Never the Right Time

Again, we are told that this is not a time to be political. We should honor the dead by not getting into the arguments.

We are told that guns don't kill people; people do. [But certain guns allow more people to be murdered by killers like this one.]

We will be told that we need to make sure there are enough guns on the ground to protect us when guns are around. [There were plenty of guns on the ground in Las Vegas last night.]

We will be pushed and shoved and brow-beat by Second Amendment fanatics who will insist that guns are our only answer. That's what the Founding Fathers wanted. [That is a very risky idea considering how different the world was- and is.]

Therefore nothing will be done.

Oh, wait a minute, we can pray.

Well I for one will pray.

• I will pray for the victims and their families.
• I will pray for the brave men and women who helped in a moment of chaos and crisis.
• I will pray for the police and investigators who will be sorting through this mess.

And

• I will pray that our nation, supposedly "under God" will see the error of its ways in defending weapons of mass killing. This is following Christ?
• I will pray that the NRA lose its iron-grip on the nation's lawmakers.
• I will pray that Congress will see the incredible insanity of allowing silencers as legal on these kind of weapons. The carnage last night would have been even more horrific if the killer had used silencers.
• I will pray that the Second Amendment fanatics will understand the importance of people's lives and see the EQUAL importance of other parts of the Constitution that preserve rights to free speech, to vote, a free press, freedom of religion.

 We do not need to ban all guns. I accept the right to "bear arms." Banning all guns isn't the answer. We do need to be more realistic about the constant pressure toward complete deregulation of all kinds of guns. We do need to understand that rampant gun ownership will not make us safer and may even make us more susceptible to mass acts of violence. We do need have a real(!) dialogue without name calling and bullying.

So yes, I will pray and pray fervently for all these things.

- and I invite anyone reading this who is fed up with the carnage that is the gun insanity of the United States to join me in those prayers.

A Last Minute Post

Well, last minute in the sense that I am actually writing this just prior to posting it. Most of my work on the blog is, by nature, done ahead of time. That way it doesn't become a rush to get something written and posted at the last minute before midnight.

But because of scheduling up ahead of me over the next 10 days, I knew that if I waited to post these thoughts, it might be "old news."

So I decided to post this one today. That way it really is current events.

• It's about that lion in Africa and the Minnesota dentist who paid $50,000 to have it lured from a sanctuary so he could shoot it with a bow and arrow then track it for 40-hours in its agony and then kill it.

• It's also about the Cincinnati university police officer who has been arraigned for murder in a traffic stop gone bad.

• It's about the insanity of the alleged Planned Parenthood videos that purport to show that the organization is a venal, baby-killing group out to make money from fetuses.

• It's about the presidential [sic] candidates calling Mexicans rapists and accusing the sitting president of leading Jews to the ovens over a nuclear arms deal.

• It's about denying climate change because it will hurt business and profits to do otherwise and the hell with the health of the planet.

• It's about having to have 30+ women claim to be raped by a well-known celebrity- and even then saying it didn't happen until his own words describe exactly what they have claimed.

It's about our human tendency for hypocrisy, prejudice, narrow-mindedness and the belief that I am right and everyone else is wrong. (Myself included).

What got me started was seeing the incredible world-wide and national reaction to the lion killing. The reaction was far beyond that for any of the other killings we are hearing about. The reaction to a lion (and I AM an animal conservationist!), even a "famous" and protected lion, raises more anger than much else that is REAL news. Every time three is a mass killing somewhere in the country we are told to pray and NOT politicize. Yet every killing like that does have a political side to it. We are told to remember that all lives matter, not just black lives, even when it is the black lives that seem to be of far less value in how, when, and where they are killed.

Yes, all lives matter, and THEREFORE,

• all black lives matter, and when they are being killed in traffic stops or as the result of incredibly far-fetched traffic stops, THEY matter and we need to pay attention.

Yes, all lives matter, and THEREFORE,

• the lives of billions on the planet matter when we are facing potentially catastrophic changes to our environment that will put those lives in severe jeopardy.

Yes, all lives matter, and THEREFORE,

• the lives of the Israelis and the lives of millions of others in the Middle East matter enough to work hard at preventing nuclear weapons from continuing to proliferate and putting all of them at risk.

Yes, all lives matter, and THEREFORE, why do we ignore the cries of

• women who have been raped, 
• veterans who have been denied health services, 
• poor people who can't get health care, 
• police officers who are under incredible pressures and need better support, stress assistance and training for their difficult jobs, 
• bullied gay youth, 
• the mentally ill who are seen as crazy and to be held in contempt, 
• prisoners in overcrowded prisons that are filled with non-violent offenders incarcerated because they possessed marijuana
• the immigrants who, like most of OUR OWN ancestors are here to build the American dream and rape and pillage?

I could go on. I can rant on this for hours, but all I will do is get myself all worked up and feel like I am helpless and powerless to do anything about it. I had to get it off my chest, now, when it is news.

• Pray for peace
• Work for peace
• Uphold peace
• Make peace a reality 
• Live peace each day

We all matter- let's act that way and not just say it as a way to reinforce our ideology or put down someone else's life.

Let's live today as if each person we meet has a life that matters and then treat them that way.

That Which Cannot Be Named

I am thinking of the phrase used to describe Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. Voldemort is, as most probably know, the evil one, the devil. He is the Dark Lord. Even to say his name is to invoke his power, hence the use of epithets. "He who cannot be named" kept a lot of people from invoking the awful name.

Over the past few days I have been feeling like we are doing the same thing in some ways in our nation- or at least parts of it. The mass killings in Charleston on Wednesday have again brought our national original sin to the forefront. Except when you don't want to admit its existence. All kinds of spin and "explanations" have been given.

• One presidential candidate called it "an accident" which the president politicized into gun control.
• Another presidential candidate said he didn't know what was going on in the shooter's head, in spite of the fact the shooter made it very clear what was going on in his head.
• Certain news outlets spun the whole thing into an attack on Christians and the church, a favorite right wing explanation. Again, the shooter was very clear about his reasons for shooting and even choosing this particular church because of its historic role in gaining civil rights.
• Others have gone so far as to "blame" one of the victims, a South Carolina State Senator, because he voted for gun control. If he hadn't, there would have been people there in the church carrying weapons and would have stopped the carnage.

And yet:

• Accident? You've got to be kidding me!! 
• When a black teen robs a store for cigarettes, he is a "thug" almost deserving of being killed. Nobody asked if he was on any psychotropic meds that could have caused him to lose his ability to make good decisions.
• When a black church was bombed in the south in the 1960s no one saw that as an attack on Christians. They would have been laughed out of the media.
• Many churches in open-carry states forbid guns in the building. It would have been the church's fault, then, if they had refused to allow open- or even hidden-carry.

That which cannot be named. Our national original sin, present since the creation of the country.

Racism. Through slavery. Through the subjugation of native people. Through Euro-centric superiority. Many groups have felt its sting. But only those who looked different- of different color most often- could never escape it. They could not blend into the white background. They could not change their names, "anglicize" them.

That which cannot be named.

And why the hell not? What are we afraid of? Are we afraid that if we admit that it still exists we might have to confront it in the sometimes subtle ways it shows up? Are we afraid that if we admit its ongoing existence we will have to look at ourselves and see where we might still be impacted by it in our own actions? Are we so concerned that we look and feel "perfect" as a nation that to admit to any shortcomings or national character defects will be "unpatriotic" and blow the cover on our denial?

As I ponder this I realize that I am talking about the need for recovery at the deepest places of our national soul. Here, watch this video:



To be American is to be Euro-centric? Wrong! Forever wrong!

Denial only allows the illness of prejudice and racism to grow, just as addiction. In the Twelve-Step fellowships, not to mention the fellowship of Jesus' followers, it is only when we can admit to the presence of the problem that we can deal with it. If it cannot be named, we can't change. If we don't get down to the nitty-gritty of our national character defects we can't confess them to our higher power and ask for them to be removed. We can't because we don't believe we have it. We are cured; we are healed; we are open to people of all colors and creeds. And when we are not, well, it's their fault.

I have been challenged many times by my own ability to fall into my character defects. I can't begin to count the times when this systemic racism has reared its ugly head in my own head.

Damn, I thought I was passed that. But no, I am human, and as imperfect as the next guy. Like with my addiction, I need to be always aware of the possibility of falling back into old habits, old behaviors, old ways of thinking that I didn't even know I had.

Let's talk about this. Let's listen to each other and the pain that is still being felt in our society. Let's be honest about ourselves and what is happening. To admit to it and work on doing something about it does not undermine our national identity. It shows our strengths and willingness to care for each other!

O God,
Your children of all colors
Have been hurt by racism.
Help us heal together.
Help us do the inner work
To be open to your grace
And to the "balm in Gilead"
So our hearts are converted,
And we can join hands
To do the constructive work
Of love and justice.

Amen.
--Education for Justice

Simply (?) Criminals

I have spent far too much time already watching the information and reporting from Massachusetts. It is endless with ever-playing loops of pictures or video that never change. We see the same faces peering out from the screen of two young men who, in their own demented way decided that a bomb at the finish line of the Boston Marathon would be a statement of some kind of religious fervor.

Sounds like the IRA in Northern Ireland, except this one was senseless with no true reasoning or purpose. (As if the IRA bombings did- at least from a rational standpoint.)

Sounds even like the Weathermen of the late-60s and early 70s who eventually blew themselves up in their brownstone in Greenwich Village when they didn't know what they were doing.

But we have to fill air-time on an endless news cycle. The news programs have to make it sound like they know something or are looking for something new or different. Some exclusive, even if it means asking inane, pointless, irrelevant questions that they know have no answer. But maybe someone will make an equally inane, pointless, or irrelevant comment that they can quote for the next 15 minutes of fame.

These two young men were simply criminals. Nothing more. Anything else was in their own heads. They were international terrorists in their minds only. They were angry, misguided, possibly psychopaths who acted out of their own personal frustrations at something that most of us have no idea about. There is no religious fervor in this. Unless it is the same "religious" fervor that gets a sniper to aim at an abortion doctor. No. That is not religious fervor. That is criminal thinking. That is frontier justice.

The Tsarnaev brothers, all things equal, are wannabe terrorists; mock Timothy McVeighs; cartoon warriors of some movement. In their fantasies and delusions they caused the deaths - killed - four people. This was no attack on the United States. It was no great political statement.

It was the act of criminals. Don't make them more than what they are.

Reflections on Newtown - part 3

Finding Forgiveness

Seems like an odd thought as we continue to reflect on the tragedy in Newtown, CT. Yet it is connected in my mind by a stroke of fate. Let me explain.

Two weeks ago I began a six-month course/training in Attention and Interpretation Therapy as developed at Mayo Clinic by Dr. Amit Sood. He has written an excellent book (link) on how mindfulness and developing certain core principles can make a huge difference in one's life. As part of the 6-month training the participants are to cultivate a different aspect of the principles each day of the week. Monday is gratitude; Tuesday is compassion; Wednesday is acceptance; Thursday is meaning; Friday is... yes, forgiveness.

The instructions are basically to become mindful of the world around you as you move through each day and bring the principle of the day to all you do. Last Friday was the first Friday to be practicing these principles. Gratitude and compassion were easy as the week began. Acceptance has been a core of my life in recovery for over two decades. Meaning- hey, I have been searching for that on a regular basis for most of six decades.

As I got up last Friday morning and did my morning gratitude list and lifted people into the sphere of compassion, I paused and wondered how I would ever bring the concept of forgiveness into life. At noon my wife called all distraught by the news that I hadn't even heard yet. It shook my world as it did for many. I went back to my office and looked up the news. I began to feel the anger of others watching this horror unfold. The early stages of the thoughts I would write last Saturday (posted Tuesday) began to form.

Forgiveness wasn't one of them. About mid-afternoon I stopped long enough to think of the AIT training course.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Today's about forgiveness.

Not now. No way.

In any case, forgiveness isn't mine to give in this setting. That belongs to the victims; young, hopeful angels cut down in a moment of terror and God knows what. Forgiveness belongs to them and their families; and the first responders still reeling, I am sure, from the sight they had to witness. Forgiveness? No, that's not for me to give. In the end it may only be for God to give, whatever that may mean in this terrible context.

Or is it?

A week has passed. Again I have given gratitude on Monday and compassion on Tuesday. Much of that came as a result of last Friday. I am grateful for so much and my compassion went flowing out to the victims and their families in waves of sadness. Acceptance- well, I have no choice. It has happened and cannot be changed. It is now indelibly etched in the American psyche, mine included. It is the way it is, like it or not. In the midst of that has to be a meaning to be learned. Maybe we as a nation will finally make a long-delayed move to keep these from happening as frequently as they do. Maybe that will give meaning to a meaningless act.

I come again to get ready for Friday with its core principle of forgiveness. Part of me wants to cry out to God: "Instead of forgiveness, how about fairness and justice and healing?" Many have cried, "How can Adam Lanza be forgiven? Let him burn in hell!" Great parts of me agree.

Yet, as the course I am doing reminds me, forgiveness from me isn't for Adam Lanza or anyone else. It is for me. My health and the health of my soul demands my participation in forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not:

• condone
• justify
• excuse or
• deny

Rather it

• sets me free
• to live by my own core values and spiritual principles. 

 It sets me free from the

• prison of 
• hatred and 
• anger and 
• fear.

It sets me free to

• envision hope and 
• a future where these unspeakable atrocities are part of a past evil.

Easier said than done.

That is my goal for tomorrow as it unfolds, though. I need it. The people I will meet need it. Not my forgiveness but their own. Not my condoning Adam Lanza's insanity or excusing it away; but putting it in its proper place- an act of a lone, sick, perhaps even evil young man trapped in his own hell that was far beyond his meager ability to control. As he planned and plotted he was making, perhaps, some last ditch effort to feel pain or loss or to get rid of it. Only in his own mind, twisted and unbalanced, it meant visiting more pain on others.

My forgiveness is so I do not get trapped in his sickness and continue to live his pain in my soul. I will not allow that to happen. I cannot allow that to happen or I will be another of his victims as my soul dies under his evil and hatred.

"Adam Lanza," I now want to cry, "Enough. Be gone! I am through with your works and scary eyes gazing from  over-pixeled pictures. I leave you to God and grace or forgiveness or whatever the Creator has for you."

This does not mean that any of those devastated parents or clergy or neighbors of Newtown need to do this. I cannot - I must not - pretend to even know the tiniest bit of their pain. But if I am to be part of a solution to this nightmare, if I am to be here to help them and our nation, I need to do this for me.

Forgiveness now has a new meaning as this Friday, a week later, dawns. May I have the grace and strength to find ways to live it as the day unfolds.


As if that wasn't enough for my tired soul, my Higher Power, my God, was not finished with me as I wrote those lines. My iPhone music shuffle worked its mystical ways one more time as what may be my most meaningful hymn came through the headphones.

Reminding me that we each are called to find that peace in our soul. It is the only way we can life it.

When peace like a river attendeth my way When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot you have taught me to say
It is well with my soul.

Though the devil will ruin Though trials will come
Let this blest assurance control That Christ has regarded my helpless estate
And shed his own blood for my soul.

It is well with my soul...

Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight The clouds be rolled back like a scroll
The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend

Even so
It is well
With my soul

Reflections on Newtown - part two

Grace arrived on Sunday evening. Gathered in the high school auditorium in Newtown, CT, the power of community came forth. Clergy and representatives from diverse faiths and backgrounds, stood before national cameras and showed that power comes not from the big names and fancy titles, not from the pundits or professionals, but from everyday people. The pastors, the Rabbi, the young Muslim singing the prayer were just like you and me, living in a world like you and me, until Friday. Or perhaps even until a few minutes before the cameras came on Sunday.

As a clergy myself I realized that these were all like I would have been on Friday. Getting ready for my service. Doing my thing. Just living the vocation I was called to. No one out of the ordinary, unknown beyond my relatively small circle. They were then swept up in huge happenings. They were called to minister to a town devastated, even as they themselves were devastated. That in itself would have been enough.

But it wasn't.

They have now been called to minister to the nation across the cable and TVs of millions. We watched looking for the signs of grace. We listened, straining for the words of redemption.

I don't know about you, but I heard those words and saw that grace as they put arms around each other, as they solemnly, but confidently took their moment in the spotlight and pointed to others beyond them. I felt the pain of the Rabbi as he chanted the mourning of centuries. I experienced the weariness as they all seemed burdened by a weight that is not a normal daily load. They did so with humility and gratitude for the community they were a part of. Differences of faith and belief were at least momentarily swept away and we had a glimpse of the hope of the Kingdom of our Creator.


It was no longer the slaughter of the innocents. It was a tiny glimmer of light once again shining in the darkness of a very dark place. The secret to that grace is not just turning to God, it is also in turning to each other.

Community.

I use that word often. I try to live within that word often. I am not sure I can live without it. It is not always easy. But it is first and foremost in community that grace becomes apparent.

To the clergy and people of Newtown, CT, I give humble thanks. You have a long way to go, I am sure. Healing has hardly been able to break through such tragedy. But you have, as the President said, been an inspiration. Now you must face the coming days of sadness and dread beyond the spotlight or the unblinking eye of the camera. We will be watching, hopefully as part of your extended community and not voyeurs.

Go about your work now. Go about life as best you can. But do not give up on grace or community.

Your children and grandchildren will need it as much as you.

Peace.
Shalom.
Salaam.

Reflections on Newtown - part one

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                20 children - massacred

                                Grisly descriptions fill the airwaves

                Almost obscene in the details.

                A President stands with tears as

                Parents across the nation hug their own children

                                more closely than usual.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                A Biblical image that we often gloss over.

                It's right there- December 28-

                Right there in the calendar as part of

                                Christmas. But no one wants

                To go there. Not at the Season of Light in the darkness.

                Why be reminded of the darkness:

                                "Weeping and great mourning," says Scripture,

                                "Rachel weeping for her children.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                We wail and bemoan the state of the world and yet

                                Prepare for another Quentin Tarantino blood-soaked movie,

                We urge people to "Not get political" which means

                Do Nothing

                To slow the slaughter's flow of blood across the nation's landscape.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                Columbine                          Aurora

                Milwaukee                         Virginia Tech

                Shopping malls                  Factories

                                Sikh Temple and Beauty Spa

                There are no boundaries to slaughter in a culture mired in it.

                Innocents all - children and adults-

                                Bystanders to horrific history.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                I keep trying to clear the phrase and images from my mind.

                                Black clad gunmen, hiding their pathology

                                behind false strength and bullets.

                I sit listening to Bach or the hopeful seasonal music of

                                John Rutter.

                But Magnificats and Glorias sound hollow as the images of

                                traumatized children remain on the TV.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                Now I am caught up in the anger of the days. My Christmas world has been shattered. 
                                My peace on earth has been broken. I am caught in the

                Web of violence within by the events- inexplicable, but so deadly common-

                                on the evening news or movie screen.

                I shudder - cringe- at my own response. At my own anger at

                                the powerlessness- the inability to make a difference. The

                hurt- and then the fear that someone- anyone- could do the same right here

                                where I am sitting- at a mall bookstore.

                Newtown is anywhere- and potentially everywhere.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

                I'm getting worn out. I can't imagine what the people of

                                Newtown must be feeling like. They are in need of healing.

                The wounds will go deep and broad, barely touchable

                                By anything available to them - or us- today.

                Untouchable by our words- the language of mere mortals.

                Only the grace of God may be able to bring about the healing.

                                But it is not the easy grace we often try to pass on,

                                The philosophical pablum that reduces God to less than

                Human, rather than greater than human.

                                It is not grace to say that God willed it, or even

                                Allowed it to happen for some unbelievably fearsome reason.

                No! This is a far more powerful grace. Not costly, like Bonhoeffer foresaw,

                                But awful. A grace that inspires awe- even as we cower in

                                Dread, anger, or hopelessness.

                The image comes of Bobby Kennedy on a chilly April night on the streets of Indianapolis

                                Giving us the words as he tried to make sense of

                                Martin Luther King's assassination, but his own brother's as well.

                They were the ancient words of Aeschylus:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget

falls drop by drop upon the heart, until,

in our own despair,

against our will,

comes wisdom,

through the awful grace of God.

Written on Saturday, Dec. 15, the day after.