"MY WORK IS TO LOVE THE WORLD"

“My work is to love the world.” That’s the first line of the poem, “The Messenger,” by Mary Oliver. It speaks to me in a way her other poems do not. It’s as if God is speaking directly to me – love is your vocation. That’s it, right there.

To love the world in all its beauty, glory, and messiness. To love the skunk and the deer, the decay and the growth. To love Putin and Biden as human beings, creations of God. To love as Jesus did, by correcting as well as comforting. To love.

To love includes being “astonished.” It includes witness and rejoicing. To love, “which is gratitude” for all the we are and have been given. To love.

To love, and out of that love to act for the good of all the world.

That is my vocation, our vocation. That is our calling. That is our reason for being.

Go out there and love with all you’ve got.

B

 

CALLINGS

When I was younger, I wanted to be a nun. Not because I was pious or loved God or anything but rather because I thought nuns didn’t have any worries. I thought they didn’t work and were taken care of for life. It was the perfect life for security. Of course, I was very wrong. Everyone has worries, no one is secure, and nuns work very hard. I doubt anyone who entered the novitiate to become a nun with my motives would have lasted long.

So, why am I telling you this? Beginning next week, I will be working with my spiritual director to do Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. (You are all joining me, sort of.) In preparing for these exercises, which will need about an hour a day of meditation, I have been upping my meditation time in the morning. I was meditating on Jesus for 20 minutes a day and am now up to 40.

Each morning before the sun comes up, I turn off the lights, light my candles – the wax, plastic, and digital candles – and play soft music. It turns our living room into a softly glowing sanctuary. Then, I sit in my comfy recliner chair, my shoes off and legs crossed and try to focus on Jesus. I suck at it. My mind gets filled with plans, projects, ideas, and well, I don’t want to say I have visions, but an image comes to me when meditating on Jesus.

It is a woman sitting down. I cannot see her face. I can see she’s wearing blue and red. The vision includes mountains in the background and a building next to the woman. What can I say? My Jesus is a woman. This vision has been remarkably clear and unchanging for almost two decades. This week, I’ve been asking myself why this vision is coming to me.

The answer is Land.

Okay, part of the answer is land. See, the house next door to us was torn down two years ago this month. Now it is an empty plot of land, dumping water into our basement and into the sewers. Cleveland has a program enabling people to take possession of abandoned land located next door to their home. Last week, my husband and I began the process to acquire this land. We want to bring some native plants and trees, maybe grow a few crops on raised beds, and perhaps a bench. Restore it to something better than grass; something that could bring our neighbors together. Something that will attract wildlife like butterflies, insects, deer, birds. Maybe even groundhogs. Oh wait, we already have those!

I think this project and my Spiritual Exercises journey are being birthed together for a reason. Obviously, I can’t know what that reason is. Yet, it feels very much like a time for renewal; a new morning, fresh and full of promise. Even as we walk in the night of COVID, fascism, and war.

Unlike my childhood ideas about nun-hood, both the land and my journey will require a lot of work. Work that I feel called to and that I am happy to do.

Where is the work God is calling you to do? Where is your morning?

B

 

NO ONE RECOGNIZES THE MAN BORN BLIND

Because I follow many disabled people on twitter, I am often reminded at how society really just would prefer all disabled and chronically ill people would just go away. American society as currently configured only has use for money and those who can work or otherwise keep the economy going. We are still in the midst of a pandemic that is killing people daily, and yet there is a push to get back to a normal that really only works for white, able-bodied, men. All in service of ‘the economy.’

It is through those same disabled people on twitter that I discovered this Atlantic article highlighting the forgotten 7 million people in the US who have compromised immune systems and for whom the pandemic is still vastly curtailing our activities. Chronically ill and disabled people have been forgotten and ignored during these last few years not because we’re suddenly invisible but rather because we’ve always been invisible.

So, I find it interesting that the Revised Common Lectionary recently read through the Gospel of John, chapter 9; the story of the man born blind. Jesus heals him by putting mud on his eyes and telling him to go wash. When he returns able to see, suddenly, his neighbors and others who had seen him begging don’t recognize him. Because they never really saw him while he was begging. He was ignored because he was ‘just a beggar.’

We are uncomfortable around people with obvious disabilities, partially because we don’t wish to confront the reality that it could happen to us. By and large, we don’t really look at people in wheelchairs, people using canes, or people with prosthetic legs. In the story, no one recognizes the man born blind once he can see, because he no longer occupies his former place in their world.

Their desire for a definitive answer to whether it really is the same man moves the neighbors get the authorities involved. The authorities question the man born blind and refuse to acknowledge the miracle, warning they’ll kick anyone who believes it out of the temple. The authorities go to the parents trying to prove their point. Alas, even the man’s parents aren’t willing to stand up for him, saying he’s and adult and can speak for himself. The authorities continue to give the man born blind a hard time. They call hm a sinner and seem to think he is conning them. their pride won’t let them acknowledge something wonderful that they cannot explain or control.

They ask the man again about his experience, reminding him they think Jesus is a sinner. The man born blind holds his ground well. He tells his story again and then wonders whether the authorities wish to become Jesus’s followers too. He reminds them that never has such a thing happened before and maybe we should embrace it. Their response is to accuse him – a nobody – of trying to teach them. he is kicked out of the temple.

This man’s experience echoes the experience of many disabled and chronically ill people; sometimes neglected by parents, sometimes disregarded or ignored in school, work, or among peers, sometimes not believed (even by doctors) when describing symptoms. We are pressured to go along to get along, to not make waves or advocate for ourselves. This is especially true now, during this pandemic. This man’s journey has it all. But it is more than just a story. It is a reality that many people live with today.

The questions I’d like to pose today are: how can we learn to see disabled people as people rather than ignoring or disregarding them? How can we begin to center them in our thoughts about how the world might be bettered? These questions are important because we all have been socialized in the same society that devalues people who are temporarily able-bodied. Thinking about and prioritizing disabled people, as Jesus calls us to do, goes against a hidden societal rule of which we may not even be aware.

It’s always a leap from seeing people and things from our own angle to seeing them from God’s angle.

 

SHINING

 The other day I read the story of Hagar and Sarah’s mistreatment of her. Quick recap: Sarah is barren, and in desperation, she allows her husband Abraham to have a child with her slave, Hagar. (It was a very different time.) Hagar begins to act haughty (or Sarah perceives her as such) and Sarah mistreats her. Hagar runs away. God comes to her and tells her to go back to her abuser; that he has plans for her and her child. Hagar names God El-Roi, because she has seen God and lived. She is the only person in the bible to give a name to God. Anyway, she goes back and later, after Sarah’s child is born, Sarah can no longer stand having Hagar and her child around and kicks Hagar out for good. God again comes to Hagar and tells her that all is well, her son will be the father of many.

So, abuse of slaves was the norm. As a person who is absolutely against slavery, this is a hard text to read not because God takes care of Hagar but because God also takes care of Sarah. There is no punishment for her mistreatment of Hagar. This is one of those challenging texts. It challenges my vision of who God is and what God’s justice is. In particular, the idea that God provides for both Sarah and Hagar, for both the abuser and the abused is not how we humans, and I in particular, normally think. We want revenge or at least accountability.

We see in black and white and are quick to put labels on things and people. This creates walls between us and seems to protect us from hurt. But it also protects us from the risk of loving others and even ourselves. To love requires that we be like a child – full of wonder, playful, vulnerable, trusting, open to new ideas, and loving. Labels block those things and shut out the light of love from others around us but also God’s love as well.

But, God does not see in black and white. God sees in dazzling, blazing, shining color. I used to walk early in the morning when I lived in Flagstaff, AZ. One morning, coming home to my apartment, I saw a pine tree standing next to a street lamp. The wax on the pine needles was spreading the light every which way. It was beautiful. As I admired it, the thought occurred to me that it would look different from a different angle. I moved and the light moved. Enchanting. Then, the epiphany came: I realized that God sees that tree from every angle.

I took a class in seminary on Afro-American diaspora religions. One of the readings was August Wilson’s play, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Set in a boarding house, the play is, among other things, a mediation on the transitory, unsettled nature of being African American in the US. With the exception of the owners of the boarding house, the characters are moving from one place to another, from one stage of life to another, from one situation to another.

A quick, superficial recap: Bynum Walker, a boarder, is searching for a “shiny man.” He asks everyone who enters whether they have seen such a man. Herald Loomis, another boarder, is in town to search for his wife. When he finds her, she tells him she has moved on. This somehow frees Herald:

He denounces his Christian background and slashes his chest. The stage directions read "Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions." He leaves and the play ends with Bynum yelling: "Herald Loomis, you shining! You shining like new money!" (Wikipedia)

To God, that pine tree on my morning walk was shining like new money. God sees Sarah’s mistreatment of Hagar, and he sees her shining! We shine too when we join God’s vision and give up the labels that we put on others and be who we were created to be; dazzling, shining children of God.

Go out and shine, baby!

B

GOD'S ANGLE

I’ve been reading Strength to Love, a collection of Martin Luther King Jr’s sermons. It is a fantastic and challenging book. A book to make a person uncomfortable, especially a white woman who has never had to face many of these situations. I have read it before, but not from where we are now. Now, I have a better understanding – not perfect by any means – of how it feels to be discriminated against. Four years of the former guy and this last year with Republicans echoing his nonsensical election fraud talking points have me on edge. I’m sure many others as well. It has given me a new lens through which to read Dr. King.

The sermon that is challenging me at the moment is on Matthew 5:43-45, which is part of the Sermon on the Mount. Here is the text:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

He begins by discussing the how of loving or enemies. For Dr. King, it starts with forgiveness. He has three points: forgiveness does not mean walking away from the person, recognizing that all of us are a mixture of good and bad motives, and ‘love’ means God’s love for us, agape, not liking or approving of a person.

Dr. King then discusses the why. His three reasons are that hate multiplies hate, adding to the chaos and confusion. This is the source of his famous quote: Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Second, hate scars our souls and changes us. Not for the better. It victimizes both the hated and the hater. Third, hate cannot transform an enemy into a friend. This is always King’s goal, to keep the relationship open and transformative. Finally, we love our enemies … so that we may be children of our father in heaven. If we want to be children of our father in heaven, we must love our enemies. Simple as that.

Two points that Dr. King makes challenge me.  He makes it clear that we cannot say ‘forgive and forget’ or have nothing more to do with the person. Since his goal is to keep relationships, neither of these are an option. As I read it, I kept coming up with all kinds of scenarios in which this is not wise: abuse, domestic violence, stalking, etc. As if King knew nothing about these.

Maybe the answer here is to see it from a different angle. Take the former president; by all accounts he was severely abused (emotionally rather than physically) as a child and young adult. His not dealing with the aftermath in a healthy way led to who he is today. As a person who grew up in a similar household, I can relate to that. I too was headed on a similar path. I probably wasn’t as broken as he was and is. I still had a spark of desire to change. With a lot of help and support from many people, I was able to work my way out of the hell that I was living in. The former president has not been able to do that.

I have no relationship with him, but I think the same approach would work in people who may not be enemies but who are difficult to deal with. Sometimes, that connection makes it possible to see them from a different angle, and thus to start the process of forgiveness.

I feel the need to point out that although King wants to keep the relationship open, there is no need to keep the relationship the same. If I am married to an abuser, I don’t have to stay married to keep the relationship open. Which makes me wonder how King defines an ongoing relationship. What if the other person declines to talk with us? Does keeping an open mind about the relationship, even if we are not speaking or interacting regularly, satisfy his ideals? I like to think it does.

He ends this section with the thought that our ability to forgive determines our ability to love. That is a challenge!

The second thing that challenges me is the assertion that everyone has good and bad in them. Again, look at the former guy. I am hard put to find anything good in him. Maybe he is too. On reflection, there’s no requirement that we be able to see the good in others, or the bad for that matter. I think I am prone to categorizing people as one or the other. It’s so easy to do that, but it limits our vision. Taking it as true, seeing it from a different angle, would inspire me to look for it. That too is a challenge.

Of course, the thing that will make it possible to rise to these challenges is God’s love along with the love and support of others around us. It would be difficult to see good in others if I didn’t already feel that God sees good in me. I’m speaking for myself here, but maybe you can relate. It would be difficult to stay in relationship with someone determined to hurt me without such support. For me, it would be impossible.

But loving our neighbor asks us to go one further. It asks us to see God’s love for our enemy, to see them from a different angle, God’s Angle. If we can feel God’s love for ourselves, we theoretically can transfer that love to our enemy. That is our goal. Why? So that we may be children of our father and mother in heaven.

May you be challenged to see things from God’s angle today.

B