Love 'Em All

 

Just how radical were Moses, Jesus, Paul, and James? Summary: love God, love neighbors, love enemies. I guess that means that regardless of my present political preferences, if I am faithful I am to love my MAGA neighbors and love my BLM neighbors. I must confess I am still figuring out how to do this beyond being polite and respectful, especially for those who seem so angry from a distance. If loving someone you view as an enemy, or who you think views you as an enemy, bothers you, check out this inventory from Hebrew Scripture, Epistles, and especially Gospels.

Leviticus 19:18

Matthew 5:43-44; 19:19; 22:37-39

Mark 12:31

Romans 12:14,20

Galatians 5:14

James 2:8

No Gloating

Jerry Falwell, Jr. and I are different theological and political brands, but I take no joy in his current embarrassment, rather I lament. Nor do I chock it up to “conservative” hypocrisy any more than I blame “liberal” license for the misconduct of others. I must guard my own vulnerabilities. I do not know (and probably do not want to know) the whole story behind the picture that cost him his position of leadership. Perhaps poor judgment to post a picture of some silliness that was wrongly presumed to be innocent. Perhaps the proverbial tip of the iceberg of much deeper issues. I personally carry scars from the wounds of sexual, financial, and power misconduct of some I have respected and trusted, even clergy colleagues and friends. These sorts of things damage the credibility of all who are known to claim to follow Jesus and all who are entrusted with public leadership. A dramatic, tearful confession (reminiscent of Jimmy Swaggart) will not suffice - only fruit worthy of repentance (Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:8). I just can’t resist adding as an aside that is what I expect but have not observed from how Bill Clinton and Donald Trump handled their sexual misconduct/marital infidelity. Yes, these sorts of things prompt the cynical question: how can we know who can be trusted? Perhaps more to the point: how can I cultivate being a trustworthy person? I dare not gloat nor strut any posture of moral superiority.

Why Beauty?

This is my journal entry from July 31, 2020.

Following my afternoon walks, I am sitting on the porch sipping tea and crunching a couple of cookies, just enjoying sun and clouds with a gentle breeze at 77 degrees, I’ve been watching the sparrows come and go at the feeder, remembering the sapphire blue hummingbird at that feeder from Wednesday. I’ve gotten to identify three individual sparrowns: Neck with no feathers on the back of her skinny neck, Tail who has a prominent tail feather about an inch below most of her tail, and Wing who has a feather sticking out below the shoulder of his right wing. Knowing that birds molt, I don’t know how long I will be able to recognize these distinctives. 

Also noticing lots of brightly colored flowers and very green grass and tree leaves against the blue sky in our well kept neighborhood.

All of this reverie has me pondering a question that has flitted through my mind over the years. Why is there beauty?

I know philosophers and a wide variety of theologians (not just from Judeo-Christians traditions) have explored things like beauty, truth, and love. I have neither the intention nor the ability for chasing down those rabbit holes. Nor do I think I have anything to add. I am just following the whims of my reflections on a pleasant mid-summer afternoon.

My recollection of my reflections on this question in years past is that beauty is a sign of some sorts of intelligent design - a God who enjoys beauty and creating beauty. When I say intelligent design I am not at all thinking about young earth proponents or evolution opponents in some Christian circles. In fact, I find those perspectives mar the wonder of beauty.

Yes, culture and context contribute to the defining and understanding of what is beautiful. And those constructs change with time even in a single culture. 

Male appreciation of female beauty (not wanting to get into LBGTQ issues here, so just take this as an older, hetrosexual male in middle class US in the late 20th and early 21st centuries). I just want to explore a bit of the impact of culture on understanding beauty. Well proportioned women with prominent but not excessively large breasts, round hips, tapering to round but not protruding belly, soft (long?) hair, smooth skin, high cheekbones. And so something from the context in which I came of age. I do have memories of the bullet bras of the 40s that have given way to more natural curves. The super skinny of the 20s flappers (and some models yet) have given way to a more healthy “real” proportions. Drawing on other cultures and times, rounded bellies were signs of fecundity that were considered desirable. The Song of Solomon uses some imagery that amuse us today, but I don’t think they were funny to them.

Another example in a different direction is how forests were viewed by the early settlers from Europe in the “new world.” We see them  as places of  exquisite beauty and wonder, but those early European settlers saw the forests as threatening in terms of both wild animals and native populations, and even spiritual menace (witness, for example, the Jersey Devil and other similar legends).

In the Mosaic Law, the cities were considered safe because people were around to come to your aid if needed, while rural roads were dangerous where thieves might attack (for example, in Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan). But we tend to see rural  areas and small towns as safer than cities and urban neighborhoods. 

In my previous reflections on beauty, I posited that color is not essential to the functioning of the universe or this earth, nor are the myriads of shapes of living things. We could have had a functional black and white world and universe with shades of gray and everything in simple, functional geometric shapes. But of course, we don’t, so colors mean much more than their functions. Somehow delight radiates. As Genesis says, God saw that it was good - meaning, I believe, much more than “it works.”

So I am speculating that something about God loves and enjoys beauty, both creating it and beholding it. I don’t intend to be anthropomorphic but only to suggest that beauty is somehow intrinsic to the nature or character of God. Alongside love, which seems even more essential both biblically and from a wide range of contemplative traditions.

Do any of the creatures other than humans recognize and appreciate beauty? I am not suggesting I have any insight into that, but some animals certainly seem to enjoy play. We see that in our pets: dogs and cats. Otters and seals seem to frolic as do sea mammals - whales and porpoises. I’ve heard that horses enjoy running. Is having fun and enjoying play the same as or akin to beauty? Thus, conjecturing that the nature of God is expressed in the beauty of creation (the whole universe, not just our human observation of our earth, sea, and sky.)

Yet clearly we humans consider the observation and appreciation (even artistry and creation of) beauty as essential to our human identity and experience, even though we vary in how we understand and identify beauty from time to time and culture to culture. Theologically, is this an expression of being made in the image of God? Is not beauty a link for humans to the divine, to God?

An Anguished Heart Yearns to Fly Away

I am certainly not the only one who has noted that we are on the cusp of the most vicious US presidential election of our lifetime and anticipate that whatever the outcome, the validity of the election will be challenged and even dismissed. With my priority being on caring for my wife Candy with her Alzheimer’s and her 93 year old Dad, I have intentionally tried to avoid being drawn into the fray. Even though we watch no TV news and do not take a newspaper, I do try to stay informed by accessing a selected balance of news sources on line (please don’t try to vet my selections, I do even sample those well-known for “fake news” to understand their perspectives), I am acutely aware of the multiple tangled threads of turmoil in our country. I am also acutely aware of not just differences of opinions among family, friends, colleagues – people I know, love, trusted, whose faith in Jesus is unquestionable – that go way beyond political disagreements to radically contradictory perceptions of reality. In my prayer Psalms this morning, I resonated with these lines from Psalm 55:4-8, 12-14 and found they gave me a way to articulate to God the present anguish of my heart.

My heart is in anguish within me, the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. And I say, “O that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; truly, I would flee far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; I would hurry to find a shelter for myself from the raging wind and tempest.”

It is not enemies who taunt me— I could bear that; it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me— I could hide from them. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, with whom I kept pleasant company; we walked in the house of God with the throng.

The Darkness Shall Turn to Dawning

My lauds hymn this morning is My Life Flows On. I have to confess that in 2020 I have had a hard time hearing “the clear though far off hymn that hails a new creation.” However, as the calls for justice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder have persisted and seem to be awakening some openness to addressing deeply engrained violent injustice, I think I am finding “an echo in my soul.”

As I was showering this morning, knowing I would be singing My Life Flows On, I heard the echo of the refrain of We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations from my childhood.

For the darkness shall turn to dawning,
and the dawning to noonday bright;
and Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth,
the kingdom of love and light.

I looked it up and found the verses speaking powerfully to our present situation in ways I was completely unaware of when I was growing up. So I share them here as an affirmation of the call for the justice of the Kingdom of God springing from the soil of the beginning of my journey with Jesus.

We've a story to tell to the nations,
that shall turn their hearts to the right,
a story of truth and mercy,
a story of peace and light,
a story of peace and light.

(Refrain)

2. We've a song to be sung to the nations,
that shall lift their hearts to the Lord,
a song that shall conquer evil
and shatter the spear and sword,
and shatter the spear and sword.
(Refrain)

3. We've a message to give to the nations,
that the Lord who reigneth above
hath sent us his Son to save us,
and show us that God is love,
and show us that God is love.
(Refrain)

4. We've a Savior to show to the nations,
who the path of sorrow hath trod,
that all of the world's great peoples
might come to the truth of God,
might come to the truth of God.

(Refrain)

Confessing the Sins of History

In light of the variety of things prompting a reexamination of US history, these lines from the Hebrew Scriptures seem to speak significantly. I understand that they each come from a time and context quite different from our own, and I am not trying to directly connect those specifics with our specifics but only suggest a biblically appropriate historical retrospective that offers hope for a more constructive future. For sure, in no way is the US equivalent to ancient Israel, but it seems to me that the People of the Book have an opportunity to point in a healthy, counter-cultural direction in our time.

Psalm 106:6

Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.

Psalm 79:8

Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors; let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low.

Ezra 10:1

While Ezra prayed and made confession, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a very great assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him out of Israel; the people also wept bitterly.

Nehemiah 1.6:

Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Both I and my family have sinned.

Daniel 9:3-5

I turned to the Lord God, to seek an answer by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “Ah, Lord, great and awesome God, keeping covenant and steadfast love with those who love you and keep your commandments, we have sinned.

Obvious/Apparent Discrepancies

This week my lectio divina includes the raising of the leader’s daughter (he isn’t identified as Jairus here and some manuscripts don’t even say he was a synagogue leader) and the healing of the woman with the hemorrhage in Matthew 9:18-26. Matthew’s version is much more compact than Mark 5:22-43 and Luke 8:41-56.  (This is not recorded in John’s Gospel, no surprise there.) Starting out with curiosity, I have been looking at all three versions of this story. The more I looked, the more aware I became of the inconsistencies between them. (You can make your own inventory.) I have to say that I am not particularly interested in compressing them in an attempt to make a single, harmonious narrative, nor am I interested in explaining away the obvious/apparent discrepancies. This observation does not at all undermine my confidence in the Gospel accounts. Rather, I am fascinated by each Gospel’s perspective and pondering each writer’s focus. But even deeper, I am finding that by, as it were, staring unswervingly into the spaces between these accounts I am relishing and exploring mystery beyond my rational capabilities.

For me, gazing into the spaces between the juxtaposed variations in these three accounts of the same event is something akin to an Eastern Orthodox icon. Not a picture to look at, but a window to look through to be encountered by a spiritual reality beyond that may be more mysterious than may be amenable to being reduced to human language. The drive to make all of the details match seems to me to be a very Western, post-Enlightenment elevation of human rationalism that is inadequate for encountering the full scope of reality or being encountered by the numinous.