I don't think you'll find atheists and agnostics - at the fence

I find that the depth of my Christian faith is enhanced when I hear from atheists and agnostics. This is especially the case when I am challenged or questioned or met with a shaking-of-the-head. It is not that I have learned to put up with their unbelief. Rather, it is that I have become more able and more willing and find it to be more necessary - to draw all things into question. Now, to draw all things into question does not mean that I drop them or throw them away or find that I can no longer find deep worth in that which is questioned. It is simply that I find more and more of the life of religious groups to be unnecessary. When I became a Lutheran, I really was thrilled by being able to let go of some things. Usually they were things that did not count - were not essential to the faith - could be moved to the side so that the brilliance of the story of God's love and nonviolence might prevail. In the liturgy that kind of stuff is labeled adiaphora - that which we can do without and it would not change the core of the faith. For me that meant that the Lord's Supper was essential - it was the essential story of God's love for us - handed to us - shaping us - inspiring us. On the other hand, the bowing - the proper setting of the table - the crossing of oneself here and there, did not advance the story - did not instill in me the way of Jesus.

In listening to ex-Muslims or reforming-Muslims I hear some of that same need to keep the core and dismiss and let loose all the fabric of the religion that is unnecessary to convey the wonder and depth of Islam. I remember growing up and having to attend CCD classes. Back then, as a Roman Catholic, the nuns wore black habits that revealed only a circle of their face. All else was covered. I know there were historic reasons for such garb, but it was not and is not essential to the faith. In time, the local nuns who were friends of mine in Detroit, looked like any other woman. And yet, their substance - their embodiment of their life as a follower of Jesus - remained the same. But now, it did not need any wardrobe to be the identifier of the faith. Sometimes I look at the Vatican and find it to be primarily an experience in creating that which does not matter. I'm sure there are reforming Jews who also long to be rid of that which does not matter.

But even as I say all this, I know that rituals and patterns and dress and lists of what is a correct way to embody the faith are helpful for some folks when they are trying to focus on that center - the love of God that endlessly seeks the peace of our humanity - the peace of the whole creation. I am also not saying that all the rituals and practices that historic churches or mosques or synagogues do need to be ended. In fact, I am most often offended when I hear about new and growing hip churches that incorporate new music, portray more of the culture around them, yet, the preacher still lives in an ancient mindset that looks at a holy book with eyes devoid of the insights of critical scholarship and instead continue being caught up in the tribalism of long ago. Nothing is easier than being a preacher who claims to be someone who preaches the bible. In such cases s/he spouts passages as though they enlarge and enrich his/her words. They use a vocabulary as ancient as the religion itself but without taking out the old-time religious meanings of words and stories that still leave us with a violent God who loves to love some and punish others.

I rant on here because I do not think there are any atheist or agnostics - at the fence. Those who are out at the fence serving as the mouth-pieces of a god who offers limited forgiveness and a singular path to live out life in the real world, have not critically looked at the faith they attempt to spread by megaphone - the signs they manufacture - the blame and shame they throw around as though it is at the core of that which is holy to them. Those at the fence are probably proud of the fact that there are no atheists or agnostics at the fence. They might say it is because all folks out at the fence have been bought into the religious zeal and certitude they need to keep their message correct and right in their eyes. It's often called conversion - it is really religious subjection. Therefore, the atheists and agnostics who relentlessly question would never be out at the fence. For out at the fence there is no dialogue - no vulnerability - no availability that shapes the actions at the fence. Usually, the message is one that says: to hell with all who do not line up at the fence and adhere to that which - I would say - is nonessential.  I am finding more and more that I need to be bathed in the unbounded love of God for all and through all times and forget the god of retribution, condemnation, scapegoating, and violence of any kind.

I find atheist and agnostics do not try to change me. Although I am quite put off by some popular figures who find it necessary to be in constant battle mode whenever someone speaks of a life choice that has brought them into the faith they hold dear. Such voices as that - are basically violent and can be just as exclusive as the so-called faithful lives of others. My activism - as little as it may be at times - is inspired when I am pushed into the peaceable core of my faith journey. It has been the voices and questions of ex-religious or non-religious folks who have made it more essential for me to stand with people of other faiths whose core understanding of their faith holds up a gracious, benevolent, self-sacrificing notion of what it is to be fully human.

I will always find it difficult to accept the adiaphora of religious people. In fact, I know that what I may call adiaphora - unnecessary to the faith - may sound like an offensive word to them. But, I find that as we are open to being offended, we may see in our own ways and words that which reveals how little we seek to embody a loving God whose Spirit is working to make us whole - with all. At the fence - things are right or wrong. They point to Scripture for that notion. That may be why I am not out at the fence but simply listen to their rants as I discuss what faithfulness means with those who question everything about my faithfulness. I find it an interesting and challenging journey.
TRRR

Nothing more than tweeting - at the fence

One hundred and forty characters - in the hands of a character of questionable integrity - will not be able to offer any bit of creativity that will bring about the well-being of others. One hundred and forty characters used  to demean or belittle or shame, become a weapon of destruction. One hundred and forty characters allow a coward to act with bravado as he shakes with existential fear of being perceived as less than the image cast by his self-consumed ego. One hundred and forty characters is enough to: shake the world - disrupt civil society - instigate a warring madness - reveal that the king has no clothes - let everyone in on the worthlessness of those who claim great worth. And yet, the short message - the short assault - the short jab - the flashing graphic, seems to be able to either win the day or be forgotten within the next news cycle. So, one might say less is more  - little is big - weakness is strong - threats are answers - innuendos trump reality.

Now, you may think that I am commenting about the aberrant behavior of the President of the United States. Well... You have my permission to see in that whatever you like. That which is more pressing for me is the simple half-sentences - partial quotes - photo-shopped pictures - indoctrinated mindlessness that are used by many individual characters - at the fence. For me, the fence is a metaphor that includes statehouse legislators - abortion clinic protestors - pride-full bigots at Pride Parades. If you listen closely, those who protest so loudly and bath their words with religious images in an attempt to make their words sound right and good are sadly nothing more than converts to out of context literalism - ancient fears and violence. They share and carry nothing more than one hundred and forty characters that make them sound like characters caught in a cult of fear and absurdity.

But, fear and absurdity seems to be a viable manner to speak when some are attempting to move back into another age - an age of long ago - an age floating in a ark - an age divorced from the gift of scientific thought and action - an age of patriarchy and abuse - an age of swaggering segregation - an age of scapegoating and sacred violence. And - unfortunately, it only takes one hundred and forty characters (the attention span of a child in pursuit of other toys) to win the day or at least capture the imagination of folks unwilling to imagine a life beyond that which can be grasped for one's self-consumption and self-aggrandizement.

I like the sound of birds tweeting between four and five o'clock in the morning. It gets me ready for the day ahead. It is music - creative in its repetition of sound - eye opening in its faithfulness. Yet, when a tweet is only one hundred and forty characters or like a sign or picture equivalent to such a fart in time, it is nothing more than that which  needs to be dismissed for it bring no lasting life - no beauty - no new breath of life.

I need more than one hundred and forty characters - more than a sign or picture. I need to hear the larger story - hear about the depth of life behind actions chosen - hear about the struggles and the wrestling that goes into one's actions. I don't often have the time to sit and listen - but I must. There is no way to have everything in place - set in stone - designated as unloveable - beyond transformation. Yet, when we attempt to enter into life by merely bleating of one hundred and forty characters, we will be left with life that is full of stoning and violence against all those other than my own. That is not the life we have been handed - that is a cheap life often like that of a golden calf that attempts to replace the dignity and blessedness of all people.
TRRR

A god of policing behavior - at the fence

So, I was reading along in the third book about the Tearling Queen and I was struck by this comment about the emerging church that was attempting to take over where the queen once ruled. A character named Row had become caught up in the lifestyle of the church and its growing rule over the lives of the people. He was becoming one of the leaders. Here is a comment about the movement: Row's God was an avid policeman of personal behavior, and the idea that such policing was anathema to the very idea of the town no longer seemed to disturb anyone. God as an avid policeman of personal behavior - hmmm. In this storyline, this church stuff was a growing movement - it was a way of seeing things that was able to grab attention and followers - it was becoming the base line of a people who were fear-filled, anxious, and feeling out-of-control. The book is a novel - it is not about real life - it is about another place and another time. Really?

Prior to reading this portion of the book I was contemplating all the churches that have become masters of branding and naming. All of them looking to attract a community of people who will be connected to their brand, support them, and adhere to their teachings. They look new. They have a younger following. They are even looking a bit diverse. And yet, the smell of the vision is one of policing personal behavior - old religion packaged for a new audience. Hell and damnation sugar-coated with Alleluias belted out by excellent musicians who help pave the way for the local religious leader to keep the old, old story of violence and condemnation alive. And yet, it is all packaged with smiling faces - lattes - youth programs - and rules of conduct that are meant to develop a keen awareness of the difference between us and them. Ahh, let the policing continue.

The policing of personal behavior is not merely setting down a guide for one's own life. It also involves the necessity to guide the lives of others - those not like us. I see the same kind of holy shit portrayed in television series featuring fictional kingdoms or history based fiction. The ability to brand someone or some group or someone's actions and choices as something to be band - forbidden - dirty - evil - devilish - is a powerful sales pitch. It is ancient and it is still very, very new - it still seems to work. To give people the power that comes with blame and shame is very attractive to many folks. It is a violence that attempts to packaged its vile acts and attitudes within the language and images of love. Unfortunately, such packaging works too often. The violence is nurtured through images that note that it is out of love that we condemn - it is our duty - it is what our God demands of us - our loving God. Hmmm, really?

Even as we live within a culture where such religious violence of language and actions are easily ridiculed and dismissed, such religious violence and hate is growing - even thriving. My fear is that as more and more people are exposed to the religions of hateful love (an oxymoron and - blasphemy) they will counter this beast-of-hate with hate - counter the condemnation with more condemnation. That cannot be the way to go - for we would simply become as they are - merely packaged differently. We must learn to listen. If you are a religious person - listen to what is being said. When it is a message of control and division and condemnation and us verses them, get out of there. But don't give up on the word of love that can be a reality without the need of violence.  

I find that a love not dependent on winning or controlling the day, can become a life in which we let go of our need to rule the day and then, lean in to work on ways we all can save the day through a love and respect that opens the doors of our own hearts. Having said that, it is important to note that simply ignoring such religious violence is not the way that such love can come to life. Hate and condemnation that attempts to be sold as words of love must be met with the a band of noisemakers that helps everyone see how rude and mean and hate-filled some churches can be.  We cannot silence them. That would simply make us - another brand of violence against others.  We must  let them speak but we will speak also. Not only speak - but also act. Our speaking and our acting is how we display the contrary vision of loving kindness, mercy, forgiveness, compassion and peace. So, we may need to dress up - be noisemakers - even stand silently in the face of violence without resorting to their games.
TRRR

It's not the same Jesus - at the fence - at the parade

That's not the Jesus I know. That's not the Scriptures I know. In fact, I had to tell a protestor that it would be quite impossible to hold a discussion about the Bible or Jesus or God while standing out on the curb at the Pride parade. He wanted to know why. He wanted to know why we could not be engaged in a thoughtful conversation. Well, it would take hours - if not days - to simply clarify our use of biblical and religious language. In a very short span of time he made sure I understood that all the answers and all that needed to be known were available in his Bible. I suppose he was correct. In his bible - within his view of Scripture - taking on his interpretation of verse and chapter and book - I suppose he was correct. At least in his own eyes. In short, he did not want to hold a conversation. He wanted to bring about a conversion to his way of seeing the whole world of biblical understanding.

He is also a regular protestor at the Planned Parenthood clinic. He arrives with a megaphone and high on his agenda is to talk and talk and talk. He talks at people. His talk reprimands. His talk degrades. His talk is laced with the assumption that he is how people coming and going from the clinic will hear - though his words of condemnation - love. Yet, his notion of love comes only when a person is subjected to shame and accusation and condemnation - as though love must first be like an abusive person who says a beating is handed out only because of a deep love.  In reality, I call that deep shit - deep bullshit.

He came up to me at the Pride parade and said I looked familiar. I said the same to him. He then made the connection and asked if I had heard anything he had been saying through the fence at the clinic. It was as though he was saying - if I heard it - I would side with his condemnation of people in the GLBTQ community and his view of abortion and birth control. I instantly said, I listened for a short while and then realized it was the stuff I stopped listening to forty years ago. Back then and even more now, his presentation of Good News is Bad News and it is a foul smelling and discouraging word.

Once again, in that brief encounter, we did not share the same vision of God's Reign. I also realize that his Jesus and his understanding of the unfolding story of the love of God was conditional and damning at best. It is not at all the story I embrace. And yet, we read the same stories. Hmm. All his talk through the fence was nothing more than a tale of Santa Claus. It thrives on the story of a god who will find out who is naughty and nice and then this god will reward and punish as is deemed necessary. Grace is available - but it is a conditional gift - which is no gift at all - it is not grace at all. Instead, get your life put in order - the order that he and his church friends say is the life all should live - or - go to hell. Ah, nothing like a word of Good News that is nothing more than another grading system like all the rest of the systems of the world that offer nothing new - no Good News at all.

When we serve as escorts, we do not engage the protestors at all. We let them shout. We let them call out names and make accusations. We let them exercise their shaming that they think is a word of love. We let them shoot their biblical bullets at clients and other escorts. We let them try to convert the world around them - it is a desperate thing to hear and watch. It is very odd. I never hear the characters in Scripture sounding desperate. They are usually joy-filled and thrill when love sends them beyond their limited way of experiencing others. I often say the voices at the fence sound vile. And yet, it is not what they say for much of what they say I also say. I quote some of the bits of Scripture they use. And yet, it is as though we hear a different message within the exact same words. The way they use the words - throw the words - sounds vile to me.  When they yell out and question me as to how I can, as a pastor, escort at the clinic - or for that matter - side with the GLBTQ community - I smile. It is very simple. We do not know the same Jesus - the same God of Abraham and Sarah - the same Church whose doors were endlessly blow open the the Spirit so that no bias or prejudice or god-fearing bullshit would keep those doors closed to the fellowship of saint - who are known by their expansive love.

Our little band at the Pride parade simply made noise so that the violent noise being thrown out at the festival participants might not linger with those participants like the smell of dog shit on the bottom of their shoes. Our daily small band of escorts at the Planned Parenthood clinic simply offer words of welcome and hospitality and support to those who are facing life situations that no one should try to condemn or judge or degrade. Our band may have simply been heard as a bunch of noise to the protestors. But over and over again, while playing my cowbell and others blowing horns and others playing drums and guitar and one offering the flourishing flutter of a clarinet, we had multitudes coming up to us offering words of thanksgiving and love and peace. Seen as devils on the loose by those carrying signs and pitching bible bullets - others saw us as an angel chorus.
TRRR

Sweet Baby Jesus, Why have things gone so sour?

More and more, I find that I have trouble listening to that which is labeled the good news by those who are considered Fundamentalist or Conservatives or Literalist or Progressives or Liberals. I will own it - it is my heart that is troubled. But Sweet Baby Jesus - this is driving me nuts more and more of the time. I've lost my interest in heaven and hell. I've grown sick of threats and rewards. I've had my fill of mandatory religious clothing and ritual actions and pious words and pronouncements. I abhor designated holy places. And yet, I have never been more inspired and moved and given a sense of meaning and worth from what has been called the Good News. Although, these days I am becoming more aware of how I hear that News from wider circles than the New Testament.

This next bit of ranting may repulse folks - but hell - that sometimes happens when I'm working through things. There have been a number of triggers that have set me off. The most important one was as I caught myself standing at a rally with a bunch of religious leaders of all sorts of backgrounds. The language being used was reminding us of God's invitation to be people of justice and peace and mercy and hospitality and grace and compassion. It was inspiring. It is the stuff that gives me hope and moves me to take risks and act with and for others - no matter who they may be. But then, in the middle of this rally - this resistance movement - this call for the healing of all people, came that bit of nuance - that reference to a day of Judgement - that word of threat to those who we think better start acting right - that picture of standing in front of One who just may shut the door on folks unless they change their way. And there in those passing moments, heads were shaking, Amens were given voice, and all the creativity that had been offered up was swallowed up in a simple mist of righteous flatulence.  Ah, Sweet Baby Jesus, we have such a way of turning your words and promises sour and foul.

Morality smells each time we claim to be a moral people calling for others to live a moral life. It smells because now God is left on the sidelines and religious folk take on the task of defining morality as we want it - need it - and insist all must take hold of it. Quite honestly, I find that our calls for morality that are laced with images of heaven and hell or last day judgments brings about nothing more than death. It is a part of a terrorist movement. Yes, a terrorist movement that is popular and accepted and even greeted with grand applause and a thunderous Amen. In, with, and under all the religious words are percolating threats that thrive because so often, threat closes the deal - the loud voice of justice that leads to either/or decisions drives people to sign up.

I need to hear the voice of God's endless Creativity that never deals in threat - but alway unfolds the promise. This voice is the voice of confrontation - a confrontation with how God promises to creatively empower each of us to walk within God's Reign - an everyday life that endlessly seeks peace and reconciliation and even risks being damned by good religious institutions and powers. Recently I heard many good words filled with inspiring images that caressed the boundaries of the wonder of God's promises. But then, there is the attachment - the must - the shall - the condition - the babble of heaven and hell that inevitably makes it easy for folks to miss the promised land and the life therein. Sweet Baby Jesus dropped those sour words and actions for the unbounded sweetness of a love that lets no one go.

When we dabble in the babbling of threat - we linger in the domain of violence. For to suggest that one may not make it - doesn't deserve to be included - has to clean up or dress up or fess up, is to violate the person who is already judged as the beloved of God. Too many religious groups settle for ways to make more religious folk who are grasped by threat or fear or shame. I can only suggest that we all listen to what is being said at our religious gatherings. The message may be inspiring and even filled with all the power and creative images of God's love for all. We may even sing songs with a message of love that may bring a tear of joy. But listen again. Is there any suggestion of that sour taste of condemnation that somehow is able to keep on the mask of grace, forgiveness, and mercy even as the bottom line calls for a formulaic response that is always the death of us. It is always the death of us because when we talk in the images of heaven and hell we are already dealing in death and not life. Sweet Baby Jesus somehow gets known for leaving a sour taste in our lives - a taste we unfortunately come to expect and accept. When it tastes sour - when it smells sour - when it leaves you wanting to judge or condemn or exclude - when it sours your thoughts and actions toward others, Sweet Baby Jesus, confront it with love - unending love. Sweet.
TRRR

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