God's Ways

Sometimes we do dumb things, sometimes they are done to us.  Sometimes we are insenitive, sometimes we are collatoral damage of insensitivity.  Things are said that should not be said or left unsaid when they should be said.  Some things we get over in a day or two, others linger interminably.  Things happen to us that can leave deep scars, and we do things that can leave others deeply hurt.

There is usually no good way out of the situations we get ourselves into.  At least, it seems that way.  In hindsight, however, sometimes the dumb things we do and are done to us turn out to have had something more than a silver lining.  They had unintended good consequences, if we have the wit to see them.  And sometimes a prayer uttered in hurt or embarrassment or confusion is answered, and the clinging fog of life clears for a time.  Things weren't what they seemed to be.  And on occasion we have the wisdom to do or say something that brings healing into the dumb situations we find ourselves trapped within.

Without being naive about it, there are paths through the Valley of the Shadow, the Valley of the Fog.  The wrongs we do and the ones done to us—there are healing ways through them.  Unintended consequences themselves have unintended consequences, which don't exactly make things easier but do eventually bring us out of the fog into the light of day.  Embedded even in our worst are other ways, what those of us who hold a theist's faith might call God's Ways.  Our prayer is, "Lord, help me to find one of your  Ways."  Amen.

Stewards of Yellowstone

According to the Book of Genesis, at the time of creation, God placed dominion over the world in human hands.  The final judgment on how well we've handled things since is still out, but so far we don't seem to be doing all that well.  There are moments, however, where we get it right, and a recent example of "getting it right" comes from Yellowstone National Park.  A BBC posting entitled, "How reintroducing wolves helped save a famous park," contains a four-minute video clip describing the way in which Yellowstone has benefitted from the re-introduction of wolves into the park.  Reintroduced nearly twenty years ago, wolves have reduced the elk herds that were over-grazing the park, which in turn has allowed the forest to grow back and other woodland species to return to the park—a kind of reverse self-deportation if you will.  Beaver, for example, have returned and with them the reemergence of important habitats that are managed by them.  The wolves also suppressed the coyote population in the park, which again has allowed other species, such as foxes, to regain their place in the ecosystems of Yellowstone Park.

A brochure produced by the Wyoming Sierra Club sums up the changes in Yellowstone this way,

The return of the wolf to Wyoming has had significant ecological benefits in a relatively short period of time. Ecological concerns contributed to the decision to return wolves and should play a role in how states manage this keystone species. Although it is easy to focus on the perceived negative impacts of wolves, it is important to recognize the actual benefits they provide to our ecosystem. By regulating wildlife herds and reducing the prevalence of diseases, revitalizing riparian areas, reducing coyote densities, providing food for scavengers, and indirectly improving conditions for a host of other species, wolves play an essential role in maintaining the ecological health and integrity of the landscape.

A series of postings by the National Science Foundation (here) make the point that beavers also play a stewardship role in the park.

Perhaps it is time that we put a footnote to the Genesis story, reminding us we exercise our stewardship of this planet best when we do it with God's other stewards within the systems of checks and balances built into the order of Creation.  Amen.

Living Consciously (Has Its Price)

The inward/outward quotation for today is taken, under the heading "Living Consciously," from Howard Thurman (The Inward Journey).  It says, "The hunger deepens and becomes more and more insistent for ridding ourselves of the tremendous burden of pretensions. We long for relationships in which it is no longer needful for us to pretend anything. The clue to the answer is in the awakening within us of the sense of living our lives consciously in God’s presence."  As is the wont with aphorisms, it contains wisdom and captures a truth.

Without denying that truth, we should also acknowledge that we carry the burden of our pretensions because they are often a source of personal safety as well as burdensome.  It is extremely difficult to face up to our own inadequacies, and there are times in life when they can all but overwhelm us.  One has to go about reducing one's pretensions wisely and gently.  It also has to be acknowledged that there are people with whom it is difficult to live honestly.  Honesty invites still more abuse of one sort or another.  To live without pretensions not only requires gentle wisdom, but it also demands of us courage.

This is not to say that Thurman is wrong.  He isn't.  It is to say that in the real world living "consciously in God's presence" is not a bed of roses.  Indeed, for the vast majority of us it is a goal, a challenge, a hope, and a dream that will never be fully realized.

Summer Reading

Good history, whatever the subject, invariably raises profound moral and ethical questions.  Look behind any field of historical study, and you will discover injustice, failure, fallibility, and suffering of one kind of another.  That is the story of our race—not the whole story, of course, but a central part of it.  The history of war is a case in point, only more so than almost any other field.  Rick Atkinson's recently released, The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (Henry Holt, 2013), is an outstanding example of this same point.  The book is a magisterial, well-written, well-sourced study of the last year of World War II on the Western Front.  The text runs to 641 pages, the end notes another 170, and together they describe virtually every aspect of the war from D-Day to the fall of Berlin and slightly beyond.  The courage of the soldiers is here, as is the seamier side of their lives.  The generals for the most part don't do very well in this book as Atkinson devotes painful detail to documenting the many ways they mismanaged their way to victory (or defeat, for the Germans).  The death camps are here also, as is the unnecessary suffering of civilians at the hands of military establishments quick to pull triggers for their own ends.  God, too, makes a couple of brief appearances as Atkinson's sources try to make some sense out of it all.

Good historians are good story-tellers, and Rick Atkinson is a good historian.  He competently (almost wisely) and evenhandedly portrays the immense sadness of war.  He also chisels out a monument to the human spirit, which somehow manages to find its way through war—scarred but also in a way transcendent in the face of all of the unimaginable horror and the depths of human suffering. The Guns at Last Light is going to win its share of prizes, and it should.  It brings Atkinson's "Liberation Trilogy," which also includes An Army at Dawn (2002) and The Day of Battle (2007) to a fitting close.  If you enjoy reading history and haven't read any of these books, start with An Army at Dawn and read through them all.

Bridging the Gulf

William James defined spirituality as "an attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.” If we are reading this newsletter, it is probably safe to say that we have all had a glimpse of something—call it the mystery, God, the true nature of being, or what-have-you. We might have had this experience as we looked out at the world: seeing the moonlight through oak leaves or listening to the surge of waves at the ocean. Or we might have experienced this unseen order through some kind of inner experience of wonder and transcendence. No matter how fleeting such experiences might be, we often have a powerful intuition about them: that what is behind or what pervades our experiences of the mystery does not come and go. It is unconditional and at the same time it is always accessible. It is we ourselves who somehow seem to turn away. We seem to lose it, to forget, to become distracted by other things, to get caught up in our preoccupations and we sense that our anxiety, suffering and confusion comes from that disconnection. The path [whether Christian or Buddhist], then, is our way of trying to bridge that gulf.

Katie Morrow, "Stumbling Along the Path"
The Buddhist Christian Vedanta Network Newsletter (November 2010)

Attending Wholly to God

We must not rely too much upon ourselves, for grace and understanding are often lacking in us. We have but little inborn light, and this we quickly lose through negligence.

Often we are not aware that we are so blind in heart. Meanwhile we do wrong, and then do worse in excusing it. We take others to task for small mistakes, and overlook greater ones in ourselves. We are quick enough to feel and brood over the things we suffer from others, but we think nothing of how much others suffer from us.

If a man would weigh his own deeds fully and rightly, he would find little cause to pass severe judgment on others.

You will never be devout of heart unless you are thus silent about the affairs of others and pay particular attention to yourself. If you attend wholly to God and yourself, you will be little disturbed by what you see about you.

Thomas a Kempis

Source: The Imitation of Christ

From: inward/outward

Demons

In many parts of the world and even in the most "advanced" societies, people believe in spirits, which inhabit their landscape and can have a real impact on their lives.  Traditionally, these spirits have been seen as capricious rather than inherently evil.  They are not to be trusted, which means that they must be placated with gifts and prayers.  Some spirits, however, are evil.  They are demons, if you will.

Demons are real—not as separate spiritual beings, but as inner realities that touch us deeply and hurtfully, they are real.  They infest our inner landscape with anxieties, self-doubt, mistrust, insecurity, resentment, and the worst of them enjoy causing pain in others.  They are the source of racism, sexism, and the deep-seated fear of anyone who is different.  These deep dwelling inner demons teach us to be hardhearted.  They encourage us to walk on by.  They are real, and even the very best of us experience them.

Demons infect our relationships with the seeds of destruction.  They are insidious in undermining our better natures and good qualities.  They can turn our political systems dysfunctional, and at their worst they drive nations to war—masking horrible irrationality with a veneer of false sanity.  It is our demons that turn crowds into mobs.  Demons may not have a reality outside of our hearts and minds, but they are real nonetheless, and the very best single word to describe them is "insidious".  They are subtle, so much a part of us that they feel natural to us.  When Jesus taught that we are all to capable at seeing the splinter in another's eye while missing the plank in our own (Matthew 7:1-5), he was pointing to the demons that reside in us.  Author Frank Herbert in his classic novel, Dune (1965), assigns to a quasi-religious sect of powerful women, the "Bene Gesserit, the following Litany Against Fear: "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."  He, too, was pointing to the demons within us, assigning them the name fear.

The thing is our demons cause us to act in ways that are as much hurtful to ourselves as anyone else.  A true goal of all religions is to quiet these demons to such an extent that they cease to be.  In coming to center, learning to truly relax, and discovering the quiet peace that rests in the heart of our hearts, we put our demons to rest.  We can't beat them by fighting them.  We can only discover peace by letting be and letting go or, which is another way of saying, "Letting go and letting God."  Only then do our demons lose their reality.

Festering Hearts

"Why let all of this wickedness fester in your hearts?"

Jesus of Nazareth

From: Matthew 9:4 (N. T. Wright, The Kingdom New Testament, p. 15)

Blame Game Reflections

There may not be a major collegiate football program in more dire straights than the one at the University of Minnesota.  Last week the Golden Gophers lost to a mediocre team, Purdue, 45-17.  They were behind at the end of the first quarter 28-0.  The week before they lost to the nationally ranked Michigan Wolverines, 58 to zip.  As horrible as these blow out losses are, the worst of it this season is probably the Gopher's loss to New Mexico State, perennially one of the worst football programs in the nation.

So, what do the good fans of Minnesota do?  According to a recent posting at The Daily Gopher website entitled, "Minnesota Gopher Football: Everybody just cool out," the blame game is on and some, maybe many fans, are laying that blame on the new coach, Jerry Kill.   There's a website, apparently, dedicated to the firing of a coach who has been onboard for only six games.  The posting argues that fans need to cool down, show some patience, and let Kill and his staff work through an admittedly difficult situation.

What makes all of this worthy of our attention is the way the posting begins.  It observes that our society today is a "society of blame" and a society of quick fixes.  When something goes wrong, we become reactive, looking for someone or something to blame—more often someone than some thing.  Once we assign blame, we want that individual gone or that cause fixed right now.  In other words, this is not just about football, the fans of one football team, or the state of the nation although. We're not the only people that play the blame game, and it isn't a recent invention.  Finger pointing reflects something central, deeply embedded in who we are as human beings, and it draws on the uglier side of human nature that we can't deny exists.  Blame kills.  It is a form of violence.

A couple of points: first, the pages of our newspapers and the webpages of our news websites are filled with grist for theological reflection.  Second, the church has been called into being to be a community of those who don't play the blame game, live in frustration and anger, or take things out on others.  We're called to practice the peace we preach.  Not easy, admittedly, but it why we exist.  Now, it is true that bad situations have their causes, and it is important always to discover those causes.  It is equally true, however, that blame game politics seldom gets to the bottom of matters, and by putting everything on a scapegoat usually serves to perpetuate the deeper causes—like why some schools, some programs produce winning teams year after year (think Ohio State) while others struggle for one now and again (think Minnesota).  God is creating us to be better than all of this, and our job is to get beyond blame to the task of moving on with that divine program of ongoing creation.  Amen.