A Peacemaking King

A donkey colt, not a war horse.
All powerful, yet submitting.
Healing, not slicing his captor's ear.
Marching forward, unafraid of Hell.
Arisen, offering to take us with him.

The Scriptural Basis for Why the Phrase "Those People" is Wrong

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:6)

Following Paul's guidance, we should never use the phrase "those people."  All the distinctions that we use to separate ourselves: rich/poor, star belly/plain belly, black/white, gay/straight, circumcised/ uncircumcised -- those distinctions don't matter. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. 

In this view, every one of "those people" are us as well.  And for those tempted to suggest that "those people" are the ones who don't express faith through love, well, that's me, too.  It boils down to a simple measuring stick; one that we all fail to meet completely.

Our shared humanity is so profound, so complete.  Recognizing our shared humanity, instead of striving to distinguish ourselves as superior, brings us the gift of fellowship with everyone we meet.

Opening my heart

Eyes see only light, ears hear only sound, but a listening heart perceives meaning.

--  David Steindl-Rast

So much of seeing with my eyes and hearing with my ears happens unconsciously.  Interestingly, our hearts are one of the most significant parts of our body that also operates unconsciously, beating away without us even thinking of it.  Listening and looking with our heart is a different matter, and requires serious intentionality.

On a daily basis, if I don't pray and re-center my heart on God, the presence of the physical world - that which I can easily experience - pushes in and pushes God out of the way.  

One of the gifts of Montauk, is its constant reminders of God's presence - the ocean, the stars, the natural beauty - which help nudge me back to being recentered upon God.  Romans 4 speaks of the faith of Sarah and Abraham.  Frankly, that story feels very remote to me.  In the beauty of God's creation, however, I have accessible to me a different miracle that can help fire up my faith.  I need to regularly access that.

Peacemaking

When I was in elementary school, my father was the president of the School Board in my hometown.  That period in the late 60s was a period of upheaval for Kingsville, just as it was throughout the entire country.  The schools had sit-ins, walkouts and pickets protesting racial inequities.  The conflicts were not violent as they were elsewhere, but they certainly were heated at times.  This time was also when my grandfather died, making it quite a stressful period for my father.  I can still trace the arc of stress by following my father's signatures on my school report cards.
There was something much more important about that period that I remember: Not once did my father utter negative comments about the people opposed to his positions.  He was willing to criticize their positions with evidence supporting his own, but it was clear that those criticisms weren't personal.  Maybe that's why the conflicts never became violent.
Years later, after my father's death, one of his former political opponents told me how much deep respect she had for my father.  At the time, the uniqueness of the comment didn't completely sink in, but now I understand it much better.
Last week, my son sent me a link to a hilarious web comment parodying opponents to a single mother housing project our church seeks to build.  I had a hard time deciding which of the many funny lines was the funniest.
Here's the rub.  My son's email subject was "This is probably in poor taste."  At eighteen, he has already figured out a truth about peacemaking: You can't build up the world by tearing down others.  Even though he "couldn't stop laughing" at the effective satire, he also knew that it cut it too close to attacking personally, and couldn't send it without qualification.
I hope our church community can be without rancor in acknowledging our neighbor's fears about single mothers.  I hope that we can minister to our neighbors about the benefits of living in a heterogeneous community, the richness that can come from understanding our differences, and from helping to lift up those in need.  That would be peacemaking.
There is plenty written about a sandwich generation.  This is my sandwich - learning about peacemaking from both the memory of my father and from my teenage son.

Hearing the Silence

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. 

After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 

After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. 

And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  (I Kings 19:11-13)

"My life feels like a whirlwind."
"I've been putting out fires all day."
"We have another earth shaking development today in the field of..."

With wind and earthquakes and fire all around us, it is no wonder that it is hard to hear God in the silence.
I believe.  And yet, often I act as if I am a faithless wanderer.
I have seen God's miracles in my own life.  Often I have sensed God's presence, available to me in amazing ways.  But, on a day to day basis, I go forward just like anyone else, acting as if the world revolves around me and as if my observations, perceptions and feelings are all that there are.
If I don't pray and re-center, the presence of the physical world - that which I can easily experience - pushes in and pushes the silence out of the way.  Elijah discovered that God was in the silence, but not in the wind or earthquake or fire.  I need to rediscover that every single day.

The joy of not having it now.

Last night’s menu for dinner was kale salad with figs, sweet potato greens in a coconut milk sauce and caramelized Japanese turnips.  I’ve never eaten a meal exactly like that, but that is just par for the course this summer.  Our meals this summer have been defined by the contents of our weekly box from a community supported agriculture share and the output of our small backyard garden.  Menu planning has been turned on its head.  Instead of starting with what we want to eat, and then shopping for and cooking exactly what we want, we begin with what is available to cook, and then build our menu from there.  The menu becomes our response to the natural flow of the season.  It is a powerful metaphor for living our life as a response to God.

In yesterday’s sermon, our pastor used the phrase “I want it, and I want it now” to describe self-centered society and the consumer marketing that panders to our desires.  He, too, saw the menu as metaphor, noting a fast food chain’s recent shift to offer breakfast anytime.  Jesus’ teaching runs counter to this mindset.  Approach Jesus like a child.  Approach as one who does not control what happens.  In this approach, Jesus offers us the chance for a wholeness that will never be found in a consumer good.

I have not only succeeded at submitting to the flow of the summer crops, I have been blessed abundantly by doing so.  Newly discovered dishes.  The joy of feeling aligned with nature.  Reaping what we have sown.  These have been my blessings for eating what is available.  I have experienced firsthand the richness that come when I take myself out of the center.

Montauk in September is characterized by a gorgeous ocean, the monarch butterfly migration, spectacular weather and the richest of plant harvests.  Taking myself out of the center in those circumstances is about as easy as it gets.  Can I use these days as training for those times that the call to selflessness is much harder?  Can I get up each morning and not only ask the simple question “What will I eat today, Lord?” but ask the harder “What would you have me do today, Lord?”  When I am angry and want to lash out, will I be able to respond as Jesus taught, or will I fall back on “This is how I want to act.”

One of the points of this sabbatical year is to be able to have the space to listen, to learn, to respond.  My prayer for this time is that I will be able to respond to God’s will for my life and allow that to define what I want for my life as well.  I look forward to finding life’s equivalent to Japanese turnips, sweet potato greens and kale.  

Contemplation and Action: The Virtuous Cycle

Today's morning reading was Matthew 12:46-50, which includes "For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."  This is another one of those verses that boils it all down to something very straightforward: Do God's Will.
Well, when asked, who among us wouldn't say that he WANTS to do God's will? But we all know that reality is quite different.  Where's the gap?
First, we have to know God's will before we can do it.  My friend Jonathan Gregory has said, and I agree, "God will clearly share his will, if we will only listen."  God doesn't write it out in an email, or send us a memo with an action plan attached.  But God will share in many other ways.  We must find ways to put ourselves into the place where we can ask for guidance, listen for guidance and hear God's will for our life.  Contemplation matters.
Knowing God's will, of course, is not sufficient.  We still have to go forth and do God's will.  Faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:20)  James precedes that verse with the observation that even the demons believe that there is one God.  And they tremble!  (James 2:19)  The world is good at action plans, and here is our chance to learn from that.  Self-control, self-discipline, motivation, goal-setting are all great tools to help us turn knowledge of God's will for our life into doing God's will.  Remember, though, that self-control is only a tool.  Submission to God, which requires recognition of our true lack of control, is the context in which we exercise our limited self-control.
Overcoming these two hurdles to doing God's will - knowing God's will and acting on what we know - hinge on learning well both contemplation and action.  The two really aren't separate, however.  In fact, one of the core tenets of The Center for Action and Contemplation, is that "We do not think ourselves into a new way of living, but we live ourselves into a new way of thinking."
Acting rightly will make us wiser and draw us closer to God, which will instruct us further on the right ways to act.

Word

Walk through the doors I open for you.

Selfish for God

Psychological egoists believe that everything we humans do is motivated by self-interest.  According to this philosophy, even actions that appear sacrificial are actually performed because the sacrifice brings us more utility than it costs us.  Frankly, I agree.  When I choose to do something, I choose freely, and if I act in a way that appears unselfish, it is because that action brings me more satisfaction than the apparent selfish action would.  Therefore, my “unselfish” act has selfish motivations.  [I recognize that there is a tautology in this argument, but it is one I accept.]

What makes the assessment of all this tricky is that it is hard to truly define satisfaction.  We deal with satisfaction inter-temporally – we forego pleasure today in order to receive additional pleasure in the future.  We deal with satisfaction under uncertainty – many of our actions don’t have definitive outcomes, and sometimes a good decision will lead to a bad outcome.  Proponents of psychological egoism frequently cite the desire for a reward in the afterlife as an explanation for why many apparently unselfish acts are actually motivated by self-interest.  Afterlife rewards combine both uncertainty and inter-temporality.

What, however, is true satisfaction?  Madison Avenue will answer that question one way (and the answer normally involves something offered by their client.)  A devotee of eastern meditation will answer that another way.  Finally, Woody Allen answers it a completely different way. 

I suggest that true satisfaction comes in living into God’s will for our life.  Aligning our choices with the choice God would choose for us makes us selfish for God.  The revelation of God’s will, however, is less than completely straightforward.  You can’t go to Amazon and buy a book entitled “God’s Will for My Life.”  Well, actually, you can.  And, if you do, you will find a number with titles very similar to that.

What stops us from living into God’s will?  Plain and simple, it is sin.  Our sinful nature convinces us that we will be happier if we are in control.  Adam and Eve, after all, really wanted to know what the tree of knowledge would reveal to them.  They couldn’t submit to God’s instruction that they didn’t need to know.  Back to Madison Avenue.  Playing to our human insecurities, they convince us, just as the serpent convinced Adam and Eve, that we will be happier with their product.  In fact, implied is the idea that what they have to offer is better than what God has in mind for us.

Sadly, creeping into our churches is the idea that the church needs to give the congregation what the congregation wants.  Talk about letting the inmates run the asylum.

So, what can we do?  Well, just like so much else in our faith life, the answer can be built on a couple of simple foundations: The Word of God and prayer.  Read and study The Bible daily.  Every situation in which we find ourselves has been covered.  Our interpretation of The Word of God is deepened and enriched by prayerful meditation, and listening for God speaking directly to each one of us.  The more we understand God’s Will for us, the more we can align our desires with God’s: selfish for God.

Every Choice is a Renunciation

From the Daily Lectionary, 11/8/11:
Matthew 15:21-26 "(Jesus) answered, 'It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.'"

Jesus knew his call.  He was to serve the children of Israel.  He was so focused on his call that when a Canaanite woman approached him and asked him for healing for her sick daughter, Jesus told her no.  This seems harsh.  He had the power to heal the girl.  The woman's approach to Jesus and her request were consistent with other requests that Jesus granted.  But Jesus' response shows that his healing of the woman's daughter would mean that he would have to take something away from those he was sent to serve.  Every choice is a renunciation.  Every activity of life - those that are worthy like the healing of the Canaanite's daughter, and those that are less so like ________ (fill in the blank with your empty or negative distractions) - take us away from something else. Sometimes it is the 'worthy' distractions that tempt us.  It is easy to say "I shouldn't be spending so much time watching TV" or "I don't need to go to TMZ.com."  Saying no to a worthy project is harder.  Nonetheless, saying yes to that worthy project means that you won't be using that time doing something else.  What is that something else?

This story of the Canaanite woman ends with an interesting coda, which foreshadows Jesus eventual ministry to the Gentiles.  He sees the woman's faith, and heals her daughter.  Jesus' ministry, his call, was to the faithful, who turned out to be largely outside of the tribes of Israel.  He invited the Israelites to the feast first.  They had other things to do.  (Does that sound familiar?)  And because of their choosing other pursuits and renouncing Jesus, his ministry became available to everyone.

Ex Nihilo

Enjoy this video of poet Micah Bournes speaking of the creation.

Ex Nihilo - By Micah Bournes

Imagine nothing.

Not darkness since darkness is something.

Imagine no darkness.

Nothing.

No thing to look at.

No eyes to look with.

Even without eyes there was nothing to miss.

Emptiness.

Wrong. No space to be empty.

Imagine no emptiness.

Imagine no imagination.

Now imagine creation;

Materialized speech rising from the lips of He who preexists.

In the beginning God created.

With words.

Imagine the language.

Imagine the verbs.

Imagine the adjectives employed to modify earth.

Oh that ears could have heard to those majestic sentences.  

Listen as The Infinite articulates the landscapes which leave us speechless.

Speak LORD speak!

Let there be...

Light! Life! Earth! Sea!

Speak LORD speak!

Let there be…For our world is

Poetry. 

The heavens declare the glory of God

From the Daily Lectionary, October 26, 2011:

For this people’s heart has grown dull,
          and their ears are hard of hearing,
               and they have shut their eyes;
               so that they might not look with their eyes,
          and listen with their ears,
     and understand with their heart and turn...

-- Matthew 13:15

Galileo was still living less than five hundred years ago.  At that time, most people still believed that the sun revolved around the earth.  Through scientific inquiry, factual evidence and critical reason, we now know that relative to each other, the earth, in fact, revolves around the sun.  When it came to Galileo’s message, the people’s ears were certainly hard of hearing and they shut their eyes to what he could show them.

The discoveries of the last five decades show an overwhelmingly beautiful universe, one that is impossible to fathom.  When I think of all that we have discovered as we have looked through ever more powerful telescopes and ever more powerful microscopes, I am reminded of the start of the 19^th Psalm:

 The heavens declare the glory of God;

   the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

   night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;

   no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

   their words to the ends of the world.

Scientific discovery declares the glory of God.  Even though the universe uses no human words, its voice goes out to the ends of the world, through the progressively more amazing details we learn about creation.

Yet many people look at our scientific advances and reach a completely opposite conclusion to mine – they conclude that there is no God.  How can this be?  Simply put, I think their ears are hard of hearing the beautiful music being played throughout the universe and they have shut their eyes from seeing the beauty of creation.

Ask an astrophysicist to discuss the big bang with you.  She will describe for you the fact that we have a fairly good grasp on the first 10^-9 second after the big bang and can tell you how hot things were at that moment as well as give a good estimate of the velocity of the universe's expansion.  Our understanding of these details was accomplished through reasoning and scientific inquiry.  Ask the same astrophysicist to describe that moment which is equidistant before the big bang, and she will be stumped.  In fact, she may very well tell you what a Princeton astrophysicist told me: that is the realm of theology. 

How do we deal with the unprovable uncertainty of this space/time singularity?  How do we deal with any such mystery?  Let me start with something whose vastness I can describe in measurement terms I do understand.   When I look at the ocean, the mountains or the night sky, I am faced with two possible interpretations.  One, this majestic beauty is part of a universe that is much bigger than I am, with mysteries greater than I can even guess at.  This universe has an order that we are slowly discovering through our limited human inquiry, and the more we discover, the more majestic the universe appears.  In the alternative, I can view all of this as a grand random occurrence.  You probably know which of those two I choose.

Open your eyes.  Open your ears.  Dare to be part of the greater universe, and all of its mystery.  

The whole universe is breathing as our breath; we limit the process by our assumption that we are doing the breathing.

-- Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Alchemical Wisdom

From the Daily Lectionary, 10/20/11

Matthew 12:20 -
He will not break a bruised reed 
          or quench a smouldering wick 
     until he brings justice to victory.

No matter how good a certain answer is or how true a given observation is, those truths will only be recognized by those who feel that they have a truly free choice to reject the solution or deny the observation.  True justice cannot be brought about through force.  

Instead of focusing on the inherent superiority of our solution, what we must strive to do is to listen carefully to the other and hear his needs.  In so doing, we can share whatever truth we have to offer in a manner that is uniquely tailored to the recipient.

We have one incredible advantage working for us.  As Ronald Rolheiser has written in The Holy Longing, we all share the same desire for a brightly burning fire within ourselves.  At the core, our desires arise from the same place.  Show people how to kindle that internal fire, and they will stoke it.  

We spend so much time speaking from our own point of view, expecting the other to understand us because we know that what we have to say is true, that we fail to see that they have a different perspective.  When they don't hear us right away, we keep pushing, until we have bruised the reed, or worse, doused the smoldering wick of their spiritual fire.

Tuesday, August 16

1. Getting to sleep before 9:30.

Monday, August 15

1. Yoga with Suzette first thing in the morning.
2. Eating a Buffalo Chicken haute dog at Moon Tower.

Saturday, August 13

1. Being packed and ready to leave with lots of time to spare.  No stress!
2. A smooth trip from Montauk to LGA to IAH to home.
3. The menacing sound under the car actually coming from a benign cause.  Whew.
4. Patrick being reunited with friends.
5. The luxury of a Houston grocery store.

Friday, August 12

1. Getting a visit this morning during breakfast by the male hummingbird.
2. No humidity and 70s for our last full day in Montauk.
3. Pizza on the beach, with almost everyone.
4. A brief viewing of the International Space Station.
5. Lanterns floating off to sea under a full moon.

Thursday, August 11

1. A knife-edge day with the breeze having shifted to the NW.
2. Filing the 2010 Form 990!
3. A lead on a location for our staff retreat in two weeks.
4. The sun going behind the dunes as the moon rose over the ocean.
5. Meeting with Linda and RAM and thinking about the potential of small projects.

Wednesday, August 10

1. Being treated by Nibs to a wonderful dinner at The Harvest.
2. Nailing down all the details for the Finance Committee call tomorrow.
3. Dry cushions to set on the breakfast/sunset deck.
4. Getting the new galvanized metal drip pans set up with Patrick's help.

Tuesday, August 9

1. A short yoga session led by Suzette.
2. Ticking off the lengthy to do list.
3. Double date with the Pryors at a new (to Suzette and me) restaurant.
4. Getting to read Patrick's first draft of one college application essay.

Monday, August 8

1. A great round of golf with Greg, Chris and Danny.
2. Lunch when I got home consisting of cucumber soup, tomatoes with basil and half a turkey sandwich.
3. An outdoor shower with the sun about as straight overhead as it gets in Montauk.
4. Crashing in the ocean waves.
5. Watching Patrick and Pierce boogie board in the massive waves.
6. Dinner of chicken curry.

Sunday, August 7

1. Worship at Montauk Community Church on the first Sunday of the newly called pastor.
2. A Facebook post showing the Camp Eagle campers on their way.
3. Needed rain.
4. A fun meal at Navy Beach with Suzette, Will and Patrick.
5. The joy of seeing Will's video of him playing the organ at MCC.
6. Patrick's enthusiasm about the headway he made today on his college applications.

Saturday, August 6

1. The enthusiastic response everyone had to the "marry-in" hats.
2. Delicious pasta with sausage and broccoli rabe.
3. The annual MBPOA beach party.
4. Don's home brewed Belgian Blonde Ale.

Friday, August 5

1. Being reunited with Suzette, Will and Patrick.
2. Smooth travels from Houston to La Guardia to Montauk.
3. A new book: Blues, by John Hersey.
4. A good productive week at work.

Thursday, August 4

1. Patrick shooting a 74 and coming in second at the NFCC tournament.
2. Picking up the "marry-in" caps and getting enthusiastic about giving them to their owners.
3. Getting to have dinner with Tio.
4. Getting an email from Continental telling me that I had been upgraded for my flight tomorrow.

Wednesday, August 3

1. Araujo sauvignon blanc with Crawford.
2. Finding John Hersey's Blues on the bookshelf, and anticipating the opportunity to read it over the next week.
3. The arrival of an Amazon delivery, and the excitement of a new book.
4. An unsolicited call from the new community outreach director of a major supporting bank.
5. A second day in a row of substantial commitments to Small Step's fundraising events.
6. A new prescription that was easy to order and quick to pick up.

Tuesday, August 2

1. Getting a screenshot from Will's summer work project.
2. A wife whose responsibilities include managing our family healthcare needs.
3. A hole by hole description of Patrick's morning round of golf at The Downs.
4. Lux Aurumque playing while reading the evening psalms.

Monday, August 1

1. An organized list of tasks to accomplish, and the energy to attack them.
2. Being able to stay cool all day, and being able to get out of the heat anytime I wanted.
3. Having the Small Steps administrative staff all back in Houston, and productive time together.
4. A great deli sandwich of RB on rye from Kahn's.

Sunday, July 31

1. Breakfast on the sunset deck on a beautiful morning, with visits from one of our friendly hummingbirds.
2. Yummy mozzarella and tomato sandwiches - made by Suzette - for lunch and for the plane ride home.
3. Getting to the airport on time, even though the Long Island Expressway was closed due to an auto accident.
4. Being able to stay in touch with Will and Patrick due to modern technology.
5. The ocean breeze coming through open windows at our house.
6. Spending time on the plane ride home working productively.

Why I'm Posting

I don't know why this blog is here.
This is my blog.  I created it.  But I can't remember why it was created or much else about its creation.  The profile section says I created the blog in May 2005, and the title of the blog, "The Least of These" reveals that I was thinking of Matthew 25 and service to the poor when I started the blog.  Still, I stand by my opening statement.
Two weeks ago, the daily email from gratefulness.org consisted of the following quote from Sarah Ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance: "You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you."
Then yesterday in her sermon, our minister spoke of a Lenten discipline of listing daily the things for which one is thankful.
If Lent is a season of fasting, then today is part of a season of feasting.  I will feast on appreciation and God's comfort.  When Lent arrives next year, I will be so disciplined that my complete fast from all complaining and worry will be natural.
I hope to write daily of a few specific things for which I have been grateful in that day.  We will see how long I can maintain my pace.  I hope I can at least make it the two months that Sarah Ban Breathnach promises will transform me.  But even if it is only for a few days, I will be grateful for what those few days of conscious gratitude bring to me.
This single post is written for my own benefit and as a reminder to me for my own personal accountability.  The medium of a blog allows me to create a personal daily journal.  If you have somehow stumbled on this blog, welcome.  So far as I know, Suzette and I are the only ones aware of this blog.  It isn't a secret...but it has been completely blank now for six years.  My prayer is that there will be something here that will cause you to give thanks.