A few years ago, when my sanity was threatened by severe illness in my family and the sudden loss of my job, I relied first on inner strength to keep me from going under. Raised in a city environment where individual strength and self-reliance were prized, I was able to convince myself I had the mettle it would take to survive. I did survive; and my children survived with me.
When I look back now on those days I realize they were no catastrophe; they were a blessing. Soon after I had steadied myself against the onslaught, I was met by wave after wave of caring people reaching out, wondering if they could in some way provide a life jacket. I would come home from a long day of working and visiting my loved one in the hospital and listen to my phone messages. Often there were as many as a dozen, mostly from members of my church living the love they understood to be at the heart of our faith.
I learned to cry in those days and ever since then I’ve been more vulnerable to tears than any self-respecting, tough-guy Detroit boy should be. The tears were not over the pain I suffered but in response to the acts of love. I cried because in those days I learned that love is real, love is possible and love can triumph.
As a Christian teacher and searcher, one of my fascinations has been to understand how we can open doors to the spiritual presence Jesus described when he said: “Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened …” Even before the days of which I write here, it had occurred to me that suffering might be one door into the spiritual rebirth Christ promised. It seems clear that the “kingdom of heaven” Jesus reveals in his parables is a state of spiritual elevation to be enjoyed here on earth -- not just when we pass on to whatever realm awaits us after physical death. And people who sense intuitively that there is a truth that exceeds mere knowledge are as hungry today for an answer as they were in Jesus' day.
As I said, I had put suffering on my short list of “doors” even before I came into my time of suffering. And certainly I came out of that time as a more spiritual being than I went in. But I discovered that it wasn’t actually the suffering that made the difference. If I had stood alone against the tide and prevailed, it would only have inflated my sense of self reliance. What made suffering a door-opening experience was the way it connected me in love with others. I began to realize that the other “doors” on my short list, like service for example, were only doors because they involved a love connection with someone beyond myself.
Someone once wrote that God is like a force for good that exists but, like a car in neutral, doesn’t move until someone puts it in gear by acting in love toward another being. In that moment God becomes real and active, and can be seen moving upon the face of the earth. If you want to be lifted into God’s realm, lift someone with you. If you want to open the door to spiritual rebirth, love someone.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
A Peculiar Village for a Peculiar People
A woman fighting to be a good mother goes online and uses special software to explore her son’s “history” on the internet. A week earlier she walked in on him and a friend looking at pornography and warned her son against doing it again. Now her clandestine investigation reveals he’s not only looking at porn but at bondage sites. She explodes and threatens to disconnect their home from the internet even though it will hurt her too. He’s none too happy that his mom is spying on him and swears it must have been a friend who went to that site. She takes his word for it and keeps her internet connection, not sure she’s doing the right thing. The son, by the way, is 18 years old. He’ll soon graduate from high school and leave home for college. She’s worried about him, and that she has failed as a mother.
A father and mother in Florida with a son in middle school and a daughter in the ninth grade are a pretty typical American family. They are strong Christians who attend church regularly but they have other interests in life. They are by no means the kind of separatists who hole up on ranches in Texas. But one night, watching television with their kids, they begin to realize how meaningless the shows are. Even those not chock full of violence or indiscriminate sex really contribute nothing to building a healthy psyche or a sense of spiritual purpose. They decide to cancel their cable subscription. The son, who always surfed, surfs more and becomes one of the top wave riders on the East Coast. The daughter resumes her music lessons and soon her singing is the envy of all her TV-obsessed friends. The mom and dad continue sitting next to each other on the couch but with no TV to watch they fall into ... well, let’s leave it at that!
Both these stories are true and I’m sure there are a million more like them. The African saying borrowed for Hillary’s book says, “It takes a village,” and most of us do raise our children in the midst of a village. We can’t live in isolation, but we wish it was easier to choose our village. Is it any wonder families home school in order to better control the “village” their children live in? Many believe that if we teach our children good values at home they will carry these into the world. Maybe so; but it’s no slam dunk. Parents who dream of their children cutting their own path and walking the way Jesus describes in the beatitudes -- peacemakers, merciful, pure of heart, thirsting for righteousness -- know how hard it is to compete with the pop culture’s enticing triviality.
A 24-year-old artist who emigrated here from Russia five years ago told me of the frustration she feels working as a nanny for well-to-do American families. Recently she took her young American charges on a day-trip to Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. Excited by the prospect of seeing the exotic animals, she imagined herself delivering a lesson on the remote parts of the world from which various species come. But the children wanted to ignore the animals and spend their day roaming the gift shop looking for things to purchase. Although she grew up in Russia with very little, she said she would not trade her childhood for the so-called advantages of the American kids. You might say the absence of things allowed room for her human potential to flourish.
Most of us would agree that followers of God inhabit two kingdoms, one spiritual and one material. But when those kingdoms are at odds, to which does our loyalty belong? In the early church (as in the stories of the Old Testament) it was clear that believers made loyalty to God their first priority. Christian people still worked and moved about in secular culture as we do today, but they held their spiritual values so dear that no one had to ask if they were Jesus people. Their care for each other and their gentle approach to outsiders defined them as a peculiar people, not just Xerox copies of everyone else who also went to church on Sundays. I’m guessing even the pagan majority saw them as a superior people who were not easily compromised. I can almost hear one Roman singing to another, “… and we know they are Christians by their love …” But I can’t imagine a Christian getting all dolled up for the big show at the Coliseum -- at least not voluntarily!
When the children were removed recently from the separatist religious community in Texas, some commentators acted as if the children were being given their freedom. What a wonderful world is waiting for them! “Imagine,” one of them said, “many of these children have never been allowed to watch television or to explore on the internet.”
Yea, I thought, imagine that.
A father and mother in Florida with a son in middle school and a daughter in the ninth grade are a pretty typical American family. They are strong Christians who attend church regularly but they have other interests in life. They are by no means the kind of separatists who hole up on ranches in Texas. But one night, watching television with their kids, they begin to realize how meaningless the shows are. Even those not chock full of violence or indiscriminate sex really contribute nothing to building a healthy psyche or a sense of spiritual purpose. They decide to cancel their cable subscription. The son, who always surfed, surfs more and becomes one of the top wave riders on the East Coast. The daughter resumes her music lessons and soon her singing is the envy of all her TV-obsessed friends. The mom and dad continue sitting next to each other on the couch but with no TV to watch they fall into ... well, let’s leave it at that!
Both these stories are true and I’m sure there are a million more like them. The African saying borrowed for Hillary’s book says, “It takes a village,” and most of us do raise our children in the midst of a village. We can’t live in isolation, but we wish it was easier to choose our village. Is it any wonder families home school in order to better control the “village” their children live in? Many believe that if we teach our children good values at home they will carry these into the world. Maybe so; but it’s no slam dunk. Parents who dream of their children cutting their own path and walking the way Jesus describes in the beatitudes -- peacemakers, merciful, pure of heart, thirsting for righteousness -- know how hard it is to compete with the pop culture’s enticing triviality.
A 24-year-old artist who emigrated here from Russia five years ago told me of the frustration she feels working as a nanny for well-to-do American families. Recently she took her young American charges on a day-trip to Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. Excited by the prospect of seeing the exotic animals, she imagined herself delivering a lesson on the remote parts of the world from which various species come. But the children wanted to ignore the animals and spend their day roaming the gift shop looking for things to purchase. Although she grew up in Russia with very little, she said she would not trade her childhood for the so-called advantages of the American kids. You might say the absence of things allowed room for her human potential to flourish.
Most of us would agree that followers of God inhabit two kingdoms, one spiritual and one material. But when those kingdoms are at odds, to which does our loyalty belong? In the early church (as in the stories of the Old Testament) it was clear that believers made loyalty to God their first priority. Christian people still worked and moved about in secular culture as we do today, but they held their spiritual values so dear that no one had to ask if they were Jesus people. Their care for each other and their gentle approach to outsiders defined them as a peculiar people, not just Xerox copies of everyone else who also went to church on Sundays. I’m guessing even the pagan majority saw them as a superior people who were not easily compromised. I can almost hear one Roman singing to another, “… and we know they are Christians by their love …” But I can’t imagine a Christian getting all dolled up for the big show at the Coliseum -- at least not voluntarily!
When the children were removed recently from the separatist religious community in Texas, some commentators acted as if the children were being given their freedom. What a wonderful world is waiting for them! “Imagine,” one of them said, “many of these children have never been allowed to watch television or to explore on the internet.”
Yea, I thought, imagine that.
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