, as if I’m somehow lacking. If there’s anything about this pandemic experience we can learn, it’s just how convenience has ruled our lives. It’s not until we’re forced to stop, shops close, churches lock doors, sports shut-down, where we begin to see just how easy our lives have been and how uncomfortable we are with unease. We begin to “see” how much we’ve been able to avoid the acute pain within ourselves by running and avoiding the darkness, the hell, which has loomed. Quite frankly, more often than not we don’t stop until we’re forced to and are left with nowhere to run, hit square on by our own darkness.

There are more examples than I can write of here how we have projected this darkness onto society and the world rather than confronting our own demons. We simply want life to return to “normal”, one for the sake of routine and ease, but also because of our uncomfortableness with the unspoken and the “virus” which has hovered below the surface of our own lives and society at large. This may very well be the first time for many having to confront the “stuff” lingering below the surface, unable to know where to turn or who is going to understand since it is so new and the natural inclination is to “stuff” it. I don’t know about anyone else, but there are moments, in particular around the sleeping hours, where I’ll awaken in the darkness of night feeling short of breath. It seems impossible to distance ourselves from stories of respiratory failure wondering when it’s going to be my turn. As someone who’s dealt with respiratory issues in the past, including pneumonia, it’s easy to say I’m not going to worry but another to actually believe. There are so many unknown factors at play since it really is, novel. It isn’t, though, a respiratory condition, but rather a deeper reality trying to emerge from the drowning waters of the subconscious.

It may be one of the greatest factors at play in all of this. Living with the sense of ease and convenience, we’ve become accustomed to certain degrees of certainty and now trying to navigate without. As litigious as we are, or were, as a society, we tend to thrive on certainty. The more knowledge, facts, knows we have, the more comfortable we are as people. As it is with avoiding pain, we avoid the uncertain and the unknown out of fear. Yet, much of this experience has been about the unknown. As a matter of fact, it seems as if the more we know by watching news and reading about the pandemic, the greater the degree of fear and anxiety becomes attached to us. If we can extrapolate anything from the experience, it should be the degree of trust we place on what we believe to be certain, what makes us feel safe and secure. We want answers! The level of blame going on, and not simply on the political level, points to how much trust we place in something which is merely an illusion in the first place and how much we lack in faith and the deeper sense of trust which defines it.

We tend to associate experiences of the “dark night” as moments of depression, and it can be, or bad days and weeks, also can true. There would certainly be many stories of such an experience going on in people’s lives at this moment. However, there is a deeper sense of the dark night unfolding within and beyond us at the moment and an invitation to a new way of living rooted in faith and trust. It doesn’t necessarily come in the form of depression or despair or the unsettlement of our lives. Rather, the invitation lies within the experience of the unknown and this sense of aloneness and lack of meaning we find ourselves in during these days and weeks. Even our faith traditions have fallen prey to the illusions of safety and security over the years and the certainty the illusions provide. “If I do all the right things and follow all the rules, I’ll ‘go to’ heaven.” Unfortunately, this isn’t faith. However, when it begins to fall apart, and I question, and life doesn’t seem so ‘black and white’, there is the beginning of what can be a dark night, something truly to be grateful for! Otherwise “faith” is simply a means of control, who’s in and who’s out, especially when the world around us feels out of control. When it begins to feel as if we’re drowning in our own pain and grief, we will find anything to give us this sense of certainty, as if something in our lives is controllable.

Yet, now we even find ourselves in the absence of this version of faith. Doors of churches, mosques, synagogues, places of worship have been closed and locked. It alone can be seen as a dark night, but I would add at this moment of history, a necessary one for the future relevance of religion on our lives and society. The codependent relationship of religion and politics has done nothing to further the rich traditions of the contemplative and meditative natures a dark night like we are experiencing demands. The relationship has clung to safety and security and the demand for certainty which only something like a pandemic can begin to unfurl. We can almost expect the thirst for power to exist in politics; it always has. However, more is to be demanded of our faith traditions than mere fabrications of certainty when the only truth we can cling to in moments of unknown is Trust and learning to accept it in the unknown, in the darkness.

I could understand wanting churches to be packed on Easter Sunday, even if it was a highly unlikely goal. However, in a time of pandemic and utter darkness for so many, maybe the best gift we can give is to delay Easter for a later day. I mean, there really is no reason why it can’t be delayed. If there is a greater need for us as a society, it’s to know what suffering is and learning to trust within these moments. Instead we’ll fabricate an Easter in the absence of people, who not unlike the disciples, found themselves hunkered down, isolated, questioning, fearful, within the upper room, trying to make sense and meaning out of the events of suffering and death. Even after resurrection Easter could not be fabricated for the followers. They had to come to the place in time and it often didn’t happen until they allowed themselves to get out of the way, enter deeply into the sense of “going without”, and learn to trust in their own very darkness, unseen by the naked eye throughout the unfolding story and not made visible until life and death intersected.

We’ve settled for so little and often because of our inability to go without, sacrifice, and to feel the “pinch” so many other previous generations learned to live. We’ve settled more often than not for fabricated Easter’s, saying we no longer need to live with the suffering and darkness. However, this is not faith and trust. It’s living with the illusion of truth and certainty all while closing a blind eye to the suffering of our brothers and sisters around the world. We’ve settled for a fabricated Easter by throwing money at problems, always having heady and pious answers, clear definitions, blaming others for problems, weaponizing and polticizing scripture, and spiritualizing real problems. It’s all a fabrication of our collective ego in order to protect what we believe to be most important, but it’s not faith nor trusting. It’s believing a truth we can live with one and without the other. Faith, however, is learning to live with both and feeling the tension between life and death, light and darkness, suffering and joy.

What’s dying is the illusory ego. How do we know? We know because of the lack of certainty, no quick answers or fixes, no foreseeable return to “normal” (nor should we), confusion, darkness, death. It’s all there fixed on our screens not unlike the scenes of 9/11. We were given an invitation then and we let it pass us by, trying to consume our ways out of it. We are now given another invitation to understand our complexity as humans, the truth of life and death are all of us, when we have nothing to consume as doors remain locked, where all we can do is sit in the darkness of the moment and feel. It’s a painful feel, as if I can’t breathe, a sense of isolation, lacking purpose and meaning, trapped in the upper room, fearful of an unseen virus and maybe the unknown of my own life. We are given a dark night at a time when we need it the most. We are given time to “go without” so many ways of life we have become accustomed. I’m not saying it’s easy. As a matter of fact, it’s growing old quickly. However, there’s more to learn. Even as I write I can feel it within myself.

Are we going to continue to settle for mere fabrications of safety and security? Are we going to use this time to grow exponentially as humans, learning to see each other as ourselves, understanding the suffering of others? Are we going to continue to settle for a faith rooted in certainty rather than trust and truth? Are we, as a society, going to finally deal with a broken heart of a life which hasn’t been as expected and finally allowing ourselves to be led by a healed heart rather than an injured ego? Are we going to continue to allow ourselves to be victims and blame “the world” for all of our problems rather than take responsibility for our lives? These are questions we ask in the darkest of nights we are living in this pandemic.

It’s not a moment to sulk, even if I feel it at times, but rather to find glimmers of light within the confusion, chaos, darkness, fear, uncertainty for we are both and not one or the other. It’s a moment to accept our own mortality and commit to living life differently as we go forward, day by day and choice by choice, to live from a deeper level, a higher consciousness, filled with faith and trust. It’s a moment to learn to live without, without certainty, safety, security, knowns, facts, ins and outs, convenience, ease, and to leap into the unknown. The great promise and truth I can give is it’s the best thing you can do for yourself, we can all do for ourselves. It’s uncomfortable, there’s grieving, it’s dark, and all the rest, but it’s the hero’s journey, a faithful journey, and truthful journey, one leading to meaning and purpose and a faith rooted not in certainty but in the darkest night of the soul, wandering lost, where life no longer makes sense, only desiring and wanting nothing more than to feel the “presence of the Soul” once again.

Will It Slip Us By?

At times, some of the greatest lessons we learn come from what at the time appeared to be an inconvenience. Now I’d be the first to admit the pandemic we now face as a human race ranks higher than an inconvenience, a blip on the screen. At least it certainly feels like more knowing how it’s changing our lives, and, quite frankly, not necessarily bringing the best out of us as if we face survival of the fittest. Hopefully in the end we’ll see how irrational the fear we operate out of can be and often inhibits our ability to handle chaotic situations. When we hear stories about hoarding toilet paper and Clorox products, as if we’ve never used the products before, it should simply make us cringe, showing the little concern we have of the other in our world!

For those of us who have to consciously work at not isolating ourselves, it can be really difficult. We’re told we need to distance ourselves from one another and hunker down for the worst, similar to when growing up preparing for an impending blizzard, knowing we’d be “stuck” for possibly days. As if technology hasn’t already done a number on interpersonal relationships, we’re now told that social distancing must be the norm. All of it being fine, but are we now willing to learn the lesson of what technology has done and is doing to us. Even more so, we’re going to find our faces glued to computer screens as we’re forced to work from home and remote locations. Will we find the time to unglue ourselves long enough to renew the aged tradition of simply being with one another? There are plenty of memes out there making us laugh about not knowing the people around us because of the busyness of our lives. We laugh at the partial truth being revealed to us right now and in these moments.

We are already a consumer-driven culture and society and without a doubt it’s what we hear of the most in these days. As I write, the stock market is once again down nearly 2000 points, as if it is becoming the norm these days, businesses are closing, even Wal Mart is shutting its doors early! What’s normal is a question for another time! However, our lives seem to be driven by numbers, and in particular, these numbers. Somehow the viability, health, and resiliency of, we the people, is driven by how well our retirement plans are doing in the stock market. Maybe I’m too far away from the 59 ½ age to claim anything in mine, but it’s a daily occurrence and apparent indicator to the health of our nation. Are we just too uncomfortable with the unknowns so we cling to the numbers? This is not to say we shouldn’t be prepared for retirement, especially considering the growing lifespan of men and women. However, the almighty $$ remains our most prominent god, ingrained in our very being. There is already talk about bailouts and saving industries, quite noble of us. However, it will be simply a band-aid on a growing pandemic of our obsession with money. It shouldn’t surprise anyone we’d be hoarding toilet paper and the such knowing we’d prefer to pad wallets rather than help others in need, each wo(man) for themselves. Will we allow our own selfishness to be addressed, changing to be more grateful? Will we become conscious of the deep truth, that, in the end, it means absolutely nothing?

None of it, of course, has slowed down the insanity of conspiracy theories, an avoidance of what is, and the revealing of a dysfunctional political system. It’s amazing to believe some kind of emergency declaration was even possible! Some would say we’re overreacting, as is our nature, but it also reveals how poorly we are at being proactive and seeing beyond a decision, unable to see long-term consequences of our actions. The political system is primarily a reactionary body and whoever gets the last word, wins. It’s about winning. However, when our morality and ethical code is driven by winning and money, too many lose in the process. As we see, it is the most vulnerable of populations who become victim of our inability to plan for a future. When decisions or lack-thereof, are driven by political gain we all lose because the poor, the vulnerable, and populations we’d rather write-off lose. Will we allow this time to open our eyes to the people around us, real people who have a story not unlike our own and need us now more than ever?

Will we allow this time to slip by, getting impatient wanting to return to a life we were comfortable with prior to a pandemic? Are we already getting tired of being around the people we’re now “forced” to spend more time with? It was hard to ignore the number of posts on social media this weekend about the cancellation of religious services. It left me wondering, what are we really missing? Are we missing eucharist, the obligation, the time, the routine? There is so much wrapped up in our Sunday rituals but maybe even this time allows us to evaluate what it is we’re missing in the absence of the moments. Did we think about the people we wouldn’t see? Better yet, do we know the people we see week in and week out on Sunday? I was always amazed at the number of people who remained anonymous each week. I wonder where they are and how they’re handling all of this. Does that sense of anonymity only deepen for people who have felt invisible? It’s easy to make “church” into a tunnel-vision when it’s meant to expand our vision, to the people, the hands and feet of the other, walking in our midst.

In the end, there’s a deeper truth being revealed about us as a human race, one of which we have moved so far from it’s become unrecognizable and one we fear. It’s the fact of we really need very little. It’s about simplicity. Take it from someone who’s life had been upturned the past year, still piecing it together for the future, you need very little. We’ve complicated our lives with stuff and a rapid accumulation of it. For over a year much of my belongings have been boxed up and inaccessible but also unnecessary. The more we have the more anxious we tend to be, thinking and convincing ourselves we need more. Again, just look at the insane stories of toilet paper. The more we accumulate the more we want. It’s our deepest truth, simplicity, and our deepest fear, not having enough, as if we somehow lack. It becomes about us, as if we as people are lacking in self-worth, belief, value, etc. Will we allow ourselves to embrace the deeper truth of ourselves in we are not defined by what we have or do but by who we are?

My fear is, like too many times before, we’ll allow this time to slip by and become inconvenienced because our lives have been disrupted. It’s unsettling for everyone. We’re in this together, despite social distancing and the feeling of being isolated in our little worlds. It is a time, though, to pause and reflect about our lives as the mortality of the human race is tested. Death has a way of doing it to us more than anything else. Don’t let the time slip away as another blip on the screen. Pause, stop, reflect. What really matters in your life? Who really matters in your life? Who are the people who have become invisible in the world around you? What’s their story? My guess is, not much different than your own. Turn off the television, the anxiety, the fear of it all and ask where it’s coming from. What are the deepest fears assisting in our allowing this to slip through our fingers?

Pause, stop, reflect. Don’t let the timeless slip away without teaching the value of the time we are given.

 

Listen

Exodus 17: 3-7; John 4: 5-42

In his book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey makes the point, and I paraphrase, that more often than not we don’t listen to understand the other but rather listen with the intent to reply or react. We have it all figured out, and so often without even knowing it, we predict the end of a conversation or another’s thought based on judgement, our own opinion, or simply the tapes that play over and over in our heads that have already determined the outcome. We don’t listen to understand but rather listen to reply, to react, to the other. Any, in the word of Jesus, life-giving water we may have becomes stagnant in the process. We like predictability. We like certainty. Listening to understand, however, puts us in a place of vulnerability of possibly having to let go of things and change.

That brings us to today’s gospel of the Samaritan Woman. Even that story we can predict where it’s going. We know it and it’s hard to listen to it in a different way, a new way. But that’s also the life of this woman and she likes it that way or at least wants it that way. Even the fact that she arrives at the well at noon. It’s crazy. No one in their right mind would go to the well at that time of day. It’s too hot and it would be grueling. The time for the women to go was early in the morning or at evening, when the sun isn’t so hot. But mindful that she wants the predictability, she already knows all of that and it becomes a way to avoid others, to cut herself off from them and their judgment. You see, she not only has a set of tapes about all of them, she has them about herself. If she avoids them she can avoid that feeling of guilt and shame that she has defined herself by because of her life. Jesus points out that she’s been married several times and is currently in another relationship but not married. She knows it and they do as well.

This time is different, though, because she encounters Jesus. Now even in this case she comes off as rather terse towards him. He too doesn’t belong there so she doesn’t quite know what to do. Her predictable situation now has uncertainty. But she also has a running tape about men and Jews that only complicates the matter and so she’s less than thrilled for this encounter. Our immediate thought often with John’s Gospel, though, is that Jesus is the one that doesn’t listen to understand. He seems to talk past her and there is a great deal of misunderstanding. The tapes are no longer working with him. I’m guessing it’s often the case in our own relationships as to why there is conflict, because there is misunderstanding. But it’s not Jesus that doesn’t understand. It’s me and it’s you; it’s us that don’t understand. He’s not trying to move himself to a deeper understanding he’s trying to move her and us to a deeper place, trying to break through the wall we create for ourselves that cuts us off from others and God’s love and mercy. We think these defense mechanisms are going to somehow protect us from hurt, but they only isolate us more and cut us off from each other and God. Her hurt and pain runs so deep but she begins to show signs of it breaking down. In John’s Gospel this conversion, this transformation is all a process. She begins to doubt. She begins to question. No, not necessarily God because she still hasn’t come to that realization, but certainly the predictability that she has created for herself, the tapes that she runs were beginning to break down.

It’s not just her, though, it’s also the disciples in this passage. They too are confused and rather dumbfounded by the actions of Jesus. Again, it appears that it’s him that doesn’t understand but it’s them. As Jews they too are aware of the judgment and the relationship that they have with Samaritans. As much as she knows it with them, they too know it with her. They aren’t to cross in the way that Jesus is leading them. They ask about food knowing he must be hungry and he speaks about something deep within them, the food that nourishes the heart and soul but they don’t know how to react, to respond. Their tapes as well seem to be getting frayed. When we cut ourselves off from the living water and the food of eternal life, we become stagnant. As Jesus says, you will always want more because you thirst and hunger for something that just isn’t satisfying you. There is a deeper hunger and a deeper thirst that Jesus will try to lead us through these weeks of John’s Gospel. He listens to understand. Can we do the same in return?

Which brings us to the Israelites. If anyone like predictability it was the Israelites. Think about it. These are the people that have just been led to this great liberation, set free from bondage, but almost immediately want to return to what they know. We find comfort in certainty and predictability. It makes us feel safe and gives us something to hold onto in life. But it also dries them up and dries us up. They quickly flee the living water of their own lives and return to grumbling, what they so often do best. They love to complain and see themselves as victims. That’s the tape they play. They, more often than not, do not listen to understand what and where Moses is leading, they listen to reply, to react through their own selfishness and their own small view of the world.

The readings the next few Sundays are going to challenge us in this way and to try to listen to them with fresh ears and hearts. Our natural inclination is to listen with the old tapes, knowing how the story ends and predicting its outcome. We like it that way but it also leads to suffering, isolation, and cutting ourselves off from the living water. We are invited to imagine ourselves sitting at the well with Jesus. The encounter alone breaks down our predictability of the situation and of our lives. He doesn’t listen to reply or to react but rather to understand. Can we do the same? Or better yet, do we want to do the same? Sometimes we just don’t want to change and be transformed. It’s much easier to live in the predictability of our lives, no matter how miserable we may become. Courage, we pray for that courage, to sit with Jesus at the well and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, open, and generous with sharing our story, our hurt and pain that continues to cut us off. He wants so much of and for each of us if we can simply listen to understand, and before you know it, sure, it may lead to doubt and uncertainty in our lives, but if can finally begin to open us to the love and mercy the savior of the world has to offer each of us.

Expanding Our Vision

I spent this past weekend helping to lead a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat which I believe I’ve done for nearly eight years now. I never leave the experience without some sense of wonder and awe, not only at what people manage to live through in their lives, but undoubtably the courage they have to see it through to the other side. Or if anything, to begin the process of passing through.

If there’s one thing about pain and suffering, it has a way of narrowing our world view and often to the point where the sense of the eternal seems all but lost. Everything that we see and experience is viewed through that one narrow lens that does not lead to reconciliation and conversion, but to greater isolation and separation. It seems like the endless spiral of life for so many, choice after endless choice only leading to greater violence towards life and to ourselves.

It is the story of salvation history, though, as well. All this season we hear these great messages of hope from the Prophet Isaiah, including this Sunday. It is certainly the story of people Israel who often found itself in conflict after conflict, leading to greater separation. In today’s reading, despite the message of hope, Jerusalem once again plans for an impending attack from beyond its walls but also from within as this ongoing separation that leads to greater injustice and suffering. Heck, even if you go today it isn’t much different from thousands of years ago. It’s probably one of the craziest cities I’ve visited. They are so focused on their own pain and the need to protect that it has led to building walls that separate, from our own faith, the place of birth from the marking of death, a separation of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. It’s led to great problems beyond the walls and in places like Bethlehem, leading to a greater degree of poverty and injustice towards the people. Their vision had become so narrowed and they start believing that they really are the eternal rather than seeing it all metaphorically, that it eventually leads to their demise and destruction, time and again.

Yet, the message for Jerusalem and for us this weekend is of hope. That somehow these seeming opposites in the natural world will somehow lead the way and bring example to us humans as to how it’s done. Is there possibility for reconciliation? Is there possibility for less separation and a working towards greater justice, especially for the most vulnerable? Isaiah likes to believe so. For as hard as Isaiah can be on people Israel, this season offers a message of hope to those who have only known darkness and despair, to those who have viewed their lives through their constant suffering and the greater degree of poverty it leads to in one’s heart and soul. Like so many of our own sins, even those who walk this horror movie through the experience of making a life-ending choice, are so often symptoms of something much deeper going on in our lives, both individually and collectively.

Certainly John the Baptist was aware of this and everyone around him was aware of it. It’s why he was such a threat to the leaders, who often perpetuated the darkness for their own benefit, but also to the structures of his time. He was leading a revolution to call out the injustices of the society of his time, but for John it began with himself and for those who followed. He called them to look at themselves and how they too have sinned on this deeper than cellular level of their lives. The Pharisees and Sadducees knew it and did everything to avoid the fear that arose within themselves before the one who threatened their perceived power. John’s message is to repent, to do an about-face in life and to be awakened from their slumber to a new way of life, a life with greater vision, expanded vision, of a true and lasting God that sets them free.

This is the God we celebrate today and the God we prepare for all at the same time. There is no denying the greater darkness that has ensued so many lives, defined lives, ceased lives, and has caused us so often to stop growing ourselves. We get to a place that begins to seem hopeless as our world continues to shrink and dissolve around us, as the storm seemingly collapses over and over again before and within us. But there is hope. With just a crack in the walls we have created, the light begins to shine forth and God once again begins to break through and we submit ourselves to the invitation. This is a season of hope and a season to not only celebrate but to prepare for as the eternal breaks in and is broken open before our very eyes on this Table. As we gather and go forth, we pray we may continue to allow ourselves to be open to something and someone bigger than ourselves, to expand our vision while healing our pain and suffering. It is the fullness of life God desires of each of us and a fullness of life promised in this season of Advent.

If You Are…

This feast, Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, is a fairly new feast in the Church, only 91 years. It began in 1925 by Pope Pius XI as a response to a rising secularism, especially in Europe. Of course, it doesn’t seem to have somehow altered that history. If secularism were a religion, and it is in some ways, it would probably be one of the largest on Earth. Pius XI saw the separation of religion from government that was worrisome. Today, though, it goes even further and maybe a step backwards to individualism. It’s now individuals who are separating themselves from something and someone larger than themselves not just governments. It seems to even escalate here in the States and in Europe this sense of separation, that nations become the center of their own universe. Only time will tell where it will lead us. In the past it has often led to war due to separation and this sense of isolation that causes speculation and mistrust.

When we do begin to separate ourselves from something and someone larger than ourselves is often when we find ourselves getting into trouble. We start to make selfish choices that we think only impact us and forget about those around us. David was such a person whom we hear from in Second Samuel today. He was considered the ideal king. He was young and had lots of energy. But it eventually goes to his head. He eventually begins to believe that he’s all that and not only the King of Israel but also the king of his own life. It begins to impact his relationships and will bring about a fall, a sense of humility has he’s put in his place in life and once again reconnects with the true King and he truly does go onto be one of the greatest. He comes to the realization that he can’t do it on his own and must keep his eye on the true Kingdom.

This tension that exists in our lives as well, between individualism and the reality of the greater Kingdom, plays itself out in today’s gospel from Luke. It’s the last we’ll hear from Luke this year as the liturgical year comes to a close. Jesus finds himself hanging between these two realities. He’s faced with the same temptation that he does in the desert that we heard back in Lent. There’s the crowd and the one thief that puts pressure on Jesus to prove himself. They’re so closed in on their own pain that they miss what’s really going on. There’s the temptation to do it yourself, in somehow I’m able to save myself and no need of a God or anything or anyone bigger than myself. Of course, though, on the other side hangs who we often refer to as the “good thief”. There’s an acknowledgement on his part that he is in need of something bigger, a need for mercy and forgiveness. And there’s Jesus, hanging smack dab in the middle of the two and standing in the middle of our own tension with that reality, that sense we can do it ourselves and don’t need God and a place within us crying out for something more, mercy and forgiveness.

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul, in one of the oldest hymns in the New Testament, tries to give community after community this same perspective in their lives. He speaks of not a Christ of the Universe but rather a cosmic Christ that has always been and continues to be to this very moment, unfolding within and yet beyond us. It’s a hymn that expresses the deepest desire of our hearts, this desire for expansion. But it is only the one who stands as mediator that can expand hardened and hurting hearts. The more hardened they become the more we rely upon ourselves, not in need of any God. Our own pride gets in the way. We want to blame everything under the sun as to why people don’t need God or want Church, from soccer fields to wanting to be spiritual and not religious, but there is always a deeper reality at play, that often goes unseen. It is often our own struggle with the two thieves in our lives and often giving into the one that steals our freedom and convinces us that I am enough for me and that salvation is up to me rather than seeing salvation as a communal reality.

This feast will hopefully continue to give us pause in our lives, not only today but with each passing day that we are given, not only as individuals but as community, nation, and world. The more we separate ourselves from the source of life the more we become hardened and no longer feel the need for something or someone bigger than ourselves. Not Christ but I become the center of the universe. We begin to fear expansion like globalization and try to hunker down and isolate ourselves as fear takes root in our hearts. What we truly desire is the expansion of our hearts, to embrace all we encounter and recognize the need for the other and the Other. There will always be that part of us that thinks we can do it alone, the rise of individualism in our own lives, but we must recognize the tension and the desire for connectedness and oneness, the seeking of that Paradise that is promised, not by me, but by the mediator, the one who stands at the center of this tension in our lives and world, Jesus Christ, the true King of the Universe.

Reconciling the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Acts 4: 8-12; IJn 3: 1-2; John 10: 11-18

Every year on the Fourth Sunday of Easter we hear from the tenth chapter of John’s Gospel and his account of the the Good Shepherd, on what we call, Good Shepherd Sunday. Yet, for what we know of this image, which is probably the most prevalent in all of Scripture, it often seems to stand at odds with Jesus and even the words, good and shepherd seem to be more in conflict than anything. However, Jesus manages to pull together these seemingly opposing opposites and identifies himself as the Good Shepherd.

In the gospels, when Jesus is confronted by the rich young man he even questions him in calling him good. His reply is, “God alone is good.” And the shepherds, well, we know how unfaithful they have often been from David right on down to the shepherds who become the chosen ones of the incarnation that we hear at Christmas, because they are seen as suspicious, dangerous, involved in risky business, at times thieves, and even to this day, some who live in isolation from the rest of the community because of how they have been labeled and looked down upon and so often living down to that level.

Yet, Jesus says I am the good shepherd. Jesus manages to reconcile the good and the shepherd of our own humanity, and through the Crucified Christ now raised from the dead, is salvation, the kingdom, brought to fruition in the life of the community. It’s the debate that Peter finds himself in today. Now this is nothing new for Peter. He’s been in this situation before when him and the other disciples question Jesus in the gospels about those who are being healed by others than the “chosen” ones. Now he’s in a different position. Now he knows in his very being, Christ crucified, now raised from the dead, as more than just an event but a reality in his life and that of the community. He pretty much tells them the details of the healing of the crippled man really don’t matter. How it happened or what took place. What matters is that he was healed and can now be with the community in the fullness. It was and is through the power of the Crucified One now raised that we believe he has been healed. As a matter of fact, it is only through Christ that we seek and find healing, forgiveness, reconciliation. The Christ goes to the place where we have been isolated. Christ goes to the place where there has been hurting. Christ comes into the world and appears to the least, the shepherds in the fields, to offer a message of hope in the midst of the their lives.

But Peter had another issue to deal with and one we deal with in our own society and culture. He emphasizes that salvation and the breaking in of the kingdom comes in and through Christ. Yet, so often they were led to believe that it came through the Emperor or the political leaders of their day. We know from Herod that it was more out of fear that leaders often rally the troops. If we wait for leaders to bring healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation, we will be waiting for quite some time.

Now we find ourselves as a city facing some deeply-seeded hurting going on these days and for the past weeks and it is us, the believers, as it was in the early community with Peter, who are called to be love to the community and this city. If we reduce everything to politics, we find ourselves in ongoing situations like this one, with hurt leading to more hurt, divisiveness leading to more divisiveness, and trying to prove one’s right and one’s wrong. As it was for Peter, we’re missing the point. We’re missing the point that it is healing that needs to take place. We’re missing the point that it is reconciliation that needs to take place. We’re missing the point that it is forgiveness that needs to take place. It is Christ crucified, now raised from the dead, that comes and brings reconciliation. Christ reconciles the good and the shepherd. It’s Christ that reconciles the shepherd and the sheep. It’s Christ that reconciles the good, the bad, and ugly of our own lives. For it is only in Christ in our own lives, that when healed, we no longer have to respond to violence with more violence, but rather with love. We are God’s children and so we are as John tells us in the Second Reading.

There’s a lot of good in our lives and city, but there’s also, at times, a lot of bad and ugly that takes place. We find ourselves as reactionaries more than responders of love. Christ, the Good Shepherd, comes to the place where we have been and have isolated in our own lives, to love and comfort, to seek out what has been lost and can now be found, just as he did with the shepherds. As we celebrate this Good Shepherd Sunday we gather mindful of the heavy burden of hurt and pain in our lives, our community, our city, and certainly our world. We’re not called to fix and solve. On this Good Shepherd Sunday we are called to reconcile as the Great Reconciler did and continues to do in our lives and world. It doesn’t matter how it happens for this mystery of healing and reconciling is within and yet beyond each of us. We are called to manifest God’s love to our community, city, and world, by being the wounded healers, reconcilers, and forgivers, for it is that that we witness to by our very lives in trusting the Good Shepherd, leading the ewes with care, devotion, and great love.

A Holistic Healing

Leviticus 13: 1-2, 44-46; Mark 1: 40-45

As we listen to these stories of the healing of the man with leprosy, I think it’s good to keep in the back of our mind that, when we do hear them, it’s pretty certain that there is going to be more than just a physical healing that takes place. Of course I have worked with many sick people, to the point of terminal and nearing the end of their lives, and it so often seems that the physical pain becomes secondary to what it can do on the inside. It’s the isolation, the separation from family and friends, the disconnect from the community that begins to take a toll, sometimes causing greater pain than the physical part. Not to say that many don’t suffer greatly in a physical way; there are many that do. Some of it, I dare say, is that we don’t like to face it. It’s easier to separate and isolate than it is to look suffering in its face, despite the fact that we are constantly being invited into this mystery of life and death, truly one and the same mystery.

It’s what goes on with the guy in the gospel today and his encounter with Christ. More than anything, this guy wants to be connected to the larger story, the story of community. His leprosy has kept him separate and in isolation and we see his immediate response is to want to go and tell everyone. First, of course, he’s told to follow the precept of the law and show himself to the priest. We hear that account in the first reading today from Leviticus in the message delivered from the Lord to Moses and Aaron. “He shall dwell apart” is the command that is given to those with leprosy. Do we have any idea what it does to the human person when they are disconnected from the larger story of the community? Think about it, even to this day we still try to separate and have a hard time going to visit those who are sick and dying because our own mortality is put on the line and in such great vulnerability, we are tested deep within, connecting us with suffering and death itself, and ultimately, to the larger story of who we are, the mystery of life and death, where suffering is so intricately connected. We live in a culture that avoids death and suffering at all cost. We can’t bring ourselves at times to face it.

But as we know, Jesus has a way of turning things on its head in the gospel accounts that we hear on Sunday. Yes, it is the man who suffers from leprosy that has lived isolated and disconnected, separated from community, but not by his own choice. He doesn’t choose to isolate and separate. He doesn’t choose to disconnect. It’s those who consider themselves the insiders that make the choice for him and it is them, too, that have become disconnected from the larger story, the great mystery of our human lives, the interconnectedness of life and death and suffering. They want nothing to do with the suffering. They want nothing to do where their own vulnerability is going to be put on the line. They want nothing to do with those that have been deemed unclean, less than human, separated from their deepest desire, to be one. Yet, the only way we become that one is to embrace the mystery in its entirety. They go out, as the gospel tells us today, to encounter the Lord. It’s everyone that is need of conversion and an encounter with the Lord, not simply the man suffering with leprosy.

It may just be appropriate that we hear these readings now that we stand just a few days away from the start of Lent. We focus so much on what we’re going to give up that we sometimes forget that it is a season of change and conversion, growing in holiness. So often it’s the very leprous parts about ourselves that we cut off that are in need of healing and conversion. We learn as kids how to protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe in times of darkness, but as adults, it’s stands in the way of living life in its fullness, a life of being one. As we approach the season of Lent, we can begin to ask ourselves where are those places within us that we have cut off, turn away from, can’t handle, that we don’t like, the places that have become so often our sin, that place of death within. For all we do to separate, even other people and within ourselves, God now tries to pull together and reconcile, to make whole and one. That’s where real healing and growth takes place, when we no longer have to live separate from and disconnected from the larger story of life, our lives, the great mystery. God now invites us into those places that have become separated and leprous in our lives to bring us back into wholeness and holiness as we seek the healing touch of the Lord.