Memorial Day -- a Day for New Pledges

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a time to remember those who have done heroic things, often losing their lives in so doing.  It is a time to be silent and reflect.  This morning I said a brief prayer for the many sisters and brothers who have gone to their graves without ever speaking of atrocities that deeply impacted their lives.  Not just Americans, but victims of the Holocaust and other wars, as well as those who have taken their own lives because they were unable to find ways to function because of the abuse or violence they experienced in their own homes, churches, or schools. 

May we not just remember but find ways to prevent the wars, the domination of one country over another, the oppressive world leaders, and the violence and abuse in every form in this world of immature people where resources are hoarded instead of shared.

 

 

Giving Up the Magician
Topic: spirituality

The wind is not a magician.  It "blows where it listeth" we are reminded in John 3.   We are born again and again and again as we allow the Spirit to blow across ourselves, but this often requires that we wait for new insights.  Or, to put it in another way, to wait until we feel the wind blowing. 

Meterologists can't predict with absolute accuracy which way the wind will blow.  They often miss this and have us bringing out sweaters on days when we might do better to have grabbed a coat. 

We somehow want God to always be there to do magical things for us.  Perhaps more than ever before.

I wonder if this isn't related to our obsession with happiness today, which we equate with having luxuries or "necessities" that the rest of the world considers to be luxuries.  It also means that we are always winners or people who believe that justice is a 100% given in this world, so that when we don't get it we see ourselves as being "God-forsaken." 

Or to put it another way "forsaken by the Big Magician" who is supposed to make everything right.

"You can fire that god anytime," I hear Dee Babcock saying.  That god is just a child-like dream, a figment of your imagination.   A common figment, I might add.

God as the Ideal Person
Topic: spirituality

God is a Spirit, we read; and many of us believe this to be true.  Problem is that we very quickly try to make God into a person. 

Does a spirit have a plan?  Does it think?  Does it have gender?  I don't think any of these are requirements for a spirit.

We can only understand what we see and know--that's the problem when it come to spiritual things.  They are NOT seen and they are NOT made in our image.  Of course, Jesus is understood by most Christians to be "the word (that means God) made flesh" because people seemed to need to see a concrete image for a while.  

When taken to the extreme, some people are really fatalists.  In other words, the Christian equivalent of fatalistic people who believe one can't do anything to make the world a different place.  If everything that happens occurs simply because it was God's will, God has a lot to answer for!!!

In contrast, we can accept the fact that we all have a combination of potentially great good and potentially great evil that dwells within us.  We can create a different world as we do what we are able to do that makes a positive impact on others.  That is what I understand of "God in me, at work in this world." 

Even when we have experienced much sorrow because of others' poor choices.  And even when we have made poor choices ourselves--choices that reveal our own limited insight or our very selfish desire to be more powerful for our own good than what we are intended to be--we can still access the Spirit within us and overcome evil with good.

As I understand it, this is how God works most effectively.

Strange Old Words I Like to Sing

It's hard to fit the words of the 2nd line of "Be Thou My Vision" to make them fit the melody.  Yet it's the words that I'm trying to memorize because I love the first verse of this ancient Irish hymn.

"Naught be all else to me, save that thou art."

Modern-day translation:  "God, don't let me make of you something that you aren't."

Doing so makes the Divine into a "graven image." 

As you go through the day today, please think of some of the images that you may have had in the past. Or words that you've used to describe your understanding of God. 

In the next few days, I will be daring you to examine these ideas and their origins.  Some may be very good ones for you still.  Others may be problematic, though they may work very well for others.  In this process, we will be embracing a concept that only can be considered by people who have been walking where angels fear to tread.  

Outside My Comfort Zone
Topic: spirituality

Finding people who we think are very much like us is important.  It keeps us in our comfort zone when we are feeling threatened.  It may allow us to get things done that we could not do on our own by joining with other people who will support us on our quest to bring about changes in society.

The place where the wild things grow, however, requires us to get away from the comfort sometimes, to dare taking risks so that we are able to be more open to the journeys of others.  Especially to those who, for whatever reasons, need to have us sit and understand why they think differently from us.  Whether they are reaching for the wild places where thinking outside the box can occur.  Or perhaps very certain they do not want to go there. 

As a matter of fact, the hardest assignment I can give myself is to sit and listen quietly, past my comfort zone, to people who are able to teach me why they are so afraid to walk down the trails of exploration that my own choices have allowed me to explore.  It requires that I put away all of my own rigid pre-conceptualized ideas about people I may not respect, for whatever reason.  Not that I will ever respect their views, but I could possibly gain valuable insights that will allow me to know better how to approach destructive ideas that are so dominant in our world, whether I like those ideas or not. 

Or it could even turn some of my perceived enemies into friends.

Something in me suspects that this is my next challenge.

The Scariest Question
Topic: spirituality

The hardest question I've ever had to ask myself is:  "Who will I be if I dare to leave the familiar 'securities' and go where the wild things grow?"

That question was born out of a little bookmark sent to me by Jiivani, the pen name for a feminist writer-editor of Buddhist persuasion who had a strong appreciation for people of all faiths.  I've lost track of her and long ago lost the bookmark, too.  Yet in 1994, that little gift struck me so much, for reasons I could not fully explain, that I hung it on our bedroom wall.

It said simply:  "Grow where the wild things are."  I didn't understand where that was, and I'm still learning.  I believe it's a different place for every one of us as we go where nobody else has gone and leave a trail.  This allows others to find their own little safe places among the "wild things" and yet to always be able to leave the sacredness of the individual places to return again and again to find other people who also know how to dwell in community among people of diverse journeys. 

Dispelling the Darkness
Topic: spirituality
"Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself."  These words were spoken by Erasmus in one of the darkest periods in history (1536)!!  Today is SUNDAY, time to shine, no matter what you may feel inside.  In so doing, you'll create a new world for yourself and others around you.

Confucius Says
Topic: Health Choices

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." This is saddest when the person failing to see is looking inward, taking stock and feeling that there is nothing worth preserving.  Look deeply.  If what you see in yourself is not absolutely beautiful, ask someone you know what you are missing.

Soon you'll find yourself soaring--perhaps further than you've ever been in your life!

Putting the Past and the Future into Perspective
Topic: coping

Ralph Waldo Emerson said:  "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us."

What lies within us motivates us in our personal growth so that we become what we never imagined was possible in our relationships and often in our aspirations to achieve.

What lies within us can keep us moving toward life and away from whatever would drain our energies.   If it does not do this, the reversal of this process takes us into a downward spiral.  For we cannot stay stagnant as the world changes around us. 

 

Giving Up Control
Topic: Power

Some of the power dynamics that complicate the issues of forgiveness have to do with control issues.  We forget who is responsible for what.

When it comes to clergy perpetrators, the people who are supposed to be responsible have become very irresponsible in most cases.  Just as the perpetrators. 

When it comes to abuse in the home, it's often the mothers who become as irresponsible as the fathers.

So the vulnerable ones decide to be "in charge."  They take control.  Or, in actuality, think they are going to take control of forces they cannot really control, though they may speak in a loud voice that gets the attention of a few people in power.  Well, at least for a few minutes. 

The voices of the vulnerable are experienced as a threat to those who DO have the power and are supposed to be responsible for exercising control.

Weaker people in systems have always been chided for their unwillingness to quickly forgive.  Before things are set right. 

The cry for forgiveness is an added burden, placed on the oppressed, taking the focus off the persons who have been irresponsible (though they do not see it that way, in their own convoluted DIM thinking). 

No matter how much good an organization or institution does, no matter how often it has been "the good parent" in spite of the moments of great transgression that it refuses to own, the healthy cries of the vulnerable will insist:  "We will extend what you call 'forgiveness' when you have taken full responsibility for your transgressions.  It is confession that we have wanted to hear, but we no longer need to hear this in order to feel whole.  We may walk away in order to care for ourselves--sometimes for a season and sometimes permanently--yet this is not to be equated with 'forgiveness.'  It is only for self-preservation because we refuse to let you further destroy our lives or take up time trying to control you when we do not perceive you have ears.  You are responsible still, whether we continue to remind you or the world of this fact.  We cannot and will not DO YOUR WORK of holding all of the perpetrators responsible.  True power does not come from money--we have learned this.  So even taking your coffers will not make you contrite.  We are not even responsible for holding individual perpetrators who have harmed us responsible.  Nor of holding you responsible.  We are only responsible for caring for our own souls, and we can do that.  We'll talk about forgiveness when we've seen you taking responsibility.  We may choose to continue speaking out or taking you to court or providing education or comfort for those harmed.  At the same time, we'll find ways to embrace joy, love, and faith as we now understand it, wherever we live and move.  For WE are free of the need to control others or to further dialogue with you, knowing that you are in spiritual bondage because of your own power abuse, whether you acknowledge this or not.  The ball is in your court."

As you wrestle with these issues of "forgiveness" and "recovery," please keep in mind that the answer does not lie in destroying the institutions.  It lies in finding ways to re-envision or re-imagine all institutions that are in need of taking steps toward restructuring and creating radically healthier ways of thinking and believing, confessing the sins of patriarchy in all it's forms (gender-related or not)  in order to do greater works than they have ever done, with more safety and caring than ever before.