I cannot imagine the grief of those who lost loved ones in last weekend’s shooting in a Texas church. And I am alarmed by this quotation from a Religion News Service story on church security.
The pastor of a Dallas Baptist megachurch (and a counselor to the president of the United States) said on television Sunday that “as many as half” the members of his church carry concealed weapons to worship services. A potential shooter in his congregation would be killed soon after he or she started firing, the Rev. Robert Jeffress said. He saw this as a good thing. While that remark is disturbing on its own, here’s what is preoccupying me this morning: Jeffress went on to say, “This is the world we’re living in. We need to do everything we can to keep our parishioners safe.” I am a mother and a grandmother with very dear relatives and friends. The idea of being safe appeals to me, and I long for safety to surround those I love. But I know safety is rare in this world. “The Bible tells me so,” to quote an old song. In the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, God promised the Israelites safety if they followed divine instructions. They tried and failed. Over and over, they were attacked, killed and dispersed. Even the prophets of God, the ones who faithfully told the people what God wanted of them, were not safe. Their counterparts in the Christian Scriptures -- John the Baptist, St. Paul, Jesus, himself -- were not safe. All died violent deaths. I don’t remember Jesus ever talking about physical safety, his or anyone else’s. So, why do we think that Christians are entitled to safety in a country where many of us argue that food, shelter and medicine are not entitlements, but the right to own a weapon is? It is tragic that people were killed in a church, especially if they expected to be safe inside its walls. But I am not at all sure that safety is something God promises.
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There is a difference between hearing and listening. We’ve heard terrorists -- real and imagined -- cry “Allahu Akbar” before they act violently. Now, can we listen to Wajahat Ali talk about why that phrase is so important to him. Here’s a link to the NPR interview -- it’s five minutes long and well worth it.
You see, all the biblical strangers I write about in my book are good listeners. Maybe better listeners than we are. Just sayin' . . . . Some of the Bible’s strangers have slipped into our common consciousness. The Good Samaritan shows up at mass shootings and hurricanes. Ruth’s vows of love ring out at wedding ceremonies. Wise men trek across our Christmas traditions.
But what do we really know about those wise men? Or the foreign harlot who lived inside the walls of Jericho? Or the enemy general who held out for a handful of dirt? Or the slave who named God when no one used her own? Or the woman who endured the heat of the day to hold up her end of Jesus’ longest recorded conversation? Or the mother who chose her words carefully so that her single sentence reminded Jesus of his own identity? The Bible is full of strangers, whose examples we often overlook. Our own lives are full of strangers, too: Outsiders that we suspect, ignore or condemn. How might the strangers of the Bible move us past our own fear of outsiders? Check out my new book, Sacred Strangers: What the Bible’s Outsiders Can Teach Christians. See what I’m up to, sample my writing and read what critics think at Liturgical Press or Amazon. And then, consider ordering a copy, organizing a group of friends to read it, too, suggesting it to an existing reading group. Consider reading it even if you don't know the Bible or think of yourself as a religious person. We live in a time when our fear of strangers can make us or break us. My book will be available Sunday, October 15. For a writer, this has to be one of life’s high points. But, to be honest, I am struggling a bit. This feels less like an accomplishment to me than a moment of truth. I’ve suffered from self-esteem deficits and surpluses all my life. My friends take turns hugging me and shaking their fists at me. You’d think by 63, I’d have figured this out.
Today, as I work on my book announcement and author profiles, I stopped for a cup of coffee. Sitting at the bar in my kitchen, I reached for the book I’ve been reading and sharing with you for months now: Preaching the Luminous Word: Biblical Sermons and Homiletical Essays by Ellen F. Davis. I’d stuck a pencil in the book to mark my place weeks ago. When I opened it, and my eye searched for where I’d left off, I read these sentences: “But in reality, humility is the very opposite of angry self-denial. Humility means full acceptance of your own talents; and the key word is ‘acceptance’: that is, recognizing those talents for what they are, a gift from God, God’s gift to the world through you. Humility demands that we nurture our talents -- slowly, as they grow to fullness; nurture them patiently, not quite knowing what their full growth will look like. Thomas Aquinas taught: “Humility is nothing other than the patient pursuit of your own excellence.” Providence. Patience. Pursuit.. I’m not the only one frustrated that we are again awash in the all-but-meaningless phrase “our thoughts and prayers” after the mass shooting in Las Vegas. The Washington Post ran a thoughtful piece this morning under the headline, Why ‘thoughts and prayers’ is starting to sound profane.
Theologian Miraslav Volf invokes a familiar Bible story to show how we have so misused this notion, separating our thoughts and prayers from the action entailed in genuine prayer. “It’s analogous to what is going on in the book of James 2:16,” he says. “If a person says to those who are cold and hungry, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? Or if you look at the story of the good Samaritan, we can easily imagine that the priest, who walked by a person robbed and left half-dead by the road, prayed as he was passing by. Still, he was a bad priest. The Samaritan was good because he did something to help the suffering person.” Please read the whole piece here. My thoughts and prayers, along with those of countless others, have gone out to those affected by the Las Vegas shootings.
And I so regret that. Because, along with many others, I’m not following through very well. As my son reminded me this morning, prayer is, among many things, a call to action. This is the time to talk about gun control. This is the time to figure out strategies for limiting access to guns. For anyone lost in this latest mass shooting, it’s already too late. Ordinarily, I am at odds with writers in The Federalist, but this morning Jennifer Doverspike mused on our tendency to fill the air with thoughts and prayers and little else. “Regardless of a Christian’s theological view on the power, nature, and validity of intercessory prayer, one thing remains clear,” she wrote. “God does not change his mind. God changes our minds.” I am the daughter of a proud NRA member who used to tell me there were plenty of members who believed in stronger gun control. We need to hear from them. We need to insist that this is the time to have this conversation. We need to lobby our lawmakers with the same intensity -- if not the same budget -- as the NRA. We need to do more than pray, we need to change our minds. A friend and I had coffee this morning and talked about the limitations of language, the need to consider where words come from, what we think they mean, how they may be received by others. The words we use are critical, especially when we try to talk beyond the lines that often divide us. And then I came home and picked up Moon Tiger again. Here’s another sliver of Penelope Lively’s novel:
“We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse; we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard. More than that, we speak volumes -- our language is the language of everything we have not read. Shakespeare and the Authorized Version surface in supermarkets, on buses, chatter on radio and television. I find this miraculous. I never cease to wonder at it. That words are more durable than anything, that they blow with the wind, hibernate and reawaken, shelter parasitic on the most unlikely hosts, survive and survive and survive.” A while back I read a piece on Penelope Lively in the New York Times Book Review and put her novel Moon Tiger on my hold list at the public library. The book’s central character is an old woman, lying in the hospital and composing -- in her mind -- a history of the world. I laughed out loud on page one where the nurse taking care of her asks the doctor, “Was she someone?” Lively had me hooked. And not just me -- Moon Tiger won the Booker Prize in 1987.
Eight pages into it, I find this gem: “In the frozen stone of the cathedrals of Europe, there co-exist the Apostles, Christ and Mary, lambs, fish, gryphons, dragons, sea-serpents and the faces of men with leaves for hair. I approve of that liberality of mind.” Watering, groceries, the gym, and then I get to come back to this book! Maybe ten or twelve years ago, my husband and I came home from work to find a handful of young college students sitting on our kitchen counters and slouched on the floor, discussing James Joyce’s Ulysses. It was an impromptu Christmas vacation reading group convened so that one of my son’s friends, Sam, could share what he’d learned reading the novel at school.
It was one of my proudest moments. I remember devoting my Christmas breaks to detective novels and making large quantities of fudge. And I confess that I have never read Ulysses. All these young men are smart, articulate, funny and still fast friends. Sam has gone on to write. I loved reading this brief piece, his interview with Michael Harris, who has written Solitude: A Singular Life in a Crowded World. Loneliness differs from solitude, Harris says. “Loneliness is a nervous and negative experience of time alone whereas solitude is a productive and contented experience of time alone.” I need to use solitude to prepare me for the next time loneliness rears its ugly head. Here’s Harris on Proust on reading: “Think of the emotional bonds we form while we’re alone and reading a wonderful novel. We are, at once, experiencing solitude and profound intimacy. Proust called reading, ‘that fruitful miracle of communication in the midst of solitude.’” "Talk is not the answer!” That’s what passes these days for a presidential quote. And, yes, I took it out of context. The president was tweeting this morning about North Korea. He was not, I’m pretty sure about this, engaged in deep self-reflection. Because, if he had been, he’d have been half right. Talking is only part of a conversation.
I was reminded of this today in a meeting that involved a composer, who talked about how silence is part of a musical composition. As a group, we were also thinking and listening, which I would argue may be more important to a conversation than mere talking. We were planning an event where we hope participants will come curious about strangers and open to what they may have to say about a shared experience. It’s barely noon and already I’ve learned a lot. I need to talk less, listen more, think more deeply, be open to some silence and be willing have a conversation with a stranger. And, somehow, I thought the president would never teach me anything. I tried hard to resist the whole solar eclipse thing. I didn’t want to drive into the path of totality, and I declined a kind offer from California relatives to tag along with them. I was happy to get up at 5 a.m., make a pot of coffee, help them load the car and see them off by 6-ish. But after my own second cup of coffee, my house seemed so quiet. The weekend had been full of laughter, story-telling and toddler play. Now the stillness seemed oppressive. So I jumped at the chance to head to the park with my youngest son and his wife to experience at least 99.2 percent of the eclipse. It was breath-taking, a little disturbing and life-giving in a way I didn’t expect.
The slow bite the moon took into the sun was fascinating to watch. The running commentary from my son and his wife had me chuckling the whole time. The people around us kept it all a community event and made me glad I hadn’t watched alone from my back yard. The oddly disturbing thing was to see the disappearing sun's shadow bands, rippling across the grass. I heard a scientist describe them later as looking like light rippling across the bottom of a swimming pool. The life-giving realization struck me as the air around us grew darker and colder by the moment. I couldn’t help but think of light and dark in competition. Of the times when my own my life seems to grow darker before my eyes. Now maybe in the path of totality, the darkness was complete. But here, a few miles away, it was a sharper version of twilight, a moment when our own shadows took on an HDTV clarity. What I realized, and this might be pretty disappointing if you’ve read this far in search of soul-deep truth, is that light wins. It's darkness that comes and goes. There is a stubborn part of me that wishes I’d kept count. But this week, for the xxxxxxth time in my adult life, I am shaking my head in sorrow and anger at the Christians making the headlines: the Christian pastor who has advised Trump that God is OK with our taking out the leader of North Korea or the Christians who marched last night at the University of Virginia in defense of white nationalism.
“They are not the only Christians at work in the world,” I tell myself and anyone within hearing distance. If you are someone who thinks this way or has heard other Christians say what I have said, here are the words of two Christian pastors who speak more eloquently than I ever have. I encourage you to read this piece by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. If you’re in a hurry, here are two highlights: “America’s spiritual sickness goes much deeper than our clearly troubled president. For decades, the backlash against this nation’s civil rights movement has been de-racialized and woven into the fabric of some white (and some non-white) evangelicals’ value system. Trusting pastors who have been carefully cultivated by political operatives, millions of everyday Christians have “voted their values” on abortion, marriage, and prayer in schools, only to elect people who promote policies that serve the rich and harm those Jesus called ‘the least of these.’” and “Even if we cannot convince the Trumpvangelicals that they are wrong, we are determined to let the world know that there is a better gospel. It is a gospel of justice, of inclusion, of love, of breaking every chain that oppresses and subjugates God’s children. Even if it is silenced, it will rise again like its Founder in the power of love.” It’s not enough for those of us who are Christians who distance ourselves from those with more politicized motives. We have to do more than shake our heads, mutter to ourselves and talk to our friends. We need to find ways to say it publicly, as these two pastors have. Or as the pastors who have vowed to confront the white nationalists in Charlottesville and followed through. Sunday, two friends and I woke up in Coos Bay at 6 a.m. and drove the 35 miles or so to Bandon, in search of a labyrinth on the beach. A local artist draws it regularly in the wet sand near Face Rock as the tide retreats. Volunteers rake the negative space. People come to walk the sacred path. Some silently, deliberately. Others blithely, taking pictures. A few hours later, the tide turns and incoming waves wash it all away.
Walking this labyrinth was restful, frustrating, heartening, irritating and inspiring. Inspiring because after our walk we spoke briefly with the artist. His blue eyes shone as I complained about people who didn’t seem to appreciate the meditative power of the labyrinth. He smiled. “Not yet,” he said. I hope I don’t forget the certain hope that sounded in his voice. Here’s a link to his website. This past weekend I attended an informal, monthly gathering of Coeur d’Alene High School’s class of 1972. The hosts were gracious, the food was plentiful, the sangria was tasty and everyone I re-met greeted me with a hug. I was moved.
I’ve never attended a formal reunion. I missed one because of work, one because we were moving into our new house, one when my husband was gravely ill. So when a friend of mine from junior high urged me to go, I went. Who knows where I will be when our 50th rolls around? If I’m honest, I don’t have many good memories of high school. I was not as smart as some, plainer than many and from a family so disfunctional that, once I graduated, I just didn’t look back. Somehow, I managed to keep two good friends: one from fourth grade, one from junior high. Both were at the Friday night gathering and, in long conversations before and after the party, the years fell away as we caught up on our lives. At the actual party, I struggled to remember some names, to recognize faces touched by time. Everyone was welcoming. I chatted with a few folks, listened in as those who have stayed in better touch made lively conversation. All in all, I felt like I was back in high school: awkward a lot of the time, not very good at small talk, content to observe. But the weekend got me thinking about my own sons, who had lots of friends in high school and somehow have managed to stay close to many of them all these years later. At 32 and 30, with wives and homes and their own children on the way, they spend Sunday afternoons with high school friends, travel far and wide for weddings and beach weekends and easily share friends with each other and their wives. It is one of my greatest delights to sometimes be included in the vibrant company these young people keep. Like most parents, I hope my children accomplish more in their lives than I did in mine. And I guess when it comes to keeping friends, they are well on their way. And I guess this weekend was a reminder that I haven’t been particularly good at cultivating friendships, but it may not be too late to salvage some. I haven’t written a blog entry in a while. Partly because I’m not sure what constitutes an interesting blog entry. I lead a pretty ordinary life. And then I have been out of town. I spent some time in California with a friend from seminary. We both had projects to finish, so it was a stretch of reading, hiking, research, road trips, writing, swimming and editing, with ice cream for dessert. It was an ideal escape for me. But I’m home now, my cat has forgiven me for leaving, and I want to add a few words for any loyal person still reading this blog.
I myself am reading News of the World by Paulette Jiles, a novel I knew nothing about but had seen advertised in the New York Times Review of Books. It’s about an elderly man who travels through Texas in 1870, earning a living by reading aloud from newspapers. His audiences pay a dime to listen. I’m liking the book a lot and this morning -- in a quiet moment, reading in my shady backyard -- I ran across this line. (The book is written in first person, the old man’s voice. He’s remembering his younger days when he worked as a courier.) “Maybe life is just carrying news. Surviving to carry the news. Maybe we have just one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally but it must be carried by hand through a life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed.” Two things: Last night I attended an interfaith iftar, a breaking of the Ramadan fast shared with Muslims and people of good faith, at the Muslim Educational Center here in Tigard. Ramadan is the annual month of fasting from sunrise to sunset observed by all Muslims who are able. For years now, MET has hosted these evenings in an effort to build relationships between people of all faith -- and no faith -- backgrounds.
Last night, as I visited with friends and new acquaintances I was reminded of the importance of meeting people who are different than I am, some of them the sort of people I’d classify as strangers and, sometimes, avoid. Meeting strangers is essential if we are to salvage civil dialogue in our lives and live up to the demands of our respective religions. But I know that it often requires us to make a decision to approach strangers, exchange names and chat -- let alone have a deeply significant conversation. Please think about trying it today -- at your house of worship, at the grocery store, on the golf course, at the library. It takes practice to create a practice. The other thing: This morning I read another sermon from Ellen Davis’ book. She writes about how, in the gospel of Luke, whenever Jesus is eating, revelation happens. When he eats with sinners, revelation is on the menu. When he eats with religious leaders, revelation is the main course. Even when he shows up after the resurrection, the moment of revelation comes when he asks his startled disciples, “Do you have anything to eat?" Davis is much more eloquent as she explains it, but at some level we all know that sharing food with other people can open us up to each other. And when it does, revelation occurs. When the Institute for Christian Muslim Understanding meets, there’s always a potluck supper involved. Sometimes, that irritates me as I scramble to prepare a dish to share, but in the midst of eating together, I realize why it’s so important. Today I’m thinking about the intersection of meeting and eating. Next year, I’ll do more to publicize MET’s interfaith iftar, where we can all practice together. I confess that I’ve not finished Ellen Davis’ book, Preaching the Luminous Word. I set it aside in favor of some research, writing and home improvement projects. But I returned to it today and, as usual, her writing about preaching is almost as good as a fine sermon. In her essay, “Preaching in Witness to the Triune God,” she reminds us that our romanticized version of “biblical times” often overlooks a reality very similar to our own.
“It was a violent, highly militarized world in which human life and labor were often held to be cheap; an increasingly urbanized society with huge and growing economic disparities, instability, and collapse in many local communities; a culture that held the faith of Jews and Christians to be contemptible if not illegal and worked actively to eradicate it,” she writes. That’s something to think about as we try to grasp the radical thinking of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus. Context is not a magic key to opening up scripture, but it’s one number in the necessary combination. Laurie Goodstein wrote a thoughtful piece in the New York Times this morning: Religious Liberals Sat Out of Politics for 40 Years. Now They Want in the Game. She included this quote by the Rev. William J. Barber II of Moral Monday fame.
“How do you take two or three Scriptures and make a theology out of it, and claim it is the moral perspective, and leave 2,000 on the table?” he said. “That is a form of theological malpractice.” I think he’s right, and I recommend reading this piece here. I’ve waited days to write about the fatal stabbings Friday on the MAX train here in Portland. Like many people, I was in shock. It’s taken me a few days to get a grip. And when I did, it seemed like I didn’t have much to add to the conversation. Maybe, only this:
Like many people, I am in mourning: for the two men who died because they reacted instantly to hate hurled at two young women; for the one man who survived and wept on television as he talked about those who died and the girls they wanted to protect; for those young women, who may have endured hatred before and will never forget this experience; for the people on the train who ministered to the wounded; for the families and friends of all involved -- including the assailant’s mother -- who may be reeling from these losses; for all who must immerse themselves in the incident as they investigate and prosecute the case; for all who gathered at the vigil Saturday night; for those who spoke out -- yet again -- to condemn such acts; for all those who imagined that they would act in the same heroic way and realized what it might have cost them; for those who have spoken out against hatred and prejudice and fear in the aftermath; for city officials trying to find a way forward; for those who argue that this action illustrates the racist elements in our city and state’s past and for those who cannot, will not, acknowledge them; and for those who argue that the public reaction to this violence is racist or that white supremacist demonstrations are at odds with First Amendment rights and for those who disagree on both points. Then yesterday I woke up to news of a suicide blast in Kabul that killed at least 90 and wounded 400 and wondered how many others died violently here and abroad while I slept. I am in mourning for all of us. When I was in first grade, more than 50 years ago, our class composed Mother’s Day essays. Even then, I didn’t have much imagination. I remember asking my mother what I should write. Maybe I was always meant to be a journalist, intent on getting a good quote. Well, she gave me one. My essay was excerpted in our town’s newspaper and my mom’s quotation ran under my first-grade photo: “My mother says she is glad I am her little girl.” I clung to that quote for much of my life, and it helped me weather some difficult times growing up. And I think of it again today. I have been blessed with two boys. They were, are the greatest joy that Fred and I ever shared. And I cling to them now, partly because they are my closest link to their father, but also because both of them have grown into smart, talented, funny and compassionate young men, who have found smart, talented, funny and compassionate young women to love. Mother’s Day will always be complicated for me, but I can say, without reservation, that I am glad that Ante and Nels were our little boys and that they have grown into fine young men. What more could a mother ask? |
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