Becoming Visible

Every year I take Grandma to the Greenhouse for Mother’s Day.  This year we went early to miss the crouds.  It was cold and rainy outside, but lush inside.  Apparently you can buy a cat, $1.50 by the section, $10.50 by the flat.

I am frequently told that God things are either Black or White….beliefs are either right or wrong, you are in God’s favor or you are out of God’s favor, the events in the Scriptures are true or a sham, a person is good or evil, you are for us or against us, pure light or pure darkness. It goes on and on.

One counter to this understanding is that there are shades of gray. We can accept that a person’s life cannot be rightly measured in terms of complete purity vs. total depravity. There is a vast “in-between” land where we all reside.

I’m thinking there is another way to imagine this. Maybe the pure Light of God filters through our humanity like a prism into a beautiful spectrum of unique colors, seen and not seen. It is all authentically God, but this appears differently in each culture and individual. Maybe our religious and cultural separations are because we think that other beliefs, faiths, and peoples are devoid of God’s light when in fact they are shining God’s presence in a color we don‘t recognize or accept.

I’m thinking that our Christ was and is calling us to be awake to the other colors… to find their unfamiliar beauty.  To not fear, but instead see our harmony and diversity and contrasts as gifts, as ways to experience the shalom of God through one another. Perhaps the measure of our discipleship is in not in our white-black/either-or thinking, but in our capacity to recognize and embrace each person’s worth without judgment of their place on the Spectrum of Light.

(j)ohn, click here for the lyrics

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This is the male eagle that lives just a few miles from my house to his nest.

The ministry of Presence is underrated sometimes. I’m gaining greater respect for that, and the humility of those disciples who practice it. Not just sharing Presence in our good times and blah times, but also offering our frustrated times or even sharing our Presence when we are not welcomed.

That is a very risking thing to do–to offer our wounds and vulnerability and anger and questions and outcastedness to the other for the benefit and healing of the entire body of Christ. When a Community becomes willing to be uncomfortable, and accepts the suffering of the “other” vulnerably, authentic healing happens on a grand scale.

The image of a wary dog comes to mind. You stand still and silent, holding out your hand to be examined and sniffed, waiting for trust to happen. Presence can feel like that sometimes. We stand still, trying not to flinch as people recoil and reject, then they come closer…possibly out of curiosity, possibly with intentions to do harm… but we risk to allow the opportunity for a compassionate reality to be discovered.

The risks are real. The greater risk is not to try, and to maintain the rifts of fear and conflict that fractures the human family.

The 5 year mark just passed on the Iraq War.  Other violences and wars are all over the planet.  This weighs heavily on my heart sometimes.  I’m not talking about this war, but war and violence in general.

I hate war, but not soldiers. I do honor their choice to put themselves in harms way to somehow achieve a peace. There are times that violence seems to be the only way.  I do not think that is truly God’s way.

If we invested in peace with the same energy that we do war I think things would change. Peace is much harder to do. I have troubles extending love and being gracious to someone who criticizes my theology or pushes my buttons, let alone someone who endangers my country, lifestyle, livelihood, family, etc.

Jesus modeled ways of peace, but we fail to embrace these ways in times of deepest fear and conflict. Instead of turning the other cheek, or loving our enemy, or risk listening vulnerably for the truth that our enemy speaks, we turn away from the model of Christ. We turn away when our cheek stings and retaliate 10 fold, and say it’s in the name of Christ. This makes sense in a worldly way, but there is no sense that this can be called Christ’s way.

I believe that Christ is calling us more loudly than ever, to stop, be still and listen.

We sing about peace, that it begins with me… where does this start?

I believe it begins each moment I practice non-retaliation in my family life, in heated spiritual and social dialogue, and in polarized political discussions. It begins when I accept those who oppose me, and I grow to appreciate that their understandings are held as passionately as mine, and that they are attempting to live faithfully to God and Truth, just as I am. Only in this climate of mutuality can true peace and true justice begin. This way is so much more vulnerable and more difficult than simply claiming power and imposing my peace on those with less power and voice.   There is no assurance that the “other” will reciprocate with equanimity .  Nonetheless, the only path to peace is to risk practicing peace.  Let it begin with me.

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.

Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such method is love.