The Violence of Pious Accountants - at the fence

When I was growing up as a Roman Catholic, I would go into the confessional and name the sins I had committed since my last confession - names and numbers. Faithfulness often was measured by my participation in this routine exercise. To keep a good accounting was to make myself worthy of the goodies of this religious system. That could be heard as critique of Roman Catholicism - please don't let it be. Just today I once again was treated to the accounting system of the most pious and religious Evangelicals. They threw around the word grace but their verbiage was that of accounting and thus - condemnation for those not living in a way that adds up to their vision of holy.

When faithfulness is measured by our accounting, it is a self-serving faithfulness. Therefore, a life spent trying to measure life as though it is an accumulation of what we have done and what we have not done seems to be a lost life. Bean-counting of any kind simply leaves us with a pile of beans we must guard with our lives. Such a calculated faithfulness is short-sighted and eventually becomes the fuel for condemnation. A calculated faithfulness is short-sighted because it denies the vision of love that moves to bring all things together within a peacefulness that looks out for the other - no matter who the other may be or whatever the other has done. A calculated faithfulness is a source of condemnation because it has its limits - it thrives on comparisons - it feeds off of the self-serving notions of good and evil. In other words, I think a calculated faithfulness is idolatry - it betrays the Creator by claiming to have the right and power to define and then assign worth to the actions and lives of people all around us.

Today one of the pious accountants was on the megaphone. Oh how he seemed to love a faithfulness that can be scored and compared and then even weaponized. You may have heard an expression like bible bullets. They are often the weapons of choice by those who are vigilant in their life of accounting - especially if they are actively attempting to show another person how his or her life stacks up or falls short within their chosen accounting system. Bam. You will always be able to hear it if you lean in and take the time to listen to their accounting system in operation. Bam. You will hear words of judgment. Bam. You will see faces that attempt to appear angelic even as they spew vile accusations. Bam. You will see a great divide being constructed between those who are considered to be Inside (or holy or saved) and those who must be Outside. Bam. It is the oldest of games. It is also the deadliest of games. Calculated faithfulness longs to look and sound as though it has the game down - either by the words spoken - the routines followed - the piety displayed - the clothes worn. But the game is deadly. It is under the control of those who want the world to bend to their vision of life.

At best, a calculated faith simply serves to exclude. From what I heard today I'm all for being excluded from that kind of accounting at the fence. Though I might be excluded - literally counted out of their home-grown divine view - I have heard other news of life that opens itself up to a hospitality in which people are treated as whole and beloved. From experience I have found that the accountants at the fence will have nothing to do with that kind of vision for life. It is at that point that a calculating faith becomes weaponized - it will lean toward violence. The violence is obviously verbal - that comes by way of all those bible bullets that are used to defeat and subdue. Unfortunately, we all know of stories of how devout faithful calculators also find it necessary to turn to  physical violence. It is at those times that they reveal that their religious accounting is off - their story is off - their whole life filled with attempts to make everyone add up to their vision of life is off. Calculating faithfulness must fight to the death of everyone in an attempt to keep its illusion of holiness or goodness in place - leaving them neither holy nor good. A calculating faithfulness is never able to let down its guard or drop its weapons. It must be vigilant. It must become louder. It must work to put an end to all of us who are not able to add up to their rule - their dominion - their way of doing their faithful math. Calculating faithfulness longs for an armageddon - for it cannot tolerate the compassion of God's Reign of peace.
TRRR

Where's the compassion - at the fence

In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson writes: An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Without compassion it is so very easy to keep on our own track - go our own way - look to meet our own wants - follow our own dream. But then, as one story goes, Jesus was heading out to get some rest - take a retreat - finally have some time alone, when something in his gut started stirring. He saw people on the shore following the path of his boat - racing around to make it to the place where his boat would come to rest. Without the gift of compassion he might have said, Shit, (sorry I don't know the Aramaic for that), turn the boat around - I need a vacation. We can help them later. 

That stirring-in-the-gut is not merely a physical disturbance. It is how the spirit moves humanity to give a damn - to see those from whom we would rather turn our eyes - to listen to the voices of those others - to lean into the story of those we do not yet know. That spirit is always pulling us into a deeper experience with others. Compassion opens us to the stories and needs and gifts and troubles of others. It is a gift that we are handed as we move along the way of becoming truly human. I find that compassion has nothing to do with how much of my own skin I have in the game. In fact, compassion moves us despite a lack of connections to others. We are moved to be connected. We are moved because the life of the other is not merely the life of the other - it is my life - our life - humanity's opportunity to be whole. Maybe compassion causes a stirring-in-the-gut because without being connected to the other, we will never be well - we will always live with a dis-ease that can only bring about death - never new life.

Compassion makes us come closer to others. We may not want to go there. We may even be taught - again and again - not to go there. We all know the many rules that have kept us away from them - those others. Compassion - a real vibrant part of our humanity - sends us running toward the distress of others - not running aways to save our own life. Compassion helps us wonder about others - their condition - their joys - their troubles - their well-being. As we wonder, we allow ourselves to step into the the arena of others - into their lives. It is there - in the mix of things - we are able to see how others may be quite like us - even as we appear to act so differently. In those moments we are able to experience the common within our differences. We become open to a world of experience and ideas and actions that we may have once found to be odd or repulsive or forbidden. Compassion opens our eyes and nudges us into that other world - a wonder-full world. 

We all may find it easy to have compassion for folks who are just as we are. Though it is still compassion that draws us to walk with and alongside those who are like us, such compassion as this - seems to be self-serving. It is another part of how we keep the world as we want it and keep the existing order in place. I find that the compassion that pulls Jesus' boat into the mix of folks who are quit literally not in the same boat and even an out-there mob of sorts - is a stirring power that throws him into a moment of creativity. There on the shore - there in the mix of all of them - there, close enough to see and touch folks not in the same boat as he is,  he becomes a miracle worker. No magic here. No out-of-this-world food fest. Rather, compassion is like a healing contagion that pulls everyone outside of their self-centered and self-secure lives and introduces them to the world as it was created - a benevolent and bountiful experience of life. Everyone out in the wilderness along that shoreline of want and need had something to offer to the well-being of all others. It takes only one act of compassion to transform a sea of such folks into a community of compassion in which it is possible for a bountiful exchange to take place.

When words of love and words of hope and words of concern are motivated by the need to have others walk and live the way we live, those words only create a death spiral. The love and hope and concern is not for the other - it is for our way. At the fence I hear many wonderful words - but they are divorced from the power in life that brings substance and creativity into our human community. They are words - that's it. They are self-indulgent words. It would be like Jesus waving from his boat and saying, 'I'm with you. I love you. I want to help you.' But then he has his friends steer the boat away from shore and off on his way to another place. There are times when I think the megaphones used by protestors need to be re-directed into their own ears - for their words are meant for them. It is almost like a pat on the back - a self-fashioned blessing.  

Compassion puts an end to lectures and condemnation. Compassion saves people from the ugliness of our humanity that longs to make others into the image of our way - my way - the right way. It is always my hope that as we come to feel that gut-stirring-movement within us, we each will be changed. I like to say converted. I like to use that word because it has nothing to do with a switch from one religious notion to another. It has to do with be converted into a humanity full of compassion for others.  I even like to say saved. I like to use that word because, too often, at the fence, folks think it is their job to save others from people in the clinic or save them for another time and place far off in time. Instead, we are saved from our turn-in-on-lives (too often limited to our religious/political games) and saved for a life full of compassion and mercy and justice that is willing to risk all things for - you got it - all those in need on the shore - no matter who they are - what they have done - who they may become. 

TRRRthe the arena of others - into their lives. It is there - in the mix of things - we are able to see how others may be quite like us - even as we appear to act so differently. In those moments we are able to experience the common within our differences. We become open to a world of experience and ideas and actions that we may have once found to be odd or repulsive or forbidden. Compassion opens our eyes and nudges us into that other world - a wonder-full world.

We all may find it easy to have compassion for folks who are just as we are. Though it is still compassion that draws us to walk with and alongside those who are like us, such compassion as this - seems to be self-serving. It is another part of how we keep the world as we want it and keep the existing order in place. I find that the compassion that pulls Jesus' boat into the mix of folks who are quit literally not in the same boat and even an out-there mob of sorts - is a stirring power that throws him into a moment of creativity. There on the shore - there in the mix of all of them - there, close enough to see and touch folks not in the same boat as he is,  he becomes a miracle worker. No magic here. No out-of-this-world food fest. Rather, compassion is like a healing contagion that pulls everyone outside of their self-centered and self-secure lives and introduces them to the world as it was created - a benevolent and bountiful experience of life. Everyone out in the wilderness along that shoreline of want and need had something to offer to the well-being of all others. It takes only one act of compassion to transform a sea of such folks into a community of compassion in which it is possible for a bountiful exchange to take place.

When words of love and words of hope and words of concern are motivated by the need to have others walk and live the way we live, those words only create a death spiral. The love and hope and concern is not for the other - it is for our way. At the fence I hear many wonderful words - but they are divorced from the power in life that brings substance and creativity into our human community. They are words - that's it. They are self-indulgent words. It would be like Jesus waving from his boat and saying, 'I'm with you. I love you. I want to help you.' But then he has his friends steer the boat away from shore and off on his way to another place. There are times when I think the megaphones used by protestors need to be re-directed into their own ears - for their words are meant for them. It is almost like a pat on the back - a self-fashioned blessing.

Compassion puts an end to lectures and condemnation. Compassion saves people from the ugliness of our humanity that longs to make others into the image of our way - my way - the right way. It is always my hope that as we come to feel that gut-stirring-movement within us, we each will be changed. I like to say converted. I like to use that word because it has nothing to do with a switch from one religious notion to another. It has to do with be converted into a humanity full of compassion for others.  I even like to say saved. I like to use that word because, too often, at the fence, folks think it is their job to save others from people in the clinic or save them for another time and place far off in time. Instead, we are saved from our turn-in-on-lives (too often limited to our religious/political games) and saved for a life full of compassion and mercy and justice that is willing to risk all things for - you got it - all those in need on the shore - no matter who they are - what they have done - who they may become.
TRRR

The Violence of Love - at the fence

Love becomes violent whenever love is conditional. Quite like religious folks who tell you how much they love you but let all of their words drip with commands to be and act differently. It is a love that is much like bait. It hangs out there and tries to draw you into its sweet smelling images of smiling faces and words of encouragement. But like bait, it is meant to catch you - put an end to you - serve you up to the others as a catch of the day - for Jesus' sake of course. This baiting-love is always violence that attempts to corrupt the foundation of the love that is to be a self-giving, self-sacrificing love that does not coerce or trick or demean or shame or embarrass. Love that is the creative love of God that has been shown to be pruned of its violence never makes room for violence - any kind of violence.

It is good to stand silently and listen to how violent love manifests itself in the small megaphones that treat people to an endless rampage of words that seek to make a wreck of the souls of men and women who - within the grace of God - choose to live within the freedom to care for their bodies and thoughtfully consider the the many facets of responsible human life. The violence is sharp each time the name of the Prince of Peace is used as a hammer to shatter rather than heal. The violence is vulgar each time the vision of the Prophets - whose words rise up to honor all humanity without partiality - is left dangling without completing the vision - thus left as a word raped of its character. The violence is idolatrous each time it is used to shape young children into con-spirators who must listen to the self-secured voices that completely lack the breath or Spirit of God's endless,bountiful, and hopeful, creativity.

Unfortunately, love becomes violent under the cover of love. The violence is smeared all over the words that say we love you and we will love your child. For not a bit of that line is true - nor will it be. It is a weapon that attempts to take the life of another person and shape it into the life of those who give voice to their own wants and needs. A person who does not take hold of the love that rolls through the fence line is rejected  - lectured - shouted down. Even as it rolls off the lips of those who claim to embody God's love - they forget that their love already smells of hatred and scorn and, yes, violence. It is not at all to be associated with God's love.

I usually stand at a distance when I see and hear love becoming violence. There is a fence. There are small shrubs. There are infant trees. There are even rules - civic rule - that are meant to keep all that loving-violence at a distance so that such antics do not create physical violence and harm. This love that becomes violence looks like our world. It is pushy - it is loud - it is vile - it shames - it encourages disrespect. Some escorts at other facilities find no room between these expressions of violent love (which is an oxymoron) and the people they serve. They are so close to clients they can feel how such violent love cuts and whips and, yes, crucifies clients who enter and leave clinics. Those who say they seek to rescue the unborn - and try to do it with holy words and images - merely repeat the ongoing violence of a violent world. I must bow in admiration of the people who escort those delicate souls who must take the lashing of tongues  and the threat of bodily contact that can wound and kill. I am able to stand at a distance but others must be a buffer even when there appears to be no room for a buffer.

I find it difficult to purge myself of violence. Anger can be flicked on like a switch. Hate can rise up faster than any consideration to love. And yet, it is necessary. It is also necessary to put a name to the violence that defiles love's endless solidarity with any and all - without judgment or condemnation. So, we must escort one another into and through the decision of life the too many people find threatening. I find love to be an amazing power of creativity in which even my enemy - or those who will not be as I want them to be - will find time to dance and sing together. Some may say I'm a dreamer.
TRRR

Wickedness - at the fence

Last evening a speaker mentioned a difference between evil and the wicked or - as she preferred - wickedness. Evil is out there - everywhere. Evil is a power - even non-religious people will talk about the evil in the world as though it is is a real power among us. Evil raises up its head in and through groups of people - governments - even religious folk. It is there, bent on bring forth those evil ways rather than change them.

Wickedness is a choice. It is how a person chooses to act. It is what any of us can look like when we choose to damage - insult - persecute - belittle - demean - invalidate others. (Let me insert here that it is also when we think we have the right and duty to save others however we interpret save.) So, for example, the forces of power involved in hate groups - the power that takes over a group in order to subjugate another group or individuals to any type of blaming condemnation that belittles or negates - allow the fomenting of their fears and anxieties to turn themselves into agents of wickedness. When there were water fountains designated for whites only and coloreds only - there was wickedness on the loose. It could not be backed up by any religious word from any scripture - it was the making of a life that was a lie. It is as much of a lie as those whose turn toward wickedness - turns them into intolerant people who somehow see people of color and people of other religious backgrounds or cultures as deserving to be cast out - thrown out - left behind.

Evil is everywhere - but wickedness takes aim and fires at whatever image or power interrupts or disturbs that which those wicked ones have deemed to be the world as it was and is and should be. Wickedness is a well-shaped jabbing edge that rises out of the evil of the world. It allows us - all of us - to point a finger and name another person or people as dirty - unclean - sinner - outcast - yes, even evil. I would suggest that every minority - every group of others - every person who can easily be changed into a target to keep us as we are - has been and is and will be cut up by the sharp blade of wickedness. Wickedness seeks to destroy. It may not be by literally killing others. It most likely will be like those drinking fountains and bathrooms that lingered into the 1960s until another power was able to say enough wickedness - enough of the lies that kill - enough division.

To tie into one of my last rants on shame, wickedness uses the weapon of shame to destroy others. That is even done under the disguise of let us help you - we love you. Yet, the proposed help and love only come with conditions that actually negate both the offer of help and love. That is especially the case when that love and help comes from folks who attempt to turn a story of unbounded grace and love into the lie of our way - our wants - our correctness - our vision of good and evil. Wickedness bets on a few choice words - a few verses - a few catchy brands - all of which are not able to carry the message of that unbounded grace and love. In fact, I would suggest that the wickedness around us fears seeing joy and peace and grace and pleasure and love that is able to re-unite all that are broken apart. For when there is a spirit of love - an unbounded willingness for reconciliation and forgiveness - and, an amazing pull to include the other - the wicked lose their power. They have to live with the hell of their own endless attempts to preserve their way rather than walk into the domain of never-ending love for all.

But watch out. The wicked always know how to spot their next prey. They do it by indulging in a great blasphemy. I see this blasphemy at the fence regularly - it is a self-righteousness that appears to know the truth but it is a bound-up truth - or - a lie that cannot live with the truth that there is another valid side to life.  I think disagreement must abound - even argumentation. For both disagreement and argumentation leave room for wonder and change and transformation and the joy of being wrong and finding out that new life is possible outside of my own head. I will always insist that such a way as this is always difficult because we must learn to let go of our stuff and maybe - just maybe - embrace the other side. Yet, for wickedness to prevail it must have its own way - all others have no hope - no future - no life. Wickedness must rule. It does this by calling itself holy or pious or virtuous or righteous or even - godly. Bingo - blasphemy - attempting to turn the wind-blowing - always-surprising - eternally thrilling - and even contentious Spirit of God's Reign into a static version of reality.

Wickedness is weakened and exposed through dialogue. It is overturned when the labels plastered on people and facilities and communities are removed and each of us must engage the other as beloved. Those other ones - who are also beloved - may be acting out in ways much different than me - but why. So there is a need for storytelling - for listening -  a willingness to not be the judge and jury that comes so often when we begin to slip into the realm of wickedness.

I also know that there is a time called the meantime. It is the time in which all of us live our lives. It is a time when the spirit of healing and wholeness whips around us. It is also the time when wickedness works fiercely to have its way in the world. So for now, when voices of condemnation and accusation are pressing in and the finger-pointing weapons of blaming and shaming try to take people down, maybe we need to - sing a different song - play a cowbell or a kazoo - laugh at the sound of the foolishness - record it - video it - or maybe, simply be silent and let the wickedness resound while we counter every wicked word and act with loving kindness, compassion, and solidarity with all the people who are being told who they can and cannot be. Remember, the rain falls on both the just and the unjust - the wicked and the loving - the lost and the found. So in the meantime - take the time to hear the voice of creativity that has always looked upon all of creation and said that it - all of it - is good.
TRRR

The Accuser - at the fence

From the moment a woman or a couple open their car doors until they are behind the closed doors of the clinic - the accuser is at hand. The voice is often loud. The voice is one laced with the tone of condemnation even when they attempt to use words of sound like those of care and concern. The care and concern is only if - if people turn to their way of seeing - nothing else.

The accuser at the fence finds it appropriate - even vital - that they have the voice to define the lives of any and all who approach the clinic. You see, they see themselves as god's children. I used the small letter for God here because in their role as the accuser - they are the children of the one who is really a rival with God. The accuser always wants to have the power of God - offer the voice of God -  claim to know the judgment of God. And yet, the accuser is nothing like God - never has been and never will be. The accuser would have the world and all that is - live within the rule of its well defined boundaries - and to hell with the rule breakers - let them be damned and expelled from the vision of the accuser's life.

Oh, I forgot. I should - out of respect, I guess - capitalize that name. The Accuser walks along the fence line -The Accuser operates through the power of shaming - The Accuser is filled with the illusion that it knows what is good and what is evil and that it can act upon that power it claims. Ah, the Accuser has been lingering around cultures since the beginning of time - defining and creating the rules that make much  of some of us and less of others of us - even deciding who must be eliminated and who can be saved. The Accuser can be any of us - yet at the fence there is a strong, vile representation at hand.

The Accuser is dressed in the words and clothing and voices of religious people. Therefore, their accusations that condemn others are able to hit many folks especially deep - wound without consideration for the welfare of others - crucify any who do not follow their vision of how life is to be. Now, I must say that when I call the Accuser, religious people, I do not mean gracious people - loving people - self-sacrificing people - forgiving people - merciful people. No, the Accuser is embodied by people who find the love of God for all to be - too burdensome - too out-of-control - too expansive - too unconditional. The Accuser despises people and actions that appear to be too much like the God-that-lets-no-one-go rather than the god who picks and chooses who can be in and who must be out.

The Accuser lives to condemn although it often sounds like the Accuser is trying to save the world and rescue humanity from others who are corrupt and vile. Therefore the message of the Accuser is often twisted. There is condemnation in order to bring about deliverance. Say what!? Yet that is one piece of the powerful dynamic of the Accuser - shaming people - lying to people - so that they forget that they are already eternally beloved - without condition - even without observable proof. The Accuser tells folks they can only be beloved if they change into something else - change into a character with the likes of the Accuser - become a part of a holy mechanism of accusation and condemnation - one that is not holy at all.

 I am not claiming that the people in the parking lot or at the door are not a part of the games of the Accuser. I think we all play those games - sometimes with a subtlety that is more deadly than loud voices. And yet, the Accuser at the fence defiles the words and images of God's Reign by twisting those images and words into something far less than the unbounded availability of God's love. Instead, the Accuser offers death. This is a death as in - a life of utter conformity to rules that must be followed in order to called inside and not outside - saved rather than condemned. The Accuser only knows how to deal in death. That may be why another name for the Accuser is Father of Lies - content to bring to life one thing - a host of liars.  Therefore, we let them continue their lies. But in the meantime - we never leave the side of those they seek to shame and condemn - though we be shamed and condemned along with them.
TRRR