Transformative - Easter, 2018

We love you.   We want you with us.   We will care for you. 

I have often reflected these past years if words were spoken from pure hearts what a change would have occurred. 

Transformational.

What is said?  What is left unsaid?

How we are punished.  How we punish. 

Comfort.  God understands our good words unspoken or gestures withheld.  God understands and cleans our consciences.  We live in hope.

Comfort.  A bit selective about who we call sister or brother.   Color does count, class, neighborhood, bank accounts, friends, political affiliations, education and economics.  All does matter.  We had hoped not.  But in the end.

Comfort.  We withdraw in our comfort, self-righteousness, well-formed beliefs and opinions. 

Missed opportunities. 

Opportunities missed.

I could make you.   I could have made you.

I could break you.  I broke you.

Easily.

Yet, not into the regret.

Missed opportunities to be an instrument of the good transformative words.

Absolution.

Please.

Never so easily obtained or sought.

Our chance now. 

Ever.

A change of our hearts to help change other’s hearts. 

Transforms. 

What power He left us to transform.  To be.  To help others.

Transforming in the good and out of the darkness. 

Decisions? 

Each breath we take.

Each encounter.

All transforming. 

All about an empty tomb.   Easter-tide.    All of life transformed and we continue on within untiring hope

Enough?

Easter

Yes, Lord.

God Bless. 

Forgiveness

  

The more broken I see individual relationships and our world, I see how radical forgiveness can be.  What if a person would be known and recognized as one who forgives?   I am not sure if I know ten people who could take some well-deserved pride in having gained that reputation.   Maybe I just have the wrong friends?  I hope your number of forgivers is greater.

I was once told by a sophomore that the idea of forgiveness was one of the dumbest ideas he heard. He asked me if it was just another strict rule I made up for the school.  I told him it was Jesus’ idea.  He paused.  Turned. Looked at me and said, “Still dumb.”  I don’t think he was offering a minority opinion. 

I have come to believe that if one cannot forgive, then love is nearly impossible

It has taken me so very long to forgive folks who really harmed me.  I have forgiven them, mostly. I am not looking for a reward for that, but it was, in the end, a rewarding experience.  I had to work on it.  Really work. It did not come overnight.  Pius words and actions seemed empty when I was hating.  The process of forgiveness kept me up late into the night with a struggle I thought would never end.    

I am sure I’m not unique and others must be doing the same mental work. Trying to forgive those who helped wound you intentionally or unintentionally, is so very difficult.   

And we are not God.  Only God is perfect.  My forgiving of others as commanded by Jesus is not perfect.  Will never be.   Yet, to turn my back on the process is not an option.  Not possible if one wants to stay in His Company.  To be counted.  Be identified.  To be worthy of discipleship. 

I was very taken by the words of Precious Blood Fr. David Kelly, the executive director of Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation located in Chicago. 

Fr. Kelly:  When we are able to see beyond the sinful act, to a person worthy of love, we make room for the possibility of forgiveness.  We need only to recall the life of Nelson Mandela who, perhaps more than anyone in modern times, demonstrated the power of forgiveness. His willingness to see beyond the sin allowed South Africa to begin to move away from the destructive path of apartheid to one in which reconciliation become imaginable.  Poet Maya Angelou remarked of Mandela that his willingness to forgive allowed him truly to be free. 

Of course, there is a risk of being open to forgiveness.  It is not an easy option, nor one that can be demanded of anyone other than oneself. But if is a path that leads to freedom, and, ultimately, a gift from God.  

Forgiveness is not a natural state of our being.   Self-preservation is the natural state.

And Christians are stuck with the 7 X 70 teaching.  Rule?  Measure?

Doing the math I figured about a half dozen years ago, I had met the goal. 

Freedom to be a hater was mine.   I found so much company in this group. 

Haters united. 

It all got pretty negative and largely unhealthy. 

Then I stumbled on a secret. 

Only when one forgives, will he or she truly be free.  No freedom until then. 

Some might find that forgiving is too often a one-way street.  I have.  Yet, because one is caught at the stop sign of non-forgiveness it need not control us. 

We can walk past it.

We can invite others too if they are ready. 

They might be interested. 

We can model. 

Forgiveness might be intriguing to others or they may simply decide you are delusional.  Better to hold on to bitterness, hurts, anger and unhealed wounds?  Is it? 

No.

Not to go overboard and suggest something no one of this world could relate to or find do-able, a caution.   As our love cannot be perfect, the same can be said of our forgiveness.  There are folks I hold no evil in my heart for any longer, but I don’t want to be in the same room with them.   Too often I think I am judging what I deem as their hypocrisy.  So as I pray I am wrong and I pray for them, I ask God to forgive me.  If I am right, then I pray too for their conversion and that they do not harm others as I believe they have harmed me and others.  A tall order, I know. 

  

A nun wrote me a few years ago.  She had been one of my professors in Graduate school. She reminded me that life was short and what I made of it in these next years was up to me.  I thought she was so wrong on a whole bunch of levels. She added to her message that if I could forgive, then love would re-enter my heart and I would have used this life as a good place to have prepared for the next life. 

  

This woman had more degrees than I could count and was not only a distinguished professor but also a widely read author.  She only wrote me the one time.   She ended her advice to me: 'there is no other measure that makes any difference in the end except forgiveness which frees us to love.' 

I know that now.  Who better to have modeled that for us than Jesus?  And it cost him.  Many will remember that these Lenten days.  We know the end of Jesus’ story. 

The lifelong challenge is to forgive over and over and over.  If so, we will know the ending of our story. 

God Bless

Black and White

  

I am writing this on the day Alabama is voting for their new Senator.  How it will turn out is today’s million dollar question.  As I write, it is early in the day.   I don’t know the results and that is the reason I chose to write now. 

I sent an email to a friend this morning, writing that I hoped the outcome of the election in Alabama would not give us pause in this great country, to hang our heads in shame.   Now, too often our new behavior. 

The Paris Climate Agreement regarding the environment.   

DACA

The tensions with North Korea

The slow recovery for devastated Puerto Rico., USA

( a short list)

I suspect that the divisions in the U.S. are not all that different than in the past.   What seems to be an unprecedented change is that the news media is at our fingertip’s 24-7.  So much information.

The news. 

It is often disturbing and even scary.  Yet, enlightening and so formative at times, too. 

Scared?   Why?

 Our Union was based on the hope that we would have the ability to dialogue with one another and find  'best practices solutions.'

What has happened?

Have we fallen into a pattern where self-interest is our major motivator?  Only?   Can we continue in this manner and be about “the good” for all? 

Is the golden rule set aside?

I was thinking of little Oliver Twist singing in the musical his song:   Where is love? 

  

Where DID it go? 

In our society where is love?  Abundant love?

 Watch the 5:30 national news.  Hard to find. 

In Churches?  Hum, I will side-step. 

Families?   I listened to two radio shows (not surprisingly on NPR) advising people how to survive Thanksgiving dinners with family.  Survive? 

Our workplaces?  Does anyone know anyone who does not feel overworked? 

Our institutions?  Fighting to survive and drowning in the competitive spirit. ‘

American professional sports programs.  Our pastime.     The costs?  The salaries?  The injuries?

Hot or Cold?  That is the principled way to live.

Right? 

He or she who talks about basic values is shunned because they are not standing in the ‘real world.’

Who created this real world anyway?  Who perpetuates it?

I used to tell my congregants from time-to-time that if they walked out of the Church on Sunday the exact same way they came, they had wasted their time.   Mine, too.

The questions….

Had the words challenged them, given an insight into how they might live or see differently?  Did it change them?  Could they name for themselves how? 

Were they comforted at the sacrificial table?  Nourished?  Filled with the sense of being a worshiping person.  Part of a community?

The ‘real world’ now altered? 

We are brothers and sisters because of the ONE who made us.

Must it always be black or white so that someone wins?  Believes they won. 

Someone must lose? 

Mutuality won’t happen if our egos remain so out of control.  Can’t.

To walk humbly together.  So little of that walk being modeled today.

Too often folks are out of control unapologetically.  Not a recipe for the good.  It just isn’t.

Gray is not always bad. A playing field to be gathered and find the common good needs to be reconsidered. 

So very much depends on it.  So much.  Maybe everything. If not now, then…

…

God Bless.  

AND:  Slainte!   Erin Go Bragh!  

Percentages

I often think in terms of percentages.  I know that outside of the strictly mathematical world, they are easily manipulated. 

I can’t help it. I think they are intriguing. 

Often they are used to justify a position.   The wrong or the right of a position in percentages.

I doubt there really is a 100% obtainable mark outside the mathematical discipline. 

It seems that percentages along with rank often define us.

For years I distributed report cards to students.  Things had changed from the days when I was at the receiving end of a report card. In my day you were ranked within your class.  Someone was first and someone was last.  I received neither of those distinctions.   At least I was able to stay in the top percent. 

Did it mean anything?

Damn right it did in those days.

By the time I was distributing report cards we had removed rank, although many colleges would demand that information from our schools. 

No, we simply went with GPA.  The students would often go and figure out for themselves who were the top folks.  Well, it was usually the exclusive practice of the top students. 

The middle students were in the middle of…...  The bottom people would experience extra work periods and tutors or other restrictions.

I am not as inclined to rank people by percentage any longer.  No need. 

 Never liked the practice.

Yet I still find percentages, telling.

How many 20 somethings attend mass on Sunday?

How many folks live beneath the national poverty level?

What percentage of folk’s value honesty?  How many would harm another?

 Others?

I usually like to believe that the larger percentage are about the good.

I still believe that.

However, I have learned that the percentage of folks who are with few morals or are concerned for others is not as large as I had believed. 

There can be a very thin line.

Those who are less than moral, I would like to believe they are in the minority.  

A professional friend whom I well respect wrote that:  People are selfish and judgmental.

Rule of thumb? 

What percentage? 

Do we need to figure this out with one woman and man at a time? 

Life would be too short to not provide the tools. 

And can’t we be duped?    I sure have been. And add options like lied to, 

maligned, dehumanized, disrespected and persecuted.  NO reason to stop there, but you get the point.

“It is usually about money, sex or power,” another wise person shared when I asked what he believed was beneath evil.  He was reflecting on his many years serving in a courtroom.  His words haunt me to this day.

Trust.  Foolish? Tempting to throw in the towel there and be done with the percentages of good people. 

I had one person almost totally destroy my life.  One person.

Now I am thinking in terms of percentages again 

In all my many years of life, I can only think of a very few people who have acted that way. 

I literally have interacted with thousands of people in my life as an educator and minister. 

When I was first accused of acting inappropriately I was told that given my record of ministry with the young for 30 years, there would most likely be 10 to 15 more who would come forward.  I was told not to worry, each accuser would be carefully investigated. 

Comfort there.  Right?

After 8 months of near sleepless nights, I realized that this was most likely not going to occur.  No slaps on the back though. 

Percentages. 

Seems 1 or 2 percent were set to destroy me for some good?  Never established.

 

But again back to percentages.  I knew a lot of people. 

So I am not sure what I believe about the majority of people who inhabit this earth.

What is the good percentage? 

Some days I think I get closer to that answer.

 

I believe it is the percentage of people working to selflessly lift the broken and vulnerable, even if that means one must die to self.

The percentage of buy-in looks not too bad to me.  Could it be better?

Of course. 

The solution:  Model the good and live by it.  All other spirits are not of God or life-giving. 

Will it make you vulnerable?  Of course.  All good folks are.   But if we help to grow and be part of the percentage who lift up and heal, we share the Creators life and become life itself with our God.

God bless. 

Listening to understand…

 

To understand.   To stand under and dissect.  One will see clearly.  More clearly. Act with integrity.

There is so much I do not understand. 

All issues surrounding Transgender people.  I am not against it or for it, and I am not sure what the “it” actually is. I am trying to understand and will continue to try.  Bottom line:  I don’t understand.

I don’t get isolationism.  We all breathe the same air, drink the same water, plant on the same earth and need to be safe to thrive.   I don’t understand how that escapes us. 

I don’t get paying for building walls.  To wall in or out?  I don’t understand. 

I don’t get paying people to not plant crops in order to balance the marketplace, while children die from hunger.  I don’t understand.

I don’t fathom how Catholics march up to the front of the Church on Sunday to receive communion while supporting capital punishment measures.  Catholics?  I don’t understand.

Why would we dehumanize woman from whom we all came?  Mothers.  A woman made in the image and likeness of the Creator.  Co-creators.  I don’t understand how one could even consider depriving them of dignity. 

In a society that claims to be inclusive and egalitarian, I don’t understand what happened.  Happens. 

A new legalism has made us the most litigious nation on earth.  It is more than horrific.  I don’t understand.

What of holy women and men and those not so holy who have abused the most vulnerable?   I don’t understand why they act in a manner to cause harm. 

I can’t figure why so many seek vengeance as their retribution for perceived or real harm?   To what good.  I simply cannot understand. 

Why can the ill-informed and ignorant be enthroned, elected and esteemed? 

I won’t understand. 

Meaningless words?  I don’t understand why spoken or heeded. 

Brother vs. brother?   Sister vs. sister?  

War.  Arms buildup.  Ethnocentrism.   I don’t get it. 

Taking another’s name in gossip, through malice, for public defamation, to humiliate and expose, has become the norm in the ‘techy’ age.  

I can’t figure justice be damned.   Justice for you and mercy for me.  I fear I understand. 

Seems that unless we listen and are open to seeking to understand together we are at a dead end.

I had a friend who used to say, “I don’t mind pointing out other people’s inconsistencies, but I have become pretty comfortable with my own.”

I wonder if I have, too. You?

Either, OR? 

When I was a young teacher in Montana I had an early lesson which I have always pondered.

A young woman dropped a worksheet of paper and it slid under the desk of the boy sitting across from her.  He glanced down and did nothing to retrieve it for her.  I said, “Pick that up please,” and went on with my presentation. Twenty seconds or so with eyes squinted trying to ponder his reluctance to give her the paper I asked, “Why are you not handing her back the paper?”

The room became quiet.  Everyone was looking at him.   He spoke up so all could hear.

“She is a Crow.” 

The classroom had Cheyenne and Crow students.  They were often not friendly with one another.  The Cheyenne’s fought Custer and the Crows fought with him at the Last Stand.

Today when I am confronted or thinking about things I don’t understand I say to myself:  she is a Crow.

Some reason to not act?  Very weak.   Very. 

We need to listen and learn and then act on the good in our own small way or in a big way. 

We need to be willing to pick up the fallen paper from the floor and hand it back to the Crow.

Listening?

Understanding?

Acting?

God Bless.