Can Love Have Limits?

This is the text of the reflection I offered to the congregation I serve here in Charlottesville, Virginia on Sunday, March 4, 2018.  It is a continuation of my response to a blatantly racist note delivered anonymously to our Director of Administration and Finance, Christina Rivera.  Here is a link to the immediate response of senior congregational leadership (which includes a photo of the note), as well as a link to my sermon from the special evening service we held two days later.

Opening Readings

From Jack Mendelson.  Being Liberal in an Illiberal Age:  Why I am a Unitarian Universalist. 

“I made my fundamental choice long ago.  I wanted freedom.  Freedom to think, express, question, examine, grow, and change.  But freedom without a firm foundation of faith in action and a sense of history is fragile….I knew from the beginning that I did not want to go it alone.”

Forrest Church quoted in the UU Pocket Guide.

“We Unitarian Universalists have inherited a magnificent theological legacy.  In a sweeping answer to creeds that divide the human family, Unitarianism proclaims that we spring from one source; Universalism, that we share a common destiny.  Unitarian Universalists are neither a chosen people nor a people whose choices are made for them by theological authorities—ancient or otherwise.  We are people who choose.”

Sermon

I love that hymn.  I would sing it, for what often seemed like hours, as I rocked one or the other of my children to sleep.  I wanted them to hear that message, from before they could even understand the words.

It seems to align so well with particularly the Universalist side of our Unitarian Universalist faith.  After all, the theological assertion embedded in the name “Universalism” is that God’s love knows no bounds, that no one will be condemned to eternal damnation, that “Mother, Father God,” as some of our prayers at that time said, loves each and every one of their children, from the most angelic to the most  … not-so-angelic.  God’s love is universal.  So universal, in fact, that our Universalist ancestors said that God is Love.

And while for many of us that particularly theistic language doesn’t work, the underlying assertion still does.  That’s no doubt why some people were, and are, both confused and upset that I would stand here and say something like, “the person who wrote the blatant, despicable, anonymous racist attack on Christina Rivera, a member of our staff and of our community, is not welcome here.”  I said that during the special service on Wednesday night, right here – I was clear and unambiguous:  if you wrote that note you are not welcome here.  What I didn’t say then, but will say now, is that if you agree with the racist sentiments expressed in that note, you really don’t belong here either. 

We all agree, I hope, that such behavior has no place in the loving community we strive to be (and so often are).  This is a community comprised of extremely lovely and loving people.  I also believe that we all agree that we can – and that we ought to — say that such behavior will not be tolerated.  But what, exactly, do we mean when we say that?  The word “tolerate” means, “allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of something (that one does not necessarily like or agree with) without interference.”  Saying, then, that we will not tolerate the kind of racist, hateful attack – and it was an attack – means that we will not “allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of” things like this.

But what does that mean if we say to the person who did this, “you’re still welcome here”?  What does it mean to say, “you’re still a part of this community”?  What does it mean to say that we won’t tolerate such behavior and then, in effect, demonstrate that we will tolerate it.  I don’t understand that.  I simply don’t understand that. 

Whoever did this is way outside of our covenant, perhaps particularly because because it was done under the cloud of anonymity, extending the damage as suspicion spreads, with people wondering, “could it have been them?  How about them?” (I’ve had several people tell me that they’re convinced they know who did it, and others have said that they feel like they can’t trust anybody right now because they just don’t know.)  This content of the note, as well as the way it was delivered, is antithetical to our Unitarian Universalist principles and values, and is, I think we’d agree, is in stark contrast to the expectations of human decency.  Please make no mistake, please do not minimize or deflect – this was not just some “unfortunate” thing that happened.  Although there was no overtly threatening language in the note, can’t you see that there was a threat there?  That note was intended to intimidate, intended to hurt, and it certainly seems to me that there was an implied “… or else” in it  

And the note was not just directed toward Chris.  Whoever wrote it brought her kids and her husband into it.  The person not only dismissed Christina’s humanity, denied her “inherent worth and dignity,” but also attacked her kids, her husband, and the sanctity of their family.  If someone had spray painted this on her car, or thrown a rock through the window with the note tied to it, or had come into her office while she was working here at night, come into her office with a robe and hood on and said this to her face … would any of that really make a difference in terms of the severity of this offense?  I have heard so many people this week say, “Oh, that was awful, but …”  “… but we shouldn’t make too big of a deal out of it,” “… but we should have still gotten together to eat cake and have the party we’d planned to celebrate the congregation’s 75^th anniversary,” “… but this was an isolated incident and doesn’t say anything about who we are as a community.”

Immediately after the service on Wednesday, and certainly since then, I’ve heard from people who, as I said, are either confused about how an ordained UU minister – or any UU, for that matter – could say the things I’ve been saying, or are really angry that I have.  I have heard from many people who disagree with me — well-meaning people, good-hearted people, people who are really trying to apply our liberal values.  “Aren’t we supposed to welcome everyone?” people have asked. “It’s likely that whoever wrote that note has some kind of mental illness,” some have said, “and aren’t we supposed to be compassionate toward people with mental illnesses?”  “What about our affirmation of ‘the inherent worth and dignity of every person’?  Doesn’t even the person who wrote that note have worth and dignity?”  “Should we judge someone – and in judging, reject someone – because of what might be the worst of their actions?”  ”Shouldn’t we reach out to them and try to, as we promise to do in our covenant, ‘lovingly bring [them] back into covenant?”  I’ve heard all of these things this week, and I don’t for a moment doubt the sincerity, or the heart, of the people who are asking these questions.  I just disagree.  I just strongly disagree.

Over the years I’ve heard repeated nearly word for word the same question from people who want to better understand our commitment to welcoming everyone:  “What about Hitler?,” they ask.  “Did Hitler have ‘inherent worth and dignity’?   If you really do ‘welcome everyone,’ shouldn’t Hitler have a place in your community?”  I’ve been asked this not only from non-UUs; I’ve been asked this by a whole lot of UUs over the years.

So what about this Universalist thing?  What about our commitment to “welcome all?”  Well … I don’t think we really ought to be welcoming to all people.  God’s love, as our Universalist ancestors would have put it, may be unending and unconditional, but our human love needs to be.  Yes, I’m saying that human love needs some kind of limits, some kind of boundaries, if we are to be healthy and whole.

Consider a woman in an abusive relationship.  She loves her husband, and when he’s not beating her he is contrite and demonstrative.  Yet who here would seriously suggest that she stay in that relationship because, after all, there shouldn’t be any limit to our love?  Is that really what we’d say, or would we tell her that she should get out of that relationship as fast as possible and never look back?  Wouldn’t we tell her — or him, since men are also abused — that their safety takes precedence over any commitment to compassion? 

I don’t mean that we can’t be — should’t be — compassionate. We can understand that the abuser was very likely abused themselves as a child and is, then, also a victim. We can hope that they get the treatment that they need.   And that doesn’t preclude our saying that for their own safety they need to sever those ties, break those bonds, and end that relationship.  And we’d no doubt tell them that any time, every time, their abuser came back to them bearing roses and remorse, they ought to say, “I may still love you.  I may still care about you.  But you are no longer welcome in my life.”  Isn’t that what most of us would do?

And what about that prescription for health and happiness we’ve all heard, which says that we shouldn’t surround ourselves with people who disrespect us, put us down, do what they can to crush our spirits and our sense of self-worth?  Such people are “toxic,” we’re told – or, in my favorite description, “psychic vampires.”  For our own well-being (and, really, safety), this philosophy council’s that we should disassociate ourselves from such people.  Once again, we can understand the psychological conditions that have probably affected the way they act in the world.  We can have all sorts of compassion for them.  But would we invited them over to hang out and sleep in our guest room?  I don’t think so, and I don’t think it’s a betrayal of our Unitarian Universalist values for us not to.

The ideal of “welcoming all” is laudable, it comes from a good place.  Yet the reality of our lives is that we often we find that our ideals can be in conflict with one another.  The conviction that we be welcoming to everyone, for instance, can be in direct opposition to our conviction that we create a safe place for the most vulnerable in our society.  Take a look at the Words of Welcome we say each week.  We say:

Whoever you are, whomever you love, however you express your identity, whatever your situation in life, whatever your experience of the holy, you presence here is a gift.

That is a welcome particularly to people who do not find themselves welcome much of the time.  It all boils down to this:  if you have been marginalized in any way, if your identity has been diminished or denied, in this place you are seen as a gift.  If the dominant culture is unsafe for you, we strive to be a community in which you will be safe. 

That’s why, for the past several years I have not been saying in the greeting, “ours is a congregation that welcomes all.”  I’ve been saying that “ours is a congregation that welcomes all who want this be a world in which all are welcome.”  I say that now, because I’ve learned that the warm and enthusiastic welcome and embrace of everyone — including the victimizers, the oppressors of our society — makes this an unsafe place for those whom the wider society has oppressed and victimized.  To say that we should welcome absolutely everybody is to directly contradict and undermine our saying that here we are striving to be a place where those who have been historically marginalized can find safe haven.  As much as our ideals may think that there should be a “both/and” here – and you know how I have always preached the theology “both/and” – there is just no practical way, no way on this earth, for this to be anything but an “either/or.”  As South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”  This is hard for us well-meaning, good-hearted liberal folks to hear – especially us well-meaning, good-hearted liberal folks who identify or are identified as white. 

I can hear people still saying, nonetheless, that it goes against our Unitarian Universalist values to tell someone that they’re not welcome.  Our bylaws have no provision for the removal of someone from membership, only for a person withdrawing on their own.  So let me rephrase what I’ve been saying about the author of that letter, and those who agree with its sentiments not being welcome here.  Let me try saying that a different way:

To the person who wrote that note:  you have, by your actions, effectively and clearly demonstrated that you do not ascribe to our covenant, and don’t agree with our vision and our values. And as Unitarian Universalists our communities are not bound together by creeds, but by covenant, and shared vision and values.  So by your own behavior you have shown yourself to be someone for whom this community and all that it stands for is not the kind of place you want to belong.   Because of what we say about ourselves, because of who we are and have committed ourselves to being, the kind of behavior you have demonstrated is intolerable, and by thinking that what you did should be tolerated, should be accepted, you have effectively demonstrated that this is not the community for you.  You have, effectively, withdrawn yourself from membership in this community.  I’m not asking you to leave, I’m just making it clear that you already have.

Yet even with that framing, I feel certain there will still be resistance.  I know, I am certain, that there are people who are hanging on to their hope, their faith, that we can “all just get along.”  I have no doubt that there are people who think this because they truly and deeply believe in that ideal of all-embracing love and the power of both forgiveness and redemption, and I ams sure that there are people who simply resist any kind of limit to their freedom, chafe at any assertion that some things are beyond the pale, rebel against there being any expectations or demands put on them, perhaps especially in a UU setting.  Yet whatever reasons, whatever motivation, I know that there are people who staunchly believe that this ought to be a place in which everyone – absolutely everyone – is welcome without exception.  That no one should be left out of our circle.

As a person who identifies as white, one of the things I’ve learned — and will not doubt keep learning — is that I have grown up unquestioningly in a society that is steeped in racism.  It’s in the very foundations of the dominant culture.  It’s seeped into the beams, the flooring, the walls.  It is in the air I breathe.  It is, and always has been, all around me, and it’s there in so many ways, part of the systems and structures that make up our culture, and I so often simply don’t see it.  Can’t see it, really, because it is all around me and it just seems like “the way things are.”  Even after years of trying to unlearn what the dominant culture of white supremacy — the culture in which white people, and all things connected to “whiteness” are kept in a “supreme” position — even after years of trying to unlearn what the dominant culture of white supremacy has taught me, I continue to be amazed at what I don’t see.

 A month or so ago one of our Sunday services was designed entirely around the words — the stories, the experiences — of people of color.  And many of us were amazed at what a different experience UUs of color have had, and continue to have, from the ones those of us who identify as white have had.  That service provided us an experience of what we white folks who want to see the end of racism have to learn how to do — listen to people of color.  Really listen to what they’re saying about how the world looks to them.  Really listen — and really hear — what they need in this struggle for our mutual liberation, and not keep imposing our ideas of how things are supposed to be.  Because whether we know it or not, whether we want it to be or not, many of our ideas of how things are supposed to be keep things they way they are.

I saw this post on Facebook the other day, written by DiDi Delgado.  It’s an expression of how our (white) commitment to embracing absolutely everyone is experienced by people of color.  (With apologies, I’ve edited it a bit.)

Can 'allies' please stop trying to "get through" to racists and change their minds.  […] That's not why we confront white supremacy.  When we debate and argue with racists with the intent of saving them from themselves and/or changing their minds, we're centering the oppressors and not the oppressed. [,,,] The reason you're arguing with racists, confronting Nazis, challenging your xenophobic grandma, and ruining Thanksgiving dinner is to uplift and center the voices of the marginalized and situationally make being a racist as uncomfortable as being a person of color. […] The goal should be advocating for and defending the oppressed.  Anti-racism work isn't about changing the minds of racists. It's about changing the environments that allow them to practice their racism freely.  It's about speaking up for the voiceless.  If prioritizing the mental and emotional growth of oppressors is your reason for intervening, you've already lost.

If we’re going to change the culture from a paradigm of white supremacy — a paradigm which privileges people with white skin in hundreds and thousands of ways and penalizes people of color to at least the same extent — if the dominant, racist culture we say we want to undue is ever going to be transformed, then those of us who identify as white are going to have to give up some of our privileges.  I’ve been saying it here for years — we are going have to become uncomfortable. We may even have to come to see that some of our benevolent, compassionate, well-meaning values, are not as wonderful as we think, and actually cause people harm.

This attack on Christina was not just an attack on her.  The perpetrator also did real harm to every person of color, and every multi-racial family, who have called this place their spiritual home, and those who might.  To me it’s no question whether to align myself with those who have been harmed or those whose actions caused it.

You all called me here and loaned me this pulpit, asking me to speak the truth as I understand it, and I believe that our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us to choose, as Forrest Church said, to be a people who choose — choose to ally ourselves with those who have been historically cast off, even if that means I must let go of my conviction that the lion should lie down with the lamb.  If I care to listen, the lambs will tell me that that’s never really worked out too well for them.  I believe that our Unitarian Universalist faith calls on us to choose to not accept the unacceptable, to nor tolerate the intolerable.  I believe that our Unitarian Universalist faith demands that we sometimes choose not to do the thing we’re conditioned to do, perhaps even convinced we must do, instead doing the thing that brings us into the Beloved Community we say we we’re working toward.  It’s nothing less than a new world we’re trying to build, and that’s never easy.  Our Unitarian Universalist faith is not easy.  But if our 75 year history here, and the thousand year history of our Unitarian and Universalist faith, tell us anything, it’s that we UUs are strong enough, committed enough, and loving enough, to take the harder road, which is the only way to get where we know we need to go.

Parting Words

In his letter he wrote while incarcerated in the Birmingham jail, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had this to say:

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice […]  Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Return to No Person Evil for Evil

I carry a collection of photographs on this iPad.  Some are of my kids.  (141, actually … pictures, not kids!)  Just edging them out – at 156 pictures – is a collection I call “icons.”  These are images of people – real and imaginary – who in one way or another inspire me.  I’ve got Barack Obama, and Duncan McLeod (of the clan McLeod).  There’s Gandhi and Tich Nhat Hanh, a baby meditating, Ged (from the Earthsea Trilogy), Nellie Bly, Santa Claus, and an icon from the Church of St.John Coltrane.  Two of my favorites were taken during the first and only, extremely brief, meeting of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X.
 

I’m going to pause here for a moment and give you a spoiler (so if you don’t want to know how the sermon ends, plug your ears).  Okay.  Here goes:  I don’t know the answer.  I have to admit that I find this one insoluble.  I’m going to have to leave this one in your hands and hearts to find the answer that makes the most sense to you, and for you.

So … (you can take our fingers out of your ears now) … back to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.  These men are iconic figures in the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 60s, and they were seen then, and often still seen, as polar opposites.  One is held up as the embodiment of non-violent resistance; the other is remembered as wanting equality for African Americans “by any means necessary.”

Since for the majority of liberal King is by far the more familiar figure, I want to share some quotes from Malcolm X.

We are peaceful people, we are loving people. We love everybody who loves us. But we don’t love anybody who doesn’t love us. We’re nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us. But we are not nonviolent with anyone who is violent with us.

[…]

I don’t think when a [person] is being criminally treated, that some criminal has the right to tell that [person] what tactics to use to get the criminal off [their] back. When a criminal starts misusing me, I’m going to use whatever necessary to get that criminal off my back.

And the injustice that has been inflicted on Negros in this country by Uncle Sam is criminal…

*********

I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American [black's] problem just to avoid violence.

************

[Our goal is] to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the Western Hemisphere, and first here in the United States, and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary. 

That's our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary. We don't feel that in 1964, living in a country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and supposedly the leader of the free world, we don't think that we should have to sit around and wait for some segregationist congressmen and senators and a President from Texas in Washington, D. C., to make up their minds that our people are due now some degree of civil rights. No, we want it now or we don't think anybody should have it.

***********

We want freedom now, but we're not going to get it saying 'We Shall Overcome.' We've got to fight to overcome.

Not quite the rhetoric that white liberals were raised on.  We’re more used to the words of Dr. King, which we quote at least around the third Monday in January – (though often out of context).  Malcolm X’s words were not a call to join in the realization of a dream; they were the fiery demand to wake up from a nightmare.

Most weeks we end our worship with the same words of benediction:  “Go out into the world in peace.  Have courage.  Return to no person evil for evil.”  And I want to stop there.  Return to no person evil for evil.  Return to no person evil for evil.

On Saturday, May 14^th, a crowd of about 100 people gathered at the feet of the statue of Robert E. Lee in what was then called Lee Park.  They had torches, and made their white nationalist worldview and agenda quite clear:  “All white lives matter,” “You will not replace us,” and the Nazi-era slogan, “blood and soil.”  The next night a group of several hundred people gathered in the same place, holding candles and singing.

On the evening of Thursday, June 1^st, there was a direct confrontation in front of Millers on the downtown mall, where Jason Kessler and some of his alt-right cohorts were eating.  There was in-your-face yelling; there was, by some accounts, physical contact.  Acouple of weeks later Kessler was on the mall again, this time “introducing” to Charlottesville the group the Proud Boys, and again there was direct engagement – violent by all accounts, even if the violence was only verbal.

This coming Saturday, from 3:00 – 4:00, members of the Loyal Order of the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan will be holdinga rally in Justice Park, what was formerly known as Jackson Park.  And the question on many minds is, “what will our response be?”   Candles and singing, or angry altercations?  What should our response be?

And here’s where we reach the “I honestly don’t know” part of the sermon.  I was raised to value nonviolence.  I was raised to respond to hatred with love.  I was raised to believe that there is good in every person, no matter how crusted over it might be.  I was raised to try to follow the path of reason, and reasonableness. So I am with those who say that there should be no confrontation, no engagement on the 8^th.  I understand and agree with those who say that everybody should just stay home; that we should make the klan’s visit to Charlottesville as disappointing as can be; that we just leave them there, by themselves, to “shout their hate to the trees.”

I also understand and agree with those who say that there should be a presence; that there needs to be a demonstration of another way; that there needs to be a witness; and that this presence should be non-confrontational, with no engagement whatsoever.  (There’s been a request sent out that those who feel that they must go to the park should wear all black – to counter the klan’s white robes – and stand in silence, arms linked encircling the klan but with our backs toward them.)

Yet there are others who are saying that there needs to be confrontation, and if it’s loud and aggressive -- even if it’s violent -- it’s necessary.  Things are bad, things are really bad, and things have been bad for far too long – there needs to be a change now.  This struggle isn’t one of philosophy; it’s one of life and death.  Literally life and death.  There simply isn’t time for singing,  Returning to one of those quotes from Malcolm X, “I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American [black's] problem just to avoid violence”

So what are we to do?  I don’t know.  As I said at the beginning, I have to leave this in your hands and hearts.  I know that I will take the nonviolent approach; I know that I will be trying to respond to hatred with love; I know that I will seek, with every fiber of my being, to return to o person evil for evil.

Yet I will also not condemn those who see the need for another approach, who see this struggle as needing a solution by any means necessary.  I have come to believe that there is no one way to respond, and that perhaps all of them have a place.

There is a story told of a time in early 1965, while King was jailed in Selma, Alabama, Malcolm traveled to Selma, where he had a private meeting with Coretta Scott King. “I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult,” he assured Coretta. “I really did come thinking that I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King”

I cannot tell you what to do; I cannot tell you how to respond.  I have come to believe that there may well need to be a whole variety of responses, including violence.  But I cannot tell you how you should respond.  I can tell you that you have to respond.  And I can tell you that we ought to be intentional about that response.

If you decided to stay home, to stay away, to keep your Saturday “business as usual,” that’s fine.  But don’t do it unmindfully.  Make it a choice.  Make it a response.

If you decide to respond in a non-violent, non-confrontational way, that’s fine.  But please be intentional in that choice.

And if you feel you need to respond through direct, confrontational engagement – even violence – I cannot tell you that that’s not fine, too. But please, please do so as a conscious choice, and not merely an emotional acting out.

I cannot tell you how to respond, but I can tell you that you must respond.  Each of us must respond.  Our Unitarian Universalist faith demands it, as does our humanity.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

The Charlottesville Clergy Collective is hosting a number of events -- before, during, and after the klan's rally.  Their website outlines these, as well as listing many of the other events that are happening around the city on the 8th.   

 

Why I Wear a Cross (the power of the cross, part 2)

In my last post I noted that I wear a cross beneath my shirt every day.  However I also bemoaned the devolution of the cross from powerfully potent symbol of subversive defiance to mere fashion accessory.  Doesn't my wearing of one play into that downward spiral?

A story:  The first church I served after my ordination was the First Universalist Church of Yarmouth, Maine.  It's lovely New England meeting house was built in 1860, shortly after the Unitarians split off from the Congregationalists (whose meeting house is still right across the street!).  (As an aside, the congregation is called First Universalist instead of First Unitarian because the Unitarians and Universalists of Yarmouth merged in the early 1920s, long before the national merger in 1961.  The Unitarians had the better building, but the Universalists had just received a sizable bequest.  Guess whose name went above the door!)

Over time the sanctuary came to have a fairly large chancel area, separated from the pews with a dark wooden wall that extends up to just below the chest of someone standing on the platform.  There is a pulpit on one side, and a lectern on the other, with a set of stairs between.  Beneath the pulpit and the lectern there were beautiful red velvet drapes.

One Sunday, as I was preaching about modern Unitarian Universalism's historic roots in the Christian tradition(s), I had two parishioners come forward and lift up those drapes.  The long-time members were not at all surprised by what was revealed, of course, but many of the more recent members had never even thought to look behind the drapes and, so, an audible gasp arose as people saw the two golden crosses that were built into that wall.

I said in that sermon that no matter how much the congregation wished to distance itself from its Christian "parents," the fact is that it would be impossible to do so. As Unitarian Universalists, our Christian heritage is part of our DNA, and is always with us whether or not we know or acknowledge it.  Similarly, I think, I have chosen to wear a cross as a reminder that Christianity is part of my religious DNA, too.

I was born into the Presbyterian Church, but I like to say that I was raised by the summer camp programs of the New York Conference of the United Methodist Church.  I took religion seriously.  (At 16 I was already feeling a call to the ordained ministry.)  Eventually I was ordained -- an Elder in the Presbyterian Church.  (I was the "youngest Elder" in the history of the Long Island Presbytery!)  I remember quite vividly that moment during the service when the Elders placed their hands on me and Rev. Princh read words from the Gospel of John:

"You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would abide ..."

At that moment I felt as though an electric charge was running through my body.  And, as I said, to this day I can remember it vividly.  So no matter how much I may have tried to distance myself from my religious roots, they are always with me.  Perhaps I have finally decided to stop running from that appointment.  I wear the cross as a reminder.

I don't always were my cross.  There are days that I forget, and days when I don't feel "worthy" (whatever that means).  Most days, though, I put it on as I get dressed in the morning.  And I do not always think about the "powerfully potent symbol of subversive defiance" I am putting around my neck, but I often do.  And it reminds me that each day -- in each moment -- I have a choice of whether or not to settle more deeply into my comfort or to "launch out into the deep" and take the risk that I believe all real religion is.  More often than not, I confess, I make the first choice.  But because I've chosen to wear the cross, though, I have with me always a reminder ... and an encouragement to make a better choice.

So ... a question:  do you have a touchstone, a talisman, something that reminds you of the higher self your faith calls you to?  Perhaps it's something you wear, or carry in your pocket, of have sitting on a private altar at home or in the office.  Maybe it's an image you have on your phone.  Please -- I encourage you to leave a comment telling what serves for you the purpose(s) the wearing of a cross serves for me.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

And So It Goes With God . . .

A couple of nights ago both of my children were sleeping over at a friend's house, so my wife and I fired up the DVD player and popped in something I'd seen in the cinema but which she'd not seen yet -- The Life of Pi.  (I saw it originally when I'd taken my kids to watch Wreck-It Ralph.  We got there we saw that Ralph was sold out and I suggested that we go to Pi instead.  Turned out to be not exactly a one-for-one trade!)

At the end of the movie, and apparently the book as well, after telling two very different versions of his tale the main character asks which is the better story.  When the journalist (in the movie) chooses "the one with the tiger," Pi responds, "And so it goes with God."

I've heard several interpretations of what this line is intended to convey, but here's what Yann Martel, the author of the book and, so, the line itself, as said:

". . . Pi makes a parallel between the two stories and religion. His argument (and mine) is that a vision of life that has a transcendental element is better than one that is purely secular and materialist. A story with God ("God" defined in the broadest sense) is the better story, I argue, just as I think the story with animals is the better story. But you choose." 

(I found this in a transcript from the ABC's Good Morning America Q & A with the author as part of their "Read This!" book club.)

A lot of time and intellectual energy by a lot of people has gone into the project of coming up with convincing arguments for a belief in God and here Martel, through his character Pi, is essentially saying that the reason to believe in God is that it makes for a "better story."  And he acknowledges that it is, fundamentally, a choice.

I've thought this for a long time.  It's not my only answer to the question of why I believe in God (and, as Martel says, "defined in the broadest sense") but it is one of my favorites.  And last night, coming across this "argument" again I remembered two of the sources that long-ago influenced my thinking.

One is the wonderful book Illusions:  adventures of a reluctant messiah, by Richard Bach.  Bach had gained huge fame with his earlier Johnathon Livingston Seagull, but it was Illusions that really grabbed me by the collar and has refused to let go.  It tells the story of Bach himself, during one of the summers he spent barnstorming around the country in an old biplane.  The story tells of his meeting a man named Donald Shimoda who, it turns out, is actually the Messiah who had returned to earth but had essentially quit that job when it became clear that people really didn't want to listen to his message.  Still, one doesn't quit being Messiah too easily and, so, he agrees to teach Bach what he knows about the meaning of life.

Word eventually gets out about this mysterious stranger and the wonders that seem to follow him, and he gets interviewed on the radio.  After sharing some of his teachings the host asks him why he believes such things.  Instead of saying, "I live my life this way and it works" or something even faintly convincing like that he says, simply, "I believe it because it's fun to believe it."

This is, I think, echoed in another book that shaped me -- The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castenada.  One of those teachings has to do with "the path with a heart."

"All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you."

All paths are the same -- they lead nowhere.  Still, you need to chose, and so you might as well chose the path witha heart.  The path with a heart will be more fun.  It will make for a better story.

And so it goes with God.

In Gassho,

RevWik

Longing or Gratitude

The other night I watched TV for the first time in a long time.  No anti-boob-tube righteousness in that hiatus . . . I've been busy.  But I did get a break the other night, and I tuned in MythBusters, and . . .

I was amazed at all commercials for food!  It seemed as though food were being shoved in my face over and over again with a break only to tell me about how there was more food in another room somewhere.  I was reminded of an experience I'd had at a wedding reception -- after half an hour or so of eating at the most splendiferous buffet you could ever imagine, it was announced that the appetizers were finished and it was time for us to go in to dinner!

For anyone who's not been following this blog, yesterday was Day 30 of a fresh vegetable and fruit juice fast.  (See the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead to get an idea of what and why.)  And today is 36 days since processed foods, fast foods, sugar, or the like have passed my lips.  So maybe you can imagine the reaction I was having to this visual smorgasbord.

Or maybe you can't.  Maybe you'd imagine that after a month of eating (drinking?) really healthfully all of this excess would have been unpleasant.  If so, you'd be wrong.  A Double Quarter Pounder from McDs?  Heaven.  A pepperoni pizza which cheese sticks for a crust?  Seventh Heaven!  I watched each and every image of food-like product that was being flashed before my eyes and I coveted it!

And what made this longing even worse was the fact that I know the changes I am making in the way I eat are permanent.  I am not juice fasting so that I can return to eating poisonous food facsimiles.  I am trying to heal my body and save my life.  So I intend to finish this fast and switch to a nutrient-dense, whole-food, plant-based diet.  As of this moment I think I'll be following the kind of diet advocated by Dr. Joel Furhman (among others), author of such books as Eat to Live and which he describes in great detail at his website.

But this means no more ribs.  Ever.  No more KFC.  Ever.  I will never taste the fabled deliciousness of Pizza Hut's Royal Crown Pizza.  Even if it ever gets to the United States.

I love popcorn shrimp.  (Heck, I like any kind of shrimp!)  I love the aroma of barbecuing meat.  And I could look at the changes I'm trying to make from a perspective of deprivation:  I could focus on all of the things that I love to eat that I will never eat again.

Or, I could look at this from a perspective of opportunity:  there is a world  of amazing tastes out there just waiting to be discovered!  Vegan food; raw food; unbelievably tasty things that I've never eaten because instead I've been filling up on fast food.

How do you look at your life?  Do you focus on the things you don't have, on your longings?  Or do you celebrate the things you do have, your gratitude?  This choice makes all the difference.

In Gassho,

RevWik