01/10/16 07:20 AM
Death is the completion of life.
We fight death when it approaches, but we fight life for most of our lives. We can’t explain life. We can’t tuck away the pain or the joy as if we have any real control. In the first place, we aren’t allowed, and in any case trying to explain life and what we are here for denies the power that God lays out for us both in life and in its completion.
We cannot explain either but we have to accept both. We have to accept our eventual death. That part is inevitable. We also have to accept life, but most of us don’t want to. We try to put it off while we’re doing other things. Not living life as it comes, with all of the messy parts, seems safer. Money, control, judgment (especially of others), personal desires, worry…we deserve all of these things, right? We’re entitled, and they all seem so important….except they’re not. They are cop outs. They are cheap counterpoints to the real thing, and they create a risk of missing the true gift of life.
Most people don’t get that but Leslie did. She knew all of these things intuitively. She had a natural wisdom and always preferred looking at the good and the bad straight-on rather than falling for the smoke screen of chatter and distraction. That gave her intensity and passion and integrity, and it rubbed off on those around her. It’s why all of us in our little circle of family and friends see eye to eye on so much. Back at what we now call “the old place”, she was always above the fray and always brave enough to do the right thing. The new practice had her total focus, and she brought to it the integrity that we have strived for. With Ben and “B” and the rest of her family, she was even at such a young age a true matriarch, taking care of everyone and everything.
So, what do we do? What must we do when a friend has to give up her place in life? The same as we should be doing anyway and at all times:
Be there.
More than that, we have to consider what we do while being “there”. After all, we are what we do.
If we are bad, we try to “get”.
If we are good, we try to give.
If we are wise, we try to get by.
To be both good and wise is to live among each other and help each other get by. Leslie was, and always will be in her spirit, both good and wise.
“Getting by” requires nothing more than trusting God, having our daily needs, forgiving, and trying not to screw up. That is pretty much the substance of the Lord’s Prayer.
We can and we must live. We can’t defer it with noise. We can’t, as the Bible says, “fight the reins” in death or in life. We have to do it together. We can’t live alone, and we must never let others live alone. It is in solitude that worries come to seem bigger than they are, bigger than life.
We also cannot stand still. We have to go forward, be brave, and help each other to be brave. Looking bravely into the eyes of life, we can look past any difficulty, even past death, and into the continuation of life.
There is a guide for this. It is in the lives of the Bible. It is in the lives of each other. It is in the lives of those who are good and wise, who are others living for others.
Facing down death is simply facing down darkness. Our fear is of darkness, uncertainty, of needs unmet, tasks undone, loved ones unfulfilled.
But, there is no darkness. There is only the Lord of Light, the Lord of love and life, who is there for us when we must face any next step, who is there for each of us in each other. There is no unknown. There is only that to be discovered and conquered. God gives us himself and he gives us each other to make certain of that.
So, Little “B”, we are all sad now, but you don’t have to worry. Mommy gave you her heart before she went to Heaven. She gave it to you right in your heart, to take care of and to have her with you. And she gave you daddy and everyone you know to help take care of you and to help you take care of her heart. She will always be there and so will we. 12/21/14 04:43 PM
We are living in tough times. Many of us are beset from all sides. Money, kids, jobs, spouses, war, illness, the economy, everything. And while we are trying to get by, we are barraged with celebrities living “the good life” and pop psychologists telling us “The Secret” is to indulge ourselves.
And then there is all this hysteria about passion. The ultimate experience supposedly is to “go all the way” with another. People who believe this are generally talking about passion and particularly sex. How odd that “going all the way” is generally synonymous with the inevitable brevity of a “one night stand”. How odd too that in this context it is perfectly possible that one can never have more than a “one night stand” with the person they live with and in so doing never touch their soul.
But that is not real. Really going all the way means giving ourselves to each other in the form of respect and commitment and support. In the context of conceiving a child, it means giving the child a chance at life. For a child, it means trusting your parent or an adult who cares about you, because at a certain point you have nothing to lose in trusting. For a parent, it means keeping the child or entrusting it to the care of another.
In raising a child, it means staying up with her when she’s hungry. It means being the one who soothes his crying at 3 AM, or being the one who can’t soothe him, but you stay with him anyway. It means being thrown up upon and still holding her. It means hurting when she’s hurt, or giving up on a dream so he can have his. It means being a parent when you don’t know how to be a parent and coaching when you don’t know how to coach. It means quietly letting someone else coach when they don’t know how to coach. It means using your hands to hold him when you’d rather use your hands to hit him. In sports, it means being a fan when he’s not the best one and being even more of a fan if he’s disabled and can’t even dream of athletic glory. It means holding your child up instead of holding her down. It means being there and staying there, and being a safe haven even when he or she has done something dreadfully wrong. It means trusting your child, because at a certain point you have nothing to lose in trusting. It means being a savior instead of a judge and an advocate instead of a prosecutor, because who of us, really, can cast that first stone? It means showing up and being where you are when you’re there. It means giving up the better car for the better school. It means giving comfort without being asked, and giving approval on those same terms.
As a spouse, it means worrying more about being the perfect partner than having the perfect partner. Over the years, it means being willing to rediscover someone you thought you already knew completely. As a parent, it means being a refuge for your growing children and your aging parents. As an aging parent, it means being a source of perspective for your growing children and your growing grandchildren. As a community, it means caring for one another and treating each other not as objects but as other versions of ourselves.
“Going all the way” is a journey. It’s a living spiral. It starts as a gift bequeathed to us by our elders and becomes the same gift bequeathed to our children and grandchildren. It cannot be traveled alone. “Going all the way” implies that you go with someone; otherwise you haven’t risked enough to have had the adventure. It starts as a journey of one with another and becomes a journey of two with the world. It is risky and difficult to go it alone, without at least some kind of significant other. It is in the psychosis of isolation where fears grow huge and bend reality to seem to be what it is not. This is a psychosis that is so devastating but from which it is so easy to be rescued. All that is required is that we be there for each other.
“Going all the way” isn’t physical, and the most exhilarating experience one person can have with another isn’t necessarily physical. It is to be comforted. It is to be relieved; of pain, or fear, or guilt, or loneliness. So you want to “go all the way” with someone? A friend? A spouse? A parent? A child? A stranger in need? Then go to them, put one arm around their shoulder and say, “I am right here. I’ll be right here. And you’ll be okay.”
01/10/14 07:24 AM
I have many patients who are “retarded” by the conventional definition. They are some of my best friends. That term, “retarded”, is not descriptive. It is pejorative. It is ignorant. It is, well, retarded. The term implies that these people lack something that one must have to be whole. It is true that they depend on us for material needs, but the wisest among us depend on them too. Of course they lack some reasoning and problem solving skill, but not as much as many think. It is not the intellectual skills that they lack that defines them. It is the lack of guile, and there is a lesson for all of us in that.
We write-off retarded people as being empty. We cannot possibly understand all of the things that they face. It is easier for us to simply assume that they are empty and that they therefore face no struggles. By assuming that they perceive little, we can conclude that they contain little, and that allows us to ignore them as irrelevant. I have had few other patients who take in so much and bear so much with such grace. They are assumed to have receptive limitations, but their real challenge is often expressive.
No, they are real people, and they bear the same things that we bear. They bear what we do and so much more, and they do it with so much less. They rebel sometimes and express frustration, but they rarely complain. When something works, when something goes right, they are typically so much more joyful than we ever are. When one’s life is punctuated by constant failure, the successes are that much more delightful.
Einstein, near the end of his life, said, ‘we don’t know a fraction of a percent about anything’. That is an expression of humility from one of the most perceptive men ever known. It is also an expression of wisdom. The wiser we are, the more we know of our deficiencies. Einstein’s statement is also instructive. In the scope of all that can be known, we really don’t know a fraction about anything. Our fields of study have never yet defined even a scrap of the nature within that field, much less other fields or how it all fits together. Kierkegaard said that the more we understand, the more we come to understand that there is that which cannot be understood. The wisest know that real understanding is for God alone. The rest of us can only “look through a glass and darkly”. The least wise among us think that they have command in their world, and they seek to command through coercion and force. Even when they mean well (viz. past and current crusades and the current American hegemony), they are the source of much evil and much suffering.
So in the greater scope of things, we are really not so different than those we consider to be “retarded”. We are all retarded; the only difference is the degree and the manner in which we are so. Those we consider conventionally retarded need our help with certain functions of living, but they can teach us much about love and persistence and joy. Providing such assistance may be frustrating for us, but we should not be too condescending. You may be an expert in one area, and if I try to function in that area, I may be just as frustrating to you, but you will probably not be condescending to me. Or you may! This can be a real impediment even for “normal” people as we try to relate in the “real world”. The point is, we are all really in this together, even our “retarded” colleagues, and if we can just realize this, our interactions can be so much more fruitful and enriching.
What retarded people lack most is the guile and ambition that the rest of us so commonly inflict upon each other. What they often excel in is patience and forbearance, things that all of us could use more of. So, maybe we should try not to be so “retarded” in dealing with the retarded. Maybe we should stop, look, listen, and see these people for who they are. It doesn’t take any more time. In dealing with “retarded” people, it usually takes longer to hurry. We should settle down, take a breath, offer some help, and gratefully enjoy the rewards. Hopefully, we will deserve it, at least a little.
02/04/12 08:41 AM
My child,
I’ve been thinking about things. About how we become tired, overwhelmed sometimes. About choices made or not made. Consequences. Life tracks. What could have been.
And I think “what could have been” is a trap. All of us are worried about falling off the bike when we’re already on the way, and simultaneously worrying about whether it’s the right way at all. It’s a psychological trap. It’s never about “what could have been”. It’s certainly not about what has been. It’s always about “what could be”.
Wall Street conventional wisdom is that “Success always climbs a wall of fear.”
Churchill, arguably the most successful statesman in modern history, said, “Never dwell on anything from your past that doesn’t help you with your future.”
He also said that, “Success is a matter of going from one failure to the next with no loss of enthusiasm.”
Another obscure philosopher has noted that “Life is not about what you do; it is about what you do about what you do.”
I know enough about being haunted by my past to know what a waste it is. There is a great line in the movie, A Beautiful Mind, where the math department chairman is asking Russell Crowe’s character, John Nash who is schizophrenic, about being haunted by his ongoing hallucinations. Nash says, “well they are my past, Martin, and everyone is haunted by their past. I just choose to ignore them and they tend to leave me alone. I think they’ve given up on me.”
So true. Self-mortifiers tend to accuse those who disregard their past of being hypocritical. Maybe we should remember the other end of the spectrum, that we are all generally the last ones to forgive ourselves. It is said that suffering is the path to wisdom, but that is only true if we allow ourselves to become wise, as survivors of what has gone before.
There is no “what could have been”. There is “what has been”, but that leads, for all of us, to “what could be”. At any point in time, any person has “stuff” that they can shape into a future. That stuff is material, it is relationships, it is life-lessons, stuff we’ve seen in our own lives and others. It is faith in the grace that got us through before and a growing belief in where that grace came from. It is the treasures we have collected, and some of the most precious are the ones hardest earned.
You are older than you once were but always younger than you will be. You will always still be learning, but you are wiser than your years. Like everyone, you have made decisions that shape your current path, and maybe it has been more of a thrill-ride than you would have liked, but you get to choose where you go from here. In the greater scope of things, you have immense control over that path.
You already know that. Your life is an act in heroism. You have already gone from being a vulnerable child, to a reckless adventurer, to a capable explorer in the world, an object of admiration to so many around you. The people who love you the most, who yearn for your success, sometimes seem the most critical, but they are the same ones who would fight tigers for you. They want you to have the chances you deserve. What they might not realize is that you do have those chances! And you will be “there” before you know it.
You are a hero,
and heroes often feel overwhelmed by what they face. You have the integrity to face things and take responsibility and ownership. That is what your friends, colleagues, teachers, and your family all see in you. That is integrity, a rare commodity indeed. You’ve had some traumas growing up, and you’ve had some bumps in the road, some chosen, some not. But you have intelligence, and skill, and grace, and integrity, and it’s been in you from the beginning. I’ve always known that you would do something beautiful, but I didn’t foresee you having dragons to slay, or that you’d slay them so well and so early.
Take stock. Be encouraged. Allow yourself to take a little credit. Don’t feel that you need to cover over things that worry you, or scare or disappoint or embarrass you. Share your concerns honestly. There is no judgment for those who seek sincerely. The fraternity of adults who have “been through it” all know this. You have a lot going for you. We’re cheering for you, we are there for you,
and we are very very proud.
Love
Dad
01/02/12 07:48 PM
Jesus said that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another. The popular image might be stepping in front of a bus; literally giving one’s life. That’s fine if it’s called for but what he was talking about was lying down one’s life every day, day after day, year after year, for others in your life. That takes effort, sacrifice. And it’s what we have to do as long as we live.
So much of what Jesus talked about, according to analysis of the Gospels, involves the verb tense of continuing action which was very common in ancient languages like Aramaic and Greek. Being “born again” has nothing to do with the “once and done and then do what you want” baloney peddled by “victorious life” Christians. It has to do with taking a fresh look at faith every day; of looking at your faith as the way of rediscovering God’s will over and over again, in every moment and every need, and then doing something about it. It has to do with giving one’s life to God’s will over and over again. It is laying down one’s life in the service of God’s love for the lives of those around you.
Jesus said that others will know his true disciples by their love. By their love. Not their “holiness” or their “righteousness” or their eagerness to take over judgment that is reserved for the Lord alone. By Their love. So many people who call themselves Christians claim a “personal” knowledge of Jesus and in so doing, they subjugate Him to their own agendas and their own ignorance. They claim that they have “come to have a personal relationship with Jesus” and that this is necessary to have righteousness, and that this righteousness gives them authority over other’s faith lives. It lets them off the hook, so that they can be free to judge everyone else. It lets them off the hook from what Paul described as his own struggle to see the truth but “only through a glass and darkly”.
They aren’t giving their lives for anyone. They are the Pharisees thanking God for their superiority over others, while the real faithful quake in the back of the Synagogue asking only God’s grace and forgiveness. In the 2012 election, in his zeal to celebrate Rick Perry’s "God-given right to be president", a baptist minister dismissed Mitt Romney as a non-Christian “cultist”. A cult is a group that demands uniformity of thought among its members to the exclusion of any variation. That minister’s arrogant dismissal of Mr. Romney as a ‘cultist” was, ironically, a very cultish thing to say. Lording one’s style of belief over others isn’t faith.
It is fascism.
And it bears nothing of the love and the sacrifice that Jesus calls us to. Jesus calls us to a life of faith and trust in Him, not in place of Him. It is not a faith in human institutions, it is faith in Him. Voltaire observed that “sects are everywhere different because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same because it comes from God”. That is an inconvenient truth for those who need their sect to be superior to all others. Another powerful leader noted that “it is lucky for rulers when men do not think.” True indeed. That was Adolf Hitler. We need to think. We need to follow God’s will, not man’s, and we need to do it over and over again, every day. We need to lay down our lives, our interests, our agendas, our own lust for control, for Him and, in His name, for others.
It is not about us. It is not about superiority. Jesus laid down his life ultimately, but along the way, he laid it down over and over and in many, many ways. He was and is Lord, but he NEVER "lorded" over anyone. Men, and particularly leaders of the typically male-dominated religions love to pull out Ephesians 5 as evidence of their “God-given” superiority. Ephesians 5 calls wives to be submissive to their husbands. Ooh, good stuff. So far so good. Then there is the throw off line; the Bible’s full of them and they are generally ignored; … “and men love your wives as Christ loves the church”. Yeah, sure, okay. But wait a minute, that means love your wives with your whole life, in every way, every day, no matter what, whether or not it is welcomed, whether or not it is appreciated or even acknowledged, and with complete disregard for your own interests and desires. Jesus was God on earth, but his defining nature and His call to us, was to be a servant of all. He could have it all. He could have our fidelity by the force of his might, but he instead chose to be a servant to all. Why? Because that is the nature of God. God is not just power. First, God is love, and love has no self-interest. If we want a part of that, then we have to try to be the same. We have to let go of our life. It no longer exists. It is dead and gone. Dying to the past means thinking ahead to the future and serving another’s needs. It means doing it even when the help is not desired or appreciated, just as Christ loves us, even when we assure him that we are fine on our own. It means dying every day in the sense of disregarding our interests for the sake of another.
Laying down one’s life for another. It not always dramatic, but it is always heroic. It is heroic like the single mother working two jobs, or the grandparents being there for grandkids in need, or poor people helping poorer people, because after all, we are all poor at some level. It is healthcare workers giving their time in free clinics or Covid wards, or elderly church members keeping a church food kitchen going year after year, or a thousand other kindnesses flying under the radar. It is dying as a way of life…as a way to life. The more bound we are to this idea of dying for others, the freer we are for what really does matter. Life.
12/21/11 09:32 PM
Something to live by...
We moved to a new town 22 years ago. We had only been here a few months when my wife got appendicitis. In those days, this was only repaired with open surgery, and afterwards, she was unable to lift anything, including our new 11 month-old, for at least 6 weeks.
That’s how we met Janet. Gram came for a week to help out. She took the kids over to Stride-Rite for shoes and was telling the Stride-Rite lady, Janet, her plight. Without a second thought, Janet said, “I’ll help you out.” She rearranged her whole life for a complete stranger, and came over every day and just took care of things. And she never left for almost 15 years.
“I’ll help you out.” That pretty much sums it up, but not quite. Janet was safe. Safe to be around. So many people aren’t. There was never a child, or an animal that didn’t know this instantly. Janet meant safety. A lot of people will tell you you’ll be okay IF you do something or believe something their way. Janet just accepted you as is, and you were okay. Safe. Accepted. Okay. Nothing else required.
She had a quiet spirit that quieted the spirit of everyone around her. Who wouldn’t want to be around that. Everyone did. She never seemed busy, although she did a lot. She was never too busy for you. You were her focus. No thought of looking away.
She made a lot of other people like that too. Some years later, I needed someone to help at work. I called Shawna at 6 AM, and she just said, “I’ll help you out.” It sounded familiar, and she never left either. She helped me out that day, and then the next and the next. She was employee of the month her very first month. Just like Janet.
And Janet believed. In what? In an agenda? In a doctrine? Maybe. I don’t know, but that is not the point. The point is simply that she believed. She believed in you, and in doing so she let you dare to believe in yourself. She never made you feel like you had to do something for it to count. She believed in what you were doing, in what you needed, in the idea that she could help. No conditions, just belief. She made you feel like you mattered just the way you were.
Janet didn’t get too excited about too much. She faced things, especially in the last years, that would unnerve or dishearten most people. Some have described her as a fighter, but I think it was simpler. She was just resolved. She just accepted circumstances in the same unconditional way that she accepted people. There was no point in complaining or despairing. Just do it.
Faith. Faith in us. Faith in all of us. I visited her in Toledo Hospital shortly before she went to Cleveland Clinic. We talked with the cardiologist. She wanted my advice. I could see her fear, but she accepted my advice and encouragement. She trusted me. Did I give her the right advice? Did I give her the faith, and the time, and the patience that she has always given me? Did I tell her right? I hope so. I know she was in a very tough spot, and so did she, and she faced it with faith and courage. I hope, I pray that I did right by her, but I’ll wonder about that for a long, long time.
She didn’t ask for too much. She always regarded others as more important than her self. Unassuming. Satisfied. Even with everything going on, even to the very end, she was sunny and her bravery and her optimism seemed effortless. She made everyone else brave. Without a word, just by example, she gave everyone else permission.
She still does. We all had a chance to experience something very special. To know someone very, very special. Can we do for others what she did for us? Can we be that brave? That accepting? That devoid of judgement? Can we be for even one person, what she was for so many. I think we have to. I am not sure if I did right by her on that last day. Could I have done more? Could I have been there more? Yes. I could have and I should have. Maybe I can make it up to her by being more like her. It’s a big deal. Can I ever simply be as good of a person to others as she was to me? I doubt it, but I can think about all the time. I can think about her and model myself after her. I see her quiet faith and her strength in Todd and Shawna, in Dick and her other family, and maybe especially in Jacob.
Some pastors give us shallow platitudes. Do this and you’ll get that. Think like me and parrot my beliefs and then you’ll be okay. Janet never did that. For Janet, you just were okay. Simple. Unassuming. Just like Jesus. Life by example. Living faith. Let’s do it too. That is how she will stay alive. In us. In each of us.
03/08/08 08:03 AM
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steven Weinberg, 1933- , American Physicist
Some atheists and agnostics refer to religion as “the opiate of the masses”.
That is only sort of true. Religions are not really opiates so much as clubs. Clubs have rules to follow for membership and for which the hierarchy guarantees certain benefits. In a club, you don’t have to do anything really, you just belong. Rules aren’t an opiate. They don’t make you go to sleep; they allow you to. You fall asleep on your own.
Judaism, Catholicism, Evangelical churches, etc. all have traditions and rules. Judaism is of course based on The Law, an elaborate system of rules. Christianity is supposed to be a new, free covenant of love. Hardly. The same human propensity to reinvent that corrupted Judaism in Christ’s time, took only a few hundred years to do the same to Christianity. This became so bad by the early 16th century, that Martin Luther tried to face it and rather unintentionally led the way to a whole new church. The idea was to get back to a true faith, but now the various protestant churches each have their own rules and traditions and therefore their own brands of insularity. The ultimately arrogant (and unscriptural) judgment is that observers of other religions are not “saved” if they do not relate to God as the judger does.
None of which has much to do with faith.
Jesus was killed for standing against the corrupt religious traditions of his time, but He is both the source and the model of Christian faith.
Jesus teaches us to go the first mile to fulfill our obligation to the world and also an extra, second mile to fulfill our obligation to our Heavenly Father. Religions often become obsessed with going the second, visible, mile, but they will rob you blind on the first.
People of real faith are so obsessed with doing well on the first mile that they humbly fear not even getting to the second mile.
The religious are so sure they have God packaged by their own traditions that they feel more than justified in condescending and judging those outside of their traditions. How many people have suffered violence or even been killed in the name of God or at least someone’s idea of what is right?
The faithful are humble. More than that really. They have learned that the more you know God, the further you realize you are from His perfection. That realization will tend to make you humble. They are therefore more likely to be obsessed with loving and forgiving others so that they might enjoy the same in this life and in heaven. They understand that Jesus taught us that we should judge no one before we have perfected loving them.
Are there people of faith within religious organizations? Of course. Are there philosophers? Yes. But how are they regarded? They can be leaders or they can be controversial. It is interesting that they are rarely followers, content to uncritically follow denominational traditions. That role is better tailored to those who don’t think or don’t want to. After all, religion is an exercise in programmed response. It is a compact one enters into in exchange for membership and salvation.
Living the faithful life is much harder than living the religious life. It requires thought and constant introspection and bravery, sometimes even bravery to stand against a religion. It can be lonely. Make no mistake; every walk with God is alone. You have in fact only one constant companion, but He is a good and faithful one. Often you don’t even know He’s there, but you can tell. Everything that is good and beautiful, everything that makes you pray, whether joyous or painful, is from Him. The two men walking to Emmaus after Jesus was killed were thrilled to walk with Him, but they didn’t recognize him. Not until he handed them their meal. That’s when they saw those holes in His hands.
Religious magic just isn’t the same. You can’t say some magic words and then forget about it and be okay, as some religious leaders would tell you. You can’t just put your hands on the TV or pray to Mary or carefully employed saints. You have to get in there and believe that you have a deal just between you and God. You have to be involved. It’s a walk, and a dance. It’s beautiful, and terrible, and it will take your breath away. You won’t find it in a church or a bible study. Its only there if you have first found it in the world.
There are lots of clues, in nature, in Scriptures, in each other. You have to get it from all of those things too, not just one or two. It’s right there in your heart, regardless of whatever religious trappings are hanging around outside of you. The heart of real faith is like heaven. It has many rooms and it will fit many other souls. It will not bend to man-made rules, it only adapts to the Spirit, because only the Spirit knows what to do with it. The heart is the part of us that knows how to give but not take; to hope but not expect. Hope is purest when it is unfettered by expectation. Hope is our purest expression of our faith in God. It can be terrifying, but the heart is strong enough to be terrified and to go on anyway. God gives us grace that way. Grace is God’s purest expression of His faith in us.
So go ahead. Be in a religion, but don’t bet your life on it, much less your soul. Trust God, but test religion. Love others whether they are religious or not, but find ways in the world to walk your walk. God willing, you will find another heart or two willing to make the same walk and take one of those rooms in your heart.
10/09/06 09:49 AM
I know many people in Christendom who go the extra mile. They organize things. They help people. They have fun. All good; all visible; all very much the extra mile. But they pay no attention to the first mile. They cheat their business partners. They ignore or abuse the people closest to them. The extra mile is the main agenda. Because it is visible. It is the mile that defines them to the world. If it is not visible, it just doesn’t matter.
The Christian concept of going the extra mile comes, of course, from the Gospels when Jesus taught us that if one asks you to walk a mile then you should walk two. This teaching refers to a Roman law at the time that if a Roman soldier came to you that you were required by law to carry his possessions for one mile. Jesus said that you should do that to satisfy the Roman law, but that you should go the extra mile as well. It is the same lesson as giving a full measure flowing over, and paying to Caesar what is Caesar’s and paying to God what is God’s.
But he didn’t say to ignore the first mile. Going the second mile for God requires completing the first mile successfully. We have distorted the teaching. We have separated the two miles and claimed the first one for ourselves. We have perverted Jesus’ teaching. As long as we do the second mile, we can use the first mile to serve our own selfish and sinful natures. So Christendom is filled with good and righteous actors who do evil in their private time. And us? We are Pharisees. We do what we do for show, and we think it’s alright because some collateral good comes out of it. It’s not okay though because our hearts are not right, and God weighs hearts.
What in our lives is in the first mile and what is in the second? Loving strangers is wonderful, but what about loving our loved ones? So many of us bend over backwards for our friends and even total strangers and utterly neglect the people who need us most. We volunteer and fill our lives with benevolent busy work, and at the same time make it very clear to our spouses and kids that we are too tired for them or just don’t want to be bothered. It is a great tragedy when those whose very lives are defined by and depend on our love live in isolation. It’s despairing, and it utterly ignores our obligation to “the first mile”. This shouldn’t be. Those people are much more than the ones we should feel obligated to, they are the ones we should most want to love.
We treat those who have nothing charitably, but how do we treat those who have something? Jesus wasn’t a social planner. He didn’t organize social programs to identify the materially needy and focus on them in preference to the materially comfortable. No, he met everyone where they were and loved them with the same firmness and forgiveness and comfort. And he did it all as quietly as possible. He even admonished his beneficiaries to tell no one what they had received. We all need love and comfort and forgiveness. We all need and deserve to be treated fairly and with good will, but this does not happen. We seek out the needy, and that is wonderful. We then help them as publicly as possible, and often short change those who “don’t need us”. That is not so wonderful.
We volunteer, but what about when we seize control to the point that others cannot volunteer? How about not volunteering to allow others to have a chance? The leaders in some churches are, sadly, the best examples of unchristian behavior. Some people become so committed to their causes that even other causes in the same congregation become the “enemy”. Some feel such ownership of their efforts that they won’t even allow input, much less leadership, in their own projects. Christians sadly provide some of the best examples of the worst sins of human nature. Jesus was not a politician, and although he was all-knowing, he was manifestly humble and unassuming. He had an absolute right to holy and righteous indignation, but he was completely patient and forgiving. We have no right to feel all-knowing or holy and yet we feel entitled to be authoritarian, to lord over and judge and condemn our own brothers and sisters for the slightest fault. Jesus was fairly clear about the condemnation for this conceit.
We do charitable things for which we can gain a tax advantage, but what about doing things that are right but for which we gain no material advantage, whether it is a monetary gift or pro bono work? What about when there is nothing in it for us?
We think the first mile is ours. We also think it is invisible. It is neither. We think the defining characteristic of the second mile is that it is visible. That is totally our fabrication. Jesus said to give in secret; to never let the right hand know what the left hand is doing. Maybe the best way we can express fidelity to Jesus’ teaching is to let what we consider our first mile be public and our second mile be private. Although the distinction is artificial and entirely of our own making, what a revelation it would be for our business dealings to be publicly honest and for our charity to be newly private while no less effective.
10/28/05 09:45 AM
For the record, I am Catholic by birth, but a “generic” Christian by belief and tradition. Our pastor spoke in church recently about young people abandoning the Catholic faith. The Pope chastised young people earlier this week about the same thing and warned them against “do it yourself” religion. Our priest issued a warning not to criticize or abandon the Church without even knowing what it is. This certainly rang a familiar note, as I have been discussing this issue with my own daughter as she searches for a true relationship with God.
It is true that there is much about the Catholic Church and Church history that young people do not know. There are, however, many things that they do know about the current state of the Catholic Church as an institution. They know that the Church claims to be the exclusive and infallible oracle of God’s will, but it is not. They know that the Church believes itself to be unaccountable to civil and criminal law, as evidenced in the wake of the ongoing sexual predation scandal, but it is not. They know that the Church claims to have unique insight into the nature of God and that it seeks to define and govern the very private relationship between God and individuals. In that, the Church is in some ways a clear and present danger to the relationship between God and His people. What every person, young or old, should know is that no person or institution should ever stand as an obstacle or intermediary between one’s soul and its Creator.
Every person has a soul, which has a uniquely personal and spiritual relationship to its Creator. That relationship is inviolable but under constant threat. The Catholic Church provides the landscape for my journey, but it is by no means alone as an interloper between God and His people. Through the centuries, all religions have sought to redefine God’s relationship to His people though reinterpretation of canonical teachings and through the ever-growing body of post-scriptural tradition. Jesus himself was killed primarily for standing against the Pharisee’s corruption of the Mosaic Law. Luther’s crime was to stand against the corruption of the medieval Catholic Church. Today all of the major world religions struggle with the tension created by extreme factions who would compel others to relate to God only as they do. Religions are defined by the particular manner in which they relate to God, and it is a defining characteristic, or at least a constant temptation, to be intolerant of other traditions. Intolerance of the sacred relationship between one soul and its God is still intolerance, whether it comes from a religious institution, an “extremist” sect, a government, or anything else.
In this country, the debate over the separation of church and state is based on the fallacy that a church institution, any church institution, could have jurisdiction over God. Everyday, we see extreme, even absurd, examples of this hysteria. I once worked in a hospital that had banned images of the Peanuts character Snoopy as the “Easter Beagle”, on the grounds that this violated the doctrine of separation between church and state. The leadership finally adopted a compromise “Spring Beagle” and modified their decorations accordingly.
Unfortunately, not all such intrusions into our lives are so comical. Legislators have been only too willing to co-opt the issue according to their own political agendas, and the courts have established a veritable “juritocracy” based on this and a few other pet issues. The irony here is rich. Our founding fathers understood much better than us the sanctity of the individual’s relationship with God. What little there is in the Constitution, and more explicitly the evidence in Jeffersonian letters, makes clear that our forefathers primary concern in separating church and state was to protect the private relationship of God with our citizens, not to outlaw it. Greater scholars than myself would argue that the primary concern was not to keep God out of the state, but to keep the state out of our churches and to keep any one Church Institution out of the government.
The goal here was not to keep God out of society, but to allow Him to remain in it, at least for those who seek Him. Instead, we have lost this liberty at many levels, and this simply should not be. Our founding fathers provided for our right to a personal faith, and a right to express that faith without inhibiting the same liberty for others. Instead, we have liberal legal organizations fighting to proscribe any faith but atheism. We have conservative legal forces fighting for our right to relate to God according to their tradition but not others. We have an administration that has incited an unjust, “preemptive” holy war, contriving reasons to do so, bankrupting our country in the process, sharply limiting religious tolerance and civil liberties at home, and alienating nearly the entire planet in the effort.
No, our young people are right to question our institutions. Frankly, we’ve made a dreadful mess of things. We would do well to remember that there is a God. He is the God of Catholics, and Protestants, and Jews, and Muslims, and Hindus, and everyone and everything else, regardless of how our leaders may think they own or define Him. He is what makes us all desire peace and safety for our children and ourselves. He is the one that demands that we “forebear one another”, precisely because we all do have cultural differences. He is the One who reminds us, at least in the Christian scriptural experience, that “there is no Greek or Roman or slave or free” and that “all sin and fall short of the glory of God.” How sad that we are all so much better at judging than forgiving and better at condemning than loving. What we do have going for us is the spirit and the hope that drives our quiet, indomitable, personal relationship with God. We should applaud our kids for trying, for keeping that hope and breaking through the interference of man-made institutions. Hope is our greatest expression of faith in God. Grace is his greatest expression of faith in us, and His grace will sustain us long after our institutions have failed to. As societies, we should just get out of the way of that exchange and get back to the business of respecting liberty and freedom and of protecting each other from ourselves.
