I do believe that all social transformation has to begin with the conversion of our own hearts. Sometimes it’s called metanoia, turning away from one way of living–turning away from what is killing our souls–and turning toward what is lifegiving. And racism is killing us. It hurts all of us, though I want to be very clear that it doesn’ t hurt all in the same way or to the same degree.
A week or so ago I was on a Zoom gathering with a group of white people who were sharing recollections of their earliest awareness of race. Some were taught that race is something polite people don’t mention. Others were brought up in blatantly racist environments. I remember my own grandmother as an outspoken racist, but my parents taught me that the words she used and the attitudes she expressed were wrong.
I think of these river reflections as occupying a kind of liminal space somewhere between reality and imagination. Though not exact replicas, the shifting images reflected in the river often reveal a special beauty of their own and help us to appreciate the original all the more. So then what does it mean to say that we are created in the image and likeness of God, a different kind of reflection?
Quick bike ride before Zoom church. In addition to the doe, I pass walkers, bikers, a huge turtle basking in the sun on a branch fallen into the canal, a distant woodpecker and a rooster who crows as I ride by. Life is beautiful, life is fragile, life is tragic, life endures, life inspires. All life is one. Black lives matter. Lives lived to the end in nursing homes matter. The lives of health care workers and first responders matter. Lives lived on the streets matter. The lives of prophets calling for justice matter. Creation care matters. Lives at the border matter. All lives matter, of course, but some lives have been devalued when we suppose that God loves us better. All life is one. All life is created by God. This is where God is for me this morning.
Prayer written for a group that’s been reading Christine Valters Paintner’s book titled “The Soul’s Slow Ripening” together and discussing it on Zoom:
Good and gracious God, source of all love, in whose image every one of us was created, you made us to love, and to be loved.
Hold us now in the great circle of your love, as a mother embraces her children; comfort and protect us as only you can.
We fear now in this pandemic for our own safety, even as we witness the raw pain of others who never felt safe. There is so much that is broken in our world and in our own hearts.
Give us courage and compassion to face that brokenness, and not turn away. By your grace may we be healed; by your grace may we become healers in your name.
Circle us with your love, and help us to appreciate just how large that circle is.
Help us to see that you are there in all those places where your children are suffering, and if we want to follow you, we will have to go there, too.
In the name of your Son who knew pain, grief, and injustice, and prevailed over them to show us the way.
Spoiler alert: The picture is not what I’m going to talk about here.
I took this photo over the weekend, but I didn’t post it then because it felt tone deaf to be to be lifting up Bucks County’s peaceful countryside while people in places not so far away were experiencing such turmoil. I’ve been doing the social isolation thing pretty seriously, so I didn’t rush off to join the protests, but I have been doing a lot of thinking and reading this past week. Curiously, I find that I have nothing much to say about the demonstrations and the reactions they’ve provoked.
I’ll tell you a story: Long ago, when I was young, earnest and impressionable, I had a friend who seemed to know the right way to think about everything. I was drawn to that person because I wanted to think right, too, and I listened very carefully. Later, I was a little embarrassed by my pose of acolyte to the wise one. Much later, I saw a bit of arrogance in their posture of knowing the right way to think about everything, but I didn’t really take the lesson to heart.
Very much later, I was ordained and set about living into all the joys and responsibilities of ordained life, one of which is proclaiming the Gospel in a specific place and time. Which very frankly can feel a little like knowing the right way to think about everything. It’s what’s expected of you, you’re supposed to pray first for wisdom to know what to preach, but to be very honest it can be habit-forming. It can start to feel pretty good to be the one who knows the right way to think about everything. I can be hard to stop.
In my experience (but what would I know) when you go to an Episcopal Church, stand up front, and hold up a Bible, people expect you to open it and read something to them. Since that didn’t happen in the news from Washington yesterday, I’m going to fill in by offering a portion of Psalm 72:
Oh God, give your anointed one your judgment– and your justice. Teach your chosen one to govern your people rightly and bring justice to the oppressed. The mountains will bring the people peace and the hills justice! Your anointed will defend the oppressed among the people, save the children of the poor, and crush the oppressor. …
Your anointed will rescue the poor when they cry out, and the oppressed when there is no one to help them. Your chosen one will take pity on the lowly and the poor, and will save their lives. Your chosen one will rescue them all from violence and oppression, and will treat their blood as precious.
On this day, feed your hunger for purpose with a hearty meal that begins with a chopped onion, a little garlic.
Simmer until the fragrance of it reaches everyone in the house, summoning them to the feast.
Let your earnest desire to heal the world find fulfillment then in a smile across the dinner table.
Satisfy your desire for presence by patiently receiving that long story whose conclusion you already know.
Just for now, let your longing to serve God and humanity find fulfillment in cleaning the kitchen when the meal is done; send the others out to watch the moon rise.
Love the ones who share the house with you.
Let go of fretting that you were made for something more, for some beautiful future you’ve been chasing after all your life.
Bless these moments when your purpose is clear. Know each one for what it is: the beginning and end of time.
Accept the invitation to enter there into the heart of God, realizing at last that this blessing of each minute will fill your day with grace.
Understand that a life of meaning begins not with climbing a mountain before breakfast, but with stopping to make the bed.
A hundred thousand. Lord, have mercy. Many of those taken from us were elderly, but so many others were not. Ages 44, 52, 36, 25, 48, 43 … they still had so much to give, and the world is so much poorer without them.
Many of us are grieving … for this loss of life, for the loss of the lives we ourselves wanted to be living now … and it’s hard to grieve alone.
We need to feel free to go ahead and do the work of grieving, to curse and to cry. I think it’s important to face the loss, and not just turn away and wait for it to be over. We need to engage our grief.
But one thing I think we need to be careful about is targeting the wrong enemy. I see that in those who want to shame people who are or are not wearing masks, those who blame individual politicians for the closings, those who want to reopen churches now as an act of religious freedom.
I think true religion calls on us to dig deeper, to nourish compassionate hearts.
I read this this morning and found it helpful. It’s a reflection on Mark 7:24-30, the story of the Syrophenician woman who told Jesus that even the dogs deserve their crumbs:
Jesus of Nazareth, When you met the Woman of Syrophenicia, you called her a little dog but that didn’t stop her. Little dogs need little crumbs, she said, and you listened, repented, and praised her for her words. We praise her words too, and ask that we can speak like her, and listen like you. Because this is the gift of resilience and repentance. This just might save us. Amen.
from “Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community,” by Padraig O Tuama
One of the great pleasures of the walks which are really my only chance to get out and about these days is observing nature more closely than I ever have before.
Another is encountering people – at a safe distance – on the way. This must sound strange, I know, coming from a confirmed introvert such as myself. But exchanging a minute or two of conversation with someone else, whether that be an acquaintance encountered by chance or just someone friendly, is a joy.
Earlier this week my sister observed the 70th anniversary of my parents’ wedding by sharing the bill for the reception: $270.16 for 105 guests, including $99 for 18 bottles of champagne. Today, for the 75th anniversary of VE Day, I offer these pages from my dad’s war journal:
“TUESDAY-MAY 8TH “TODAY IS VE DAY – The Germans have surrendered unconditionally to us. The terms were signed in Rheims at 4:41 GMT yesterday. The hostilities end official at 12:01 GMT tonight.
“It is hard to believe – that after nearly six years of war the Allies have driven the Germans from Africa, Italy, France, Belgium, Russia and a score of other countries and forced defeat on them on their own soil. Yet it’s true; no more 88’s or ME0109’s or anything.
“We heard addresses by Churchill, Truman, and King George today. We also attended an informal Thanksgiving service at 3:30. Even the Germans seem glad. They knew it was only a matter of time.
“Half of our mission is accomplished. Now we shall either occupy Germany or head for the other war.
“A day later he learned that they’d be assigned as security guards ‘near Nuremburg for awhile.”\'”
He’s glad it’s over; there’s only a hint here of what he had endured. But on the first page of the Engineer’s Field Transit Book he used to record his thoughts, he explained his reason for journaling:
“I am going to keep this diary so that in future years I may remember more clearly the day to day events of my Army career. I especially want to remember – in the days of normal living coming again in the not too distant future – the days of hell of our present existence in combat. For, as Sherman said, war really is hell – crowded with misery, discomfort and uncertainty – uncertainty as to whether or not you’ll be alive in the next minute.
“In the peaceful sort of living which was once normal and which will follow this conflict, surrounded by the things which I have longed for so constantly, I may lose sight of this fact. Old memories will soften with time. Thus, the mission of this diary: to remind me, should I need the reminder, what it was like, and to make me work unceasingly to make certain that my son does not march off to war; or if he does – and I say this with the sad knowledge that our fathers fought for the same ideals – he goes prepared.”
My brother never did go marching off to war, mostly because his age cohort was too young for Vietnam and too old for all that followed.
Not because humanity had somehow come to its senses about senseless armed conflict. Lord, have mercy.
