In Our Vulnerability, We Find our God

November leaves turn crisp and musical, carpeting the roads and sidewalks, calling to be kicked. The cold of winter descends in the north, and we turn our hearts to the coming of the dark days of winter.

Our lives pass in seasons, both in our bodies and in our souls. Humans are born vulnerable. We are exposed at the moment of our birth, and we never quite manage to cover up completely. This is good. In our vulnerability and need we meet each other. In our transparency, we meet the Spirit of God.

When we empty ourselves of all our immediate coverings, our things and our worries, we open ourselves most powerfully to God. When there is nothing to hold on to and eternity lies ahead, when pain rips open the scars we’ve built for ourselves, when nothing at all stands between us and our fears, we paradoxically find ourselves most present to God. And once touched, we carry that knowledge with us everywhere.

When I reflect on the people I know who are most willing to ignore the condemnation of society and the ridicule of critics to embrace the poor and the marginalized, I find it no surprise that they are always people with a strong sense of the divine. These are our peacemakers and hope givers, our servants and our lights. They have made their vulnerability a strength and found a way to see past their own present to a future where all belong and all are embraced by God. Let those who have eyes to see, see…

People like Chris Hedges, Liz Berrigan, Bob Holmes, John Dear, Art Laffin, Sr. Ardeth Platte, Sr. Carol Gilbert, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, Roy Bourgeois, Dwyer Sullivan, and so many, many others are not saints or magical people, simply those who have, in their vulnerability, seen something bigger, greater, and more wonderful: love. This is a tangible love, a defenseless one that builds community, friendship, humor, peace, and inevitably, faith. By its very existence, despite setbacks and failures, it builds the Kingdom of God.

As I struggle to remove the blinders from my own eyes and the muzzle from my lips, I look to their example. I wonder how to follow the call of God. I wonder how to accept my failures. I strive, weakly, to set my fears aside.

And there, in weakness, in vulnerability, in trepidation, I find it all – the keys to the kingdom: faith, hope and love. I pray my eyes will always be open to them.

I'm Coming Out of the Closet: Will You Join Me?

Last week yet another Canadian teenager committed suicide, this time in Ottawa. He had come out of the closet, and let his friends, family and school community know he was gay. But the unbearable homophobia, bullying and sheer hate he suffered as a result overwhelmed him.

He escaped. Permanently. Tragically.

It’s time we stopped this. It’s time we declared this kind of bullying and discrimination off limits. It’s time we said no.

Rick Mercer, Canadian comedian extraordinaire, recently called on prominent LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Queer) entertainers and politicians to come out of the closet to become role models and supporters for our teens.

But we can do even better than that.

We can each come out of the closet of our silence to our family and friends and declare homophobia unacceptable. We can stand up for our LGBTQ coworkers, teenagers and community members.

To our teenagers, it doesn’t matter that it gets better when you get older. It doesn’t matter that high school doesn’t last forever. What matters for a teenager is the here and now, the present, today. We need to be there for these young men and women. We need to walk out of the closet with them.

The time has passed for those of us who accept sexual difference to simply stand by. The time has passed for silence. Not one more teen must die for this. Not one.

How do we come out of the closet? We stop using the word ‘gay’ as an insult. We stop making fun of other people’s sexuality. We start accepting that each of us is unique, and that different isn’t just another word for wrong.

For those who hold up their Christianity as a barrier to acceptance I say, remember what Jesus said about sexuality. Can’t think of it? That’s because he said exactly nothing. Not once in any gospel does he bring it up as he eats, travels and hangs out with the so-called sexual and societal deviants of his time.

Jesus leads us with an example of acceptance and integration. He comes out of the closet against hate and discrimination. He strides out into the world proudly with the marginalized and bullied.

I think it’s time we followed. Will you join me?

Stranger than Fiction 2: A Cry for Freedom and Justice

Why bother with the bible?

After all, some biblical fundamentalists seem to use it as their primary tool to put down those who are the wrong gender, wrong color, wrong nationality or wrong sexuality. So why not leave it to them?

Because that narrow-minded approach risks stealing the bible’s real unparalleled message of freedom and justice. It’s a dangerous book, subversive even, driving its readers not to create division, but to escape all systems of oppression, greed and hate.

The bible connects us to our past and points us to our future. It’s really a book of hopes and dreams, of God and humanity. It’s a book that calls to us, and compels us to speak out, not just about what we believe about God, but what we believe about ourselves.

The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas reminds us that at the heart of Scripture, be it the Hebrew texts or the New Testament, lies a call to respond to God with, ‘Here I am.’ It’s Moses before the burning bush, Mary before Gabriel, and Jesus on the cross. It’s every prophet, every ancestor, and every poor forgotten suffering person who encountered the Divine.

The bible teaches us that the story is not in what God can do for us, but what God calls us to do for each other. ‘Here I am’ we must say to each other. ‘Here I am’ we call out to God.

This is truth beyond fact. This is wisdom beyond rules. This is the hope of all futures. If we can commit ourselves to love and care for each other we will have committed ourselves, finally, at long last to our God. The self-emptying of Jesus on the cross is a model of love for all of us.

Give yourselves, God cries. Care for my children. Love my people, all my people, but especially the downtrodden, marginalized, suffering, oppressed, and yes, the enemy. “Do onto others as you would have others do onto you. For this is the Law and the Prophets,” Jesus commands, reminding us of the heart of Scripture.

This theme echoes through the bible from the opening where God hovers above what will be our world and our future, through the call to freedom of Exodus, the cry of the poor in Deuteronomy, the appeal to justice of every prophet and finally on through the story and example of love of Jesus the Christ.

Our sometimes misused and maligned Book throws us a challenge that we dare not refuse. Love each other, no matter the obstacles, no matter the pain. This and only this will lead to God.

Stranger than Fiction, and Deeper Too

I hold the bible in my hand, and slowly let it fall open. The pages settle on the Gospel of Matthew, and Jesus’ parable (story) of the Lost Sheep, a beautiful tale that compares a shepherd’s commitment to find a stray sheep to God’s love and commitment to find even the most wayward of us humans.

Two thousand years ago in Judea, storytelling was an important way to teach and impart truth. It still is. Think about it: When was the last time you went to a theatre to watch a documentary as opposed to a fictional movie? And the movies we love most are those that tell us something about our human condition. We seek truth everywhere and always, even in our stories. Jesus knew that.

Certain concepts defy the precision of human language. They can be understood, but most easily through the lens of a good story. It’s much like stargazing. The constellation of the Seven Sisters lies like a blur across the night sky when we gaze at it directly. But when our eyes shift to the side, all seven stars emerge perfectly shaped in our peripheral vision.

I mention all this, because within Christianity we take different approaches to the bible. There are those that argue that every story in Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament) must be understood as fact, and then there are those that argue that to understand a story as fiction does not belittle the truths it professes. So for example, some Christians take the story of Adam and Eve literally, but many others accept the theory of evolution while at the same time also fully accepting the deeper truths of God’s love and humanity’s failings found in that story. Both sides value truth.

Sadly, the different branches of Christianity sometimes struggle to talk about their differences, let alone accept them. And yet, reading the bible always reminds me of how inclusive God calls us to be.

The decision over which books to include in the New Testament was arrived at through consensus over a period of years, with information, letters and books shared between different worshiping communities. Early Church leaders decided to follow the example of Hebrew Scripture. Just as the Old Testament contains several retellings of the same stories, with differences, so the New Testament should contain several different reliable perspectives on Jesus’ life. This is why there are four Gospels, each from a different community. One would not be enough.

Eighteen parables would be lost if the Gospel of Luke had been eliminated. Eleven would be lost without Matthew. And of those that they have in common, the slightly different tellings enlighten us to deeper truths.

The Bible invites us to conversation. The stories within its pages call us to speak to the truths that resonate in our souls. Rather than rejecting different understandings, we should seek the truths that may be hidden there. We will not always agree, but together we will grow. We are unique individuals within particular communities, and we are called together to be a people of inclusion, wisdom, faith and love.

Death Penalty and the Dignity of Life

The execution (murder) of Troy Davis this week threw the issue of Capital Punishment back in the limelight. The deep and continuing tragedy of this policy continues to mar too many US States not to mention many countries around the world.

There is no shortage of reasons to oppose the death penalty. For one thing, it costs four times as much to execute a murderer as to house him or her for life. For another, judges and juries make mistakes (this week alone a Florida man was released after thirty years in prison for a crime DNA evidence has just proven he didn’t commit).

Its historical application has more than smacked of racism, not to mention political grandstanding. And, once convicted, a death row inmate must actually prove his or her innocence, a fact that sent Troy Davis to the executioner’s table even though 7 of the 9 witnesses to the murder recanted their original statements and no physical evidence ever linked him to the crime. Doubt was not enough.

Finally, it wreaks emotional and mental havoc on guards, executioners and families of the executed – all innocent victims. Any time we tell someone (guard, soldier, doctor) that they are not responsible for their actions, that they need not exercise their conscience, that others (judges, juries, officers) are the ones responsible for the call, we stray into dangerous territory. Like it or not we are each responsible before God for our actions. We were given the freedom to exercise conscience. We cannot pass it on to others and simply argue that we were following orders.

But the overarching reason that the death penalty is wrong is simple. It comes down to four words: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Of all the commandments this is probably the most straightforward – so much simpler than trying to figure out what it means to honor your mother and father, or what exactly constitutes a lie. Don’t kill. Don’t ever kill.

The dignity of life lies at the forefront of Christian faith. It is the reason that Jesus does not fight back from the cross. It is the reason that he allowed himself to be killed, innocent victim of capital punishment, in a self-emptying act that should have ended the death penalty once and for all. Two thousand years ago the Roman soldiers got it wrong. Has anything changed?

Seeking the Real and the True

What is real?

Many years ago I landed in Montreal after a two year stint in rural Malawi as a volunteer teacher. My first thought as my family drove me away from the airport through the winding cement highways of the city was, ‘This can’t last.’

I had spent my two years in a rural location, in a country which at the time had no traffic lights, no billboards, no television, little variety in food, and whose one main highway was still not entirely paved. After the fields and forests of Malawi, Montreal’s flashing lights, towering buildings and congested highways appeared not civilized, but rather like the bedroom of a spoiled infant so choked with toys and things that no one can find the floor.

So I come back to the question: ‘What is real?’

Quite often people who don’t believe in a higher power (God) will tell me their disbelief is based on the fact that they have no proof of such a divinity’s existence. There is nothing they can touch, nothing they can hold, nothing they can point to that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God exists.

The trouble is that they’re looking for things. But physical things are only real in the immediate sense of today. Wealth and possessions are tenuous and temporary. They cannot lead us to truth, wisdom, faith or love. And they won’t last.

Reality is found beyond the tangible. It lies beyond human touch and human eyesight. In order to understand what is truly real we must look with the heart.

We find what’s real in human relationship, in friendship and community, in compassion and fellowship. There too, we find God. In hospitality and love, we find the deep Spirit of faith. The word ‘companion’ comes from the Latin root ‘com pane’, or ‘with bread’, because if we live our companionship with each other, then our things, even our food, become no more than tools for sharing. The fellowship of a meal leads us to the fellowship of God. This is what Jesus pointed to when he said ‘Where two or three of you are gathered in my name, I am there with you ’ (Matt 18:20; CEV).

It’s an interesting fact that people who live in the impoverished countries of the south, bereft of the physical trappings of our society, often find it easier to find faith. In the slums of South America or Africa people flock to churches, mosques and other houses of worship perhaps because, although they may have little else, they have the one thing that is real. They have God.

Captivity: A Review

James Loney's book 'Captivity: 118 Days in Iraq and the Struggle for a World Without War' carried me away from the first page. It's a terrifying read, not so much because of the potential violence that hovers behind each page, but because of the emotional, political and ethical turmoil it provokes.

How do you create peace in the center of unrelenting violence and despair? How do you live day after day with fear? How do you deal with the boredom of captivity, shackled to the same people in the same room, navigating their coping strategies even as you develop your own? How do you hold on to your values, principles and beliefs as your world condenses to a few square feet and the ever-present threat that even that may yet be lost? How, in the midst of all this, do you maintain any sense of humor let alone sanity? And how, ultimately, do you love the neighbor that's too close, (the fellow captive), and the enemy that's too strong (the captor)?

The questions that 'Captivity' elicits are bigger than Loney's experience. They force the reader to reflect on where we're going as humans, and what it means to truly live faith in our time.

'Captivity' is a book that defies summary. It's a book that needs to be read.