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
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Monday, May 8, 2017
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
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
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
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
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
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Heaven and Hell - at the fence
Is the age to come really to come sometime - out there?
Is it beyond now and set off in another place and time?
Is it a carrot or a candy bar or a reunion to which we have been invited - someday?
Is it a time and place in which there is to be utter bliss or else a place we hope we will miss?
Is it a heavenly reunion or a hell of a reunion?
And if it is - if it is any of these notions - what about today?
Is today simply a time in which we accumulate the points to make it to the place and time that is out beyond this place and time?
Is it a time to manage our lives so that when our lives come to an end - our management skills will be assessed and we will then see where our lives have taken us?
Is it a time with a focus beyond this time and therefore we need only get through all this time so as to open ourselves up to another time - the quality of which will depend on how we spend the present time?
And if today is a time to be played well - like a hand of cards - aren't we in the process of dying rather than living - always filled with doubt - always trying to win the game?
I don't have a problem with heaven and hell. I have a problem with how we play with it all. I have a problem with where - in time or out of time - we place them. I have a problem with folks trying to tell other folks where they need to go or where they will be going.
I remember hearing about a very well-known preacher who was anxiously asking people to pray for his parents because they were not Christian and he wanted them to be saved. Often, that means saved for the age to come - the far away place - the place in the sky place - the many mansions place. I wondered if his parents were nasty people - thus his concern. I really expect that his parents are wonderful people - beloved and loving. Yet, when we begin to make our faithful journey into a journey to another place and time it becomes the perfect set up for a message filled with coercion and doubt and game-playing. 'Don't you want to be with (name goes here)? Don't your want to be with Jesus and God and all the Angels? Then there is that question about the future - that story of the future that comes after death - that one that has nothing to do with Good News for it is dripping with self-centered living that is never the concern of God's Peaceable and Blessed Reign.
There is no getting there from here. There is no making our way into the bliss of another time or making our way out of a hell of a predicament that will last forever. There is though, a present in which the compassion of the promises of God's Reign flows into the present and becomes us. I like to say that the Reign of God or the Kingdom of God or the Peaceable Reign or Eternal Life becomes us because that is all we are invited to be - the beloved creatures of God. There is no getting there - no test to pass - no right way in order to make it. There is - the simple understanding - the simple recognition - the simple bit of rest - that comes as we trust that all that is to come is already present and we become what is promised - the promise becomes us. With that, all things change. Not just in my life - but in the lives of those with whom I have contact. If I am trying to get into something - if I'm trying to get you in also, the task of getting-in becomes the controlling factor of my life. It becomes - shall we say - my god. I did not capitalize that last word because when we become controlling people - monitoring people - evaluating people - rigid people - anxious people - condemning people - finger-pointing people, we are led by our own desires that fall far short of the wonder and joy of God's desire for new life for us now - and always.
This week I was once again an observer of the battle of heaven and hell at the fence - the battle of the so-called good and the so-called evil at the fence - the battle of 'you bad' and 'we good' - the battle, no, the need - to assume one way to view life for everyone. What a sad existence - what a hellish existence - what a false love, a self-centered love, a self-consumed love. Heaven and hell is a construct that forgoes compassion. It forbids compassion and laughs at vulnerability. Heaven and hell is a contract that puts up the fences that deny people the opportunity to experience the life of God's Peaceable Reign as it is found in - yes - those people - and then in all of us as we risk to welcome the other without insisting on being judge - jury - god. I grow weary - yet not worn down - by those who condemn the clients who come to Planned Parenthood. For the game of condemning is endless and all consuming and leads none of us to peace and healing and joy. In the meantime, I may just remain a distraction - a part of the silence and noise that interrupts the pattern of heaven and hell at the fence.
TRRR
Is it beyond now and set off in another place and time?
Is it a carrot or a candy bar or a reunion to which we have been invited - someday?
Is it a time and place in which there is to be utter bliss or else a place we hope we will miss?
Is it a heavenly reunion or a hell of a reunion?
And if it is - if it is any of these notions - what about today?
Is today simply a time in which we accumulate the points to make it to the place and time that is out beyond this place and time?
Is it a time to manage our lives so that when our lives come to an end - our management skills will be assessed and we will then see where our lives have taken us?
Is it a time with a focus beyond this time and therefore we need only get through all this time so as to open ourselves up to another time - the quality of which will depend on how we spend the present time?
And if today is a time to be played well - like a hand of cards - aren't we in the process of dying rather than living - always filled with doubt - always trying to win the game?
I don't have a problem with heaven and hell. I have a problem with how we play with it all. I have a problem with where - in time or out of time - we place them. I have a problem with folks trying to tell other folks where they need to go or where they will be going.
I remember hearing about a very well-known preacher who was anxiously asking people to pray for his parents because they were not Christian and he wanted them to be saved. Often, that means saved for the age to come - the far away place - the place in the sky place - the many mansions place. I wondered if his parents were nasty people - thus his concern. I really expect that his parents are wonderful people - beloved and loving. Yet, when we begin to make our faithful journey into a journey to another place and time it becomes the perfect set up for a message filled with coercion and doubt and game-playing. 'Don't you want to be with (name goes here)? Don't your want to be with Jesus and God and all the Angels? Then there is that question about the future - that story of the future that comes after death - that one that has nothing to do with Good News for it is dripping with self-centered living that is never the concern of God's Peaceable and Blessed Reign.
There is no getting there from here. There is no making our way into the bliss of another time or making our way out of a hell of a predicament that will last forever. There is though, a present in which the compassion of the promises of God's Reign flows into the present and becomes us. I like to say that the Reign of God or the Kingdom of God or the Peaceable Reign or Eternal Life becomes us because that is all we are invited to be - the beloved creatures of God. There is no getting there - no test to pass - no right way in order to make it. There is - the simple understanding - the simple recognition - the simple bit of rest - that comes as we trust that all that is to come is already present and we become what is promised - the promise becomes us. With that, all things change. Not just in my life - but in the lives of those with whom I have contact. If I am trying to get into something - if I'm trying to get you in also, the task of getting-in becomes the controlling factor of my life. It becomes - shall we say - my god. I did not capitalize that last word because when we become controlling people - monitoring people - evaluating people - rigid people - anxious people - condemning people - finger-pointing people, we are led by our own desires that fall far short of the wonder and joy of God's desire for new life for us now - and always.
This week I was once again an observer of the battle of heaven and hell at the fence - the battle of the so-called good and the so-called evil at the fence - the battle of 'you bad' and 'we good' - the battle, no, the need - to assume one way to view life for everyone. What a sad existence - what a hellish existence - what a false love, a self-centered love, a self-consumed love. Heaven and hell is a construct that forgoes compassion. It forbids compassion and laughs at vulnerability. Heaven and hell is a contract that puts up the fences that deny people the opportunity to experience the life of God's Peaceable Reign as it is found in - yes - those people - and then in all of us as we risk to welcome the other without insisting on being judge - jury - god. I grow weary - yet not worn down - by those who condemn the clients who come to Planned Parenthood. For the game of condemning is endless and all consuming and leads none of us to peace and healing and joy. In the meantime, I may just remain a distraction - a part of the silence and noise that interrupts the pattern of heaven and hell at the fence.
TRRR
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Fake Good News - at the Fence
I serve as an escort at a Planned Parenthood clinic. The job is simple. It is to be a hospitable presence to the women and couples who come to the clinic for a variety of reasons. My wife tells me I need to tell people I am a greeter rather than an escort - ah, language and images! Both words work as a way to talk about how I see myself out on the parking lot as folks arrive. I do not know the purpose of a visit made by any of the people. I suppose this is much like the waiting room at my doctor's office - no one knows why I am showing up. Unless, of course, I look like death warmed over and seem like someone everyone should avoid less they too catch the plague. Even then, I am simply another patient in need of a doctor's or a nurse's attention. Just as important as not knowing what brings the people to the clinic is that I do not know them - their life situation - their history - their prospects for a life beyond that day at hand.
At our Planned Parenthood building there is a fence around the parking lot. On the outside of the fence there are often protestors armed with signs, pictures, and voices. Fences are not unusual. There are fences - everywhere. There are reasons for fences - many reasons. Fences divide up space. Fences set boundaries. Fences keep people and things inside the boundaries and fences keep other people and things outside. In many ways, it is the perfect image for a story about us and them. It is (this us and them story) as old as the history of the cultures of the world - as old as the history of religious folks within the life of those cultures. Think about it - there is usually no better maker of us and them than religious folk who work to create a world in which they can dictate - like a god - who is good and who is evil - who is in and who is to be out - who is acceptable and who is unacceptable - who knows God's mind and who doesn't. The assumption that one person or a people are able to make such a judgment makes that person or group of people (I would suggest) less than the humanity we are meant to be. We lose our creativity whenever we think we have the right to judge others - whenever our desire for life as we want it gives us permission to negate the lives of others. We refuse to see ourselves and others as the image of God - a we - not an us/them.
In our culture we are being hit with what has been called fake news. It is the antithesis of news. It is made up - it is like gossip - it is filled with stories that give us just what we want to hear - even when it is less than the truth or a half-truth - which is not truth at all. Fake news is not the property of one group of people - it is a self-serving word used by everyone in order to shape a world that looks just like we want it to look. After listening and watching and seeing the display of folks out at the fence - folks who cover themselves with the name of Jesus and select biblical passages and Christian symbols and words associated with the Scriptures - I am very willing to say that the Good News at the fence is fake Good News. It is not a word or a presence of grace and love that is as available and vulnerable as the Jesus of Scripture. It is a warrior word - a vicious word - a condemning word - a self-righteous word - a finger-pointing word. It is a word afraid of a world that is the ground of God's ongoing creativity that moves us beyond our own fixed desires.
I find the words of the folks at the fence to be fake Good News because it attempts to drive people into a state of shame. Shame has a way of becoming a deep wound - one that can be inflicted quite easily - one that has a way of destroying the life of God's beloved - one that does not heal through more shaming. The Good News of the Christ of God never shames. The business of fake Good News is carried out by the powers of death - the powers that want to be gods of the world - the powers of religious control that have lost the vision of the peaceable Reign of God. Fake Good News rejects everyone who does not go along with the life that it has deemed as necessary - even if all others must be crucified by the lies of religious shame. Unfortunately, in many ways, I hear fake Good News within the breath of many self-proclaimed 'good' Christians - and it always smells like death and hell to me. No Good News at all.
Remember the woman caught in adultery. The good religious folks wanted to stone her. I would say they want to shame her to death - along with her family - by stoning her - by getting rid of her - by treating her as a threat that needed to be removed from their self-declared good lives. But what does Jesus do in that scene. He does not get in and ride in the boat of the shame-throwers. He does not drive the woman into the ground with sticks and stones and words of death. You see, God does not shame us - God holds onto us through any and all things - even when the depths of religiously concocted shame seem to be winning the day. Forgiveness brings a new day - beyond the powers of death that feed off of the lies - the fake Good News - of religious folks who believe only in the power they can manufacture - the endless lies. Forgiveness heals all things - all people. Then - within the realm of forgiveness - life beyond our own expectations blossoms - like a garden in Eden or one just outside the empty tomb.
Shame is fake Good News - it thrives on demonizing people who are the beloved of God. It insults the God of creation who calls all of creation good. Fake Good News tries to paint God as a liar - a cheat - a fool. For when those seeds-of-shame can be sown, they leave no room for God's unbounded love that is to be the seed of life's creativity - joy - peace - forgiveness - compassion - and endless hopefulness. I find that religious people who thrive on fertilizing the seeds-of-shame are damned to live within their own crap. That is unfortunate for them and for others they are able to pull into their realm of self-induced - self-created - self-inspired crap. Fake Good News does not bring in the Reign of God - it is afraid of such a Reign of love and grace because it would lose its power that it has worked so hard to build up - in other words - a hell-on-earth.
Fake Good News at the fence cannot and should not be met with violence of any kind. It must not be shamed - for then, that game will then never end. It must be met with the self-sacrifice of the lamb - the protectiveness of the mother hen - the one who bends to serve any and all without partiality. Maybe, we can become a movement for new life whenever we are tempted to live by fake Good News - for it is so tempting.
TRRR
At our Planned Parenthood building there is a fence around the parking lot. On the outside of the fence there are often protestors armed with signs, pictures, and voices. Fences are not unusual. There are fences - everywhere. There are reasons for fences - many reasons. Fences divide up space. Fences set boundaries. Fences keep people and things inside the boundaries and fences keep other people and things outside. In many ways, it is the perfect image for a story about us and them. It is (this us and them story) as old as the history of the cultures of the world - as old as the history of religious folks within the life of those cultures. Think about it - there is usually no better maker of us and them than religious folk who work to create a world in which they can dictate - like a god - who is good and who is evil - who is in and who is to be out - who is acceptable and who is unacceptable - who knows God's mind and who doesn't. The assumption that one person or a people are able to make such a judgment makes that person or group of people (I would suggest) less than the humanity we are meant to be. We lose our creativity whenever we think we have the right to judge others - whenever our desire for life as we want it gives us permission to negate the lives of others. We refuse to see ourselves and others as the image of God - a we - not an us/them.
In our culture we are being hit with what has been called fake news. It is the antithesis of news. It is made up - it is like gossip - it is filled with stories that give us just what we want to hear - even when it is less than the truth or a half-truth - which is not truth at all. Fake news is not the property of one group of people - it is a self-serving word used by everyone in order to shape a world that looks just like we want it to look. After listening and watching and seeing the display of folks out at the fence - folks who cover themselves with the name of Jesus and select biblical passages and Christian symbols and words associated with the Scriptures - I am very willing to say that the Good News at the fence is fake Good News. It is not a word or a presence of grace and love that is as available and vulnerable as the Jesus of Scripture. It is a warrior word - a vicious word - a condemning word - a self-righteous word - a finger-pointing word. It is a word afraid of a world that is the ground of God's ongoing creativity that moves us beyond our own fixed desires.
I find the words of the folks at the fence to be fake Good News because it attempts to drive people into a state of shame. Shame has a way of becoming a deep wound - one that can be inflicted quite easily - one that has a way of destroying the life of God's beloved - one that does not heal through more shaming. The Good News of the Christ of God never shames. The business of fake Good News is carried out by the powers of death - the powers that want to be gods of the world - the powers of religious control that have lost the vision of the peaceable Reign of God. Fake Good News rejects everyone who does not go along with the life that it has deemed as necessary - even if all others must be crucified by the lies of religious shame. Unfortunately, in many ways, I hear fake Good News within the breath of many self-proclaimed 'good' Christians - and it always smells like death and hell to me. No Good News at all.
Remember the woman caught in adultery. The good religious folks wanted to stone her. I would say they want to shame her to death - along with her family - by stoning her - by getting rid of her - by treating her as a threat that needed to be removed from their self-declared good lives. But what does Jesus do in that scene. He does not get in and ride in the boat of the shame-throwers. He does not drive the woman into the ground with sticks and stones and words of death. You see, God does not shame us - God holds onto us through any and all things - even when the depths of religiously concocted shame seem to be winning the day. Forgiveness brings a new day - beyond the powers of death that feed off of the lies - the fake Good News - of religious folks who believe only in the power they can manufacture - the endless lies. Forgiveness heals all things - all people. Then - within the realm of forgiveness - life beyond our own expectations blossoms - like a garden in Eden or one just outside the empty tomb.
Shame is fake Good News - it thrives on demonizing people who are the beloved of God. It insults the God of creation who calls all of creation good. Fake Good News tries to paint God as a liar - a cheat - a fool. For when those seeds-of-shame can be sown, they leave no room for God's unbounded love that is to be the seed of life's creativity - joy - peace - forgiveness - compassion - and endless hopefulness. I find that religious people who thrive on fertilizing the seeds-of-shame are damned to live within their own crap. That is unfortunate for them and for others they are able to pull into their realm of self-induced - self-created - self-inspired crap. Fake Good News does not bring in the Reign of God - it is afraid of such a Reign of love and grace because it would lose its power that it has worked so hard to build up - in other words - a hell-on-earth.
Fake Good News at the fence cannot and should not be met with violence of any kind. It must not be shamed - for then, that game will then never end. It must be met with the self-sacrifice of the lamb - the protectiveness of the mother hen - the one who bends to serve any and all without partiality. Maybe, we can become a movement for new life whenever we are tempted to live by fake Good News - for it is so tempting.
TRRR
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Dare to break wind in the face of the cultural norm.
We are a reforming people when we dare to break wind in the face of the cultural norm. Luther did it 500 years ago when he turned his backside to Rome and let it rip. But that was then and this is now. So how do reforming people take on - that which is valued in our culture - that which keeps things just as they are - that which is anxious and then afraid to the point of persecuting some for what is considered the welfare of all others? We break wind. We speak up. We question. We stand in the way. We let ourselves defy all that is considered sacred until the wizards of the culture have the veil pulled back so that more and more people can see how we have fallen for piles upon piles of - well - crap.
Am I talking about religious crap - yes. Am I talking about cultural crap - yes. Am I taking about political crap - yes. Reforming people are not anarchist or revolutionaries - they simply break wind and make people turn around and wonder - what just happened - why does all this life around us beginning to smell? We are all a part of the family system of our culture. There is no way to rise above it or be detached from it. We are a part of what smells. As reforming people we own it and begin to ask things like: What does it mean to be right in the middle of all that is demonic (all that stinketh) and yet stop to acknowledge how vile it all smells? Systems always smell and if we do not speak up or break wind in the face of the norms around us we will and we have ventured more deeply into the violence and brokenness that piles up more and more until it is revolting - quite literally revolting. Reforming people do not fall for the more putrid smell of the violence of revolt - we expose - we unveil - we fall for it no more.
Reforming people are always living within the line of the prophetic - the ones who see that which stinks - the ones who name that which smells - the ones who are willing to be shunned for breaking wind and exposing the condition of our culture/religion/politics. I am too often afraid to be such a reforming person. And then, I hear others disturb the air around me. When I hear and see such life, I begin to wonder if I can face the stench of that in which I have let myself live - and begin to expose it all. That action is often called confession. Reforming people are empowered to admit to the violence - the fraud - the economic and political gaming that we have let define us as though nothing smells.
For a coward, that is difficult. For a coward though - it is necessary. I often use the words of Spirit - Holy Spirit - to remind me that as we are inspired to face the truth about us - a new day is available to us. It may still be full of the stench of the culture in which we live - but reforming people keep making note of it all - we keep owning our part of all that smells - we make ourselves vulnerable like nailing items for discussion about the things that smell - on the door of a church in Wittenberg - but we do it today - we do it everyday. Prophetic words and actions come out of the bowels of reforming people whose acts of truth-telling may create a stink in the culture at hand - but it also brings in a breath of fresh air.
TRRR
Am I talking about religious crap - yes. Am I talking about cultural crap - yes. Am I taking about political crap - yes. Reforming people are not anarchist or revolutionaries - they simply break wind and make people turn around and wonder - what just happened - why does all this life around us beginning to smell? We are all a part of the family system of our culture. There is no way to rise above it or be detached from it. We are a part of what smells. As reforming people we own it and begin to ask things like: What does it mean to be right in the middle of all that is demonic (all that stinketh) and yet stop to acknowledge how vile it all smells? Systems always smell and if we do not speak up or break wind in the face of the norms around us we will and we have ventured more deeply into the violence and brokenness that piles up more and more until it is revolting - quite literally revolting. Reforming people do not fall for the more putrid smell of the violence of revolt - we expose - we unveil - we fall for it no more.
Reforming people are always living within the line of the prophetic - the ones who see that which stinks - the ones who name that which smells - the ones who are willing to be shunned for breaking wind and exposing the condition of our culture/religion/politics. I am too often afraid to be such a reforming person. And then, I hear others disturb the air around me. When I hear and see such life, I begin to wonder if I can face the stench of that in which I have let myself live - and begin to expose it all. That action is often called confession. Reforming people are empowered to admit to the violence - the fraud - the economic and political gaming that we have let define us as though nothing smells.
For a coward, that is difficult. For a coward though - it is necessary. I often use the words of Spirit - Holy Spirit - to remind me that as we are inspired to face the truth about us - a new day is available to us. It may still be full of the stench of the culture in which we live - but reforming people keep making note of it all - we keep owning our part of all that smells - we make ourselves vulnerable like nailing items for discussion about the things that smell - on the door of a church in Wittenberg - but we do it today - we do it everyday. Prophetic words and actions come out of the bowels of reforming people whose acts of truth-telling may create a stink in the culture at hand - but it also brings in a breath of fresh air.
TRRR
Have A Blessed Day - Really?
'Have a blessed day.' It sounds like a nice thing to say. In fact, one person came up to me after a class I was teaching and said that one of the things he started to say in the past years is, 'Have a blessed day.' He said he noticed how it seemed to alter the way the people looked at him. In addition he said that he found that it had caused a change in how he viewed his interactions with others. We had just ended a discussion about how the followers of Jesus are to be followers - we are to be a part of an imitation of life that creates new life right in the midst of the steps of our day. The life is to be nonviolent - creative - self-giving - no longer merely life filled with stories of that kind of life - but a life that becomes us. The way of the cross thus becomes the way we walk - the way we live with the story of Jesus showing us how he walked out ahead of us along the way we follow. It is with that image that I started wondering about the greeting or the sending words have a blessed day.
I am pulled to be very Lutheran here because I want to start saying to folks, 'Wait. What does that mean.' Is it like a polite 'God bless you' that fills a room when there is an audible sneeze offered up by a complete stranger? Another version of 'Have a blessed day' is 'Be blessed.' Again, what does that mean - what is intended. Is is a version of 'good luck' - 'hope all goes well' - 'break a leg'? All of those send us off with a polite verbal acknowledgment of our presence and our leaving. But, as we all know, luck has nothing to do with much of our lives - things do not go well, in fact things fall apart quite regularly - and people really do break their legs and are thrown into chaos.
If 'have a blessed day' is like having a charmed day - as in, hope your day goes well and the world is fine - then I want folks to stop saying that. The day at hand is not blessed with all good things around me. It is blessed - period. I want to ask, what do you mean by blessed? Yes, when you tell me 'Have a blessed day' or say 'be blessed' is there a content to that sending? In some ways it goes back to what I might call: End-zone - Good catch - Nice Run - Great hit - Jesus is with me all the way spirituality that is devoid of an understanding of the life of Jesus - the cross - and I would even say the resurrection. A blessed day is the way one takes the day - how we see it - how we move within it. Are we the blessed of God who take on the imitative way of Jesus - and the consequences of that way? When that is our life - our blessed day - it may be a day full of roadblocks, tragedy, and pain. Blessed is not a good luck charm or a wish for success. It is an invitation to become like - the one who bends down to serve - the one who steps onto the side of the left out so that at least someone is with them - it is the one who receives the stranger with unbounded hospitality no matter what others say or think.
I was really impressed that the person I noted above said that his day was changed - his way to look at the world and the day changed - his actions may have even changed. To be blessed is to be drawn into a life changing reality in which our humanity - the fullness of its blessedness - becomes present as we go along the way today. So, when I say to you 'have a blessed day' it may come to mean a day in which you are totally rejected for displaying a love for others that cannot be contained - it may come to mean a day in which you let go of that which you thought you could to live without - and yet you experience a resurrection - it may come to mean a day in which you experience life through the lens of others and that new vision rattles you to the bone and your once dry bones take on a new shape you never anticipated.
Could it be that many of our religious sounding phrases we throw out into the day cheapen the vision and life we all hope will actually transform all things? Another person also offered this active notion of 'have a blessed day' - be a blessing today. That my friends sound utterly transforming to me. For most of my days can be filled with nothing but bitching and biting and baiting and bragging - with little room for being a part of the blessed Reign of God into which I am invited to live. Hmmm.
TRRR
I am pulled to be very Lutheran here because I want to start saying to folks, 'Wait. What does that mean.' Is it like a polite 'God bless you' that fills a room when there is an audible sneeze offered up by a complete stranger? Another version of 'Have a blessed day' is 'Be blessed.' Again, what does that mean - what is intended. Is is a version of 'good luck' - 'hope all goes well' - 'break a leg'? All of those send us off with a polite verbal acknowledgment of our presence and our leaving. But, as we all know, luck has nothing to do with much of our lives - things do not go well, in fact things fall apart quite regularly - and people really do break their legs and are thrown into chaos.
If 'have a blessed day' is like having a charmed day - as in, hope your day goes well and the world is fine - then I want folks to stop saying that. The day at hand is not blessed with all good things around me. It is blessed - period. I want to ask, what do you mean by blessed? Yes, when you tell me 'Have a blessed day' or say 'be blessed' is there a content to that sending? In some ways it goes back to what I might call: End-zone - Good catch - Nice Run - Great hit - Jesus is with me all the way spirituality that is devoid of an understanding of the life of Jesus - the cross - and I would even say the resurrection. A blessed day is the way one takes the day - how we see it - how we move within it. Are we the blessed of God who take on the imitative way of Jesus - and the consequences of that way? When that is our life - our blessed day - it may be a day full of roadblocks, tragedy, and pain. Blessed is not a good luck charm or a wish for success. It is an invitation to become like - the one who bends down to serve - the one who steps onto the side of the left out so that at least someone is with them - it is the one who receives the stranger with unbounded hospitality no matter what others say or think.
I was really impressed that the person I noted above said that his day was changed - his way to look at the world and the day changed - his actions may have even changed. To be blessed is to be drawn into a life changing reality in which our humanity - the fullness of its blessedness - becomes present as we go along the way today. So, when I say to you 'have a blessed day' it may come to mean a day in which you are totally rejected for displaying a love for others that cannot be contained - it may come to mean a day in which you let go of that which you thought you could to live without - and yet you experience a resurrection - it may come to mean a day in which you experience life through the lens of others and that new vision rattles you to the bone and your once dry bones take on a new shape you never anticipated.
Could it be that many of our religious sounding phrases we throw out into the day cheapen the vision and life we all hope will actually transform all things? Another person also offered this active notion of 'have a blessed day' - be a blessing today. That my friends sound utterly transforming to me. For most of my days can be filled with nothing but bitching and biting and baiting and bragging - with little room for being a part of the blessed Reign of God into which I am invited to live. Hmmm.
TRRR
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