Like so many people I’ve been talking to these past two weeks, I am a complete Olympics junkie. You can only guess what has been occupying most of my nights for the past two weeks. For me, though, the experience of this year’s Olympic Summer Games has been missing something, and I struggled early on to figure out what it was.
And then I realized one night, the day after Usain Bolt’s amazing win in the men’s 100 meter race, that his medal ceremony was the very first time all week that I had heard a national anthem for a country other than the U.S. or Great Britain. “The Jamaican National Anthem,” I cried with glee. And suddenly, I knew what I was missing.
When Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the modern Olympic games, he did so with an understanding that nations that meet in battle on the sporting field would develop relationships with one another than might make them less likely to meet in battle in war. Athletes are sent representing their country of origin and asked to be in community with their colleagues from all over the world. Spectators are afforded the chance to marvel when people from other nations excel at their sports.
The world sat transfixed as Usain Bolt ran at these Olympics. It mattered very little whether one was Jamaican or not—his speed and ability were worthy of admiration. Similarly, I imagine people all over the world looking on in wonder as Gabby Douglas flew above the uneven parallel bars or as Rebecca Soni set a world record (and then broke it again the next day).
And while the United States did win a whole lot of medals at these games, the “Star Spangled Banner” was not the only anthem to be played in London. It was marvelous to see Usain Bolt singing along to “Jamaica, Land We Love.” I would have loved to see some others. Kazakhstan’s for example (did you know it was played six times at these Olympics?)—a web search for their anthem turns up the fake one from “Borat” more easily than their actual national song.
Maybe, just maybe, we could have learned something about these amazing athletes and the countries they call home, too. What was it like being the first women representing Saudi Arabia? We missed a golden chance to interview the two people who could have answered that question. How do the people of Malaysia feel about winning a diving medal for the very first time? Or the people of Grenada about their nation’s first medal ever?
Maybe we could have found out how the wars our own nation has fought for the past decade in Afghanistan and Iraq have changed the lives of the athletes from those nations. Or learned from Japanese athletes about their country’s recovery from natural and nuclear disaster. Perhaps we could have developed some compassion for athletes from places where poverty and disease run rampant, where many people don’t know the source of their next meal, or simply where millions of dollars are not available for athletic training programs.
“Do you remember when Jim McKay did the coverage and they used to do a piece about an athlete from another country and something about the place they lived? It was a great way to learn about the world,” my friend Patricia wrote on my Facebook wall this week.
Yes, Patricia, it was a great way to learn about the world. It was a great way to break down the divisions we humans put up so often. It was a great way to cross the borders of difference and understanding. It was a great way to move us one step closer to the Olympic ideal of world peace, where nationalism is reserved for silly games and not war.
For several weeks now, I have been walking around my garden first thing each morning, ignoring its beautiful blooms, walking by the vine ready vegetables and herbs, with one thing on my mind. Murder.
Yes, it’s those Japanese beetles that have me seeing with such tunnel vision. I walk around with a bucket of soapy water in my left hand, a plastic lid from a quart of yogurt in my right hand, and seek to knock the little bugs into the soapy water. When I’m lucky, three or four of them are cavorting on one leaf and I can get them all in at once. Most days I end up with around 20 or 30 of them writhing in the suds.
It is a little scary to find this ruthless side of myself, taking delight in the death of other beings. Well, not delight exactly…but, yeh, joy. I want them dead. I want them gone. Every last one of them. I WANT THEM OFF MY GREEN BEANS!
Someone told me—erroneously, as far as I can see, that the stench from the dead bugs, if they are left sitting in the yard, discourages more of these beetles from coming into the garden. So not only am I constantly murdering these little bugs, I am then leaving them to make a kind of dead bug sun tea, sitting on my little meditation bench right by my three foot garden statue of Kwan Yin, the Buddhist Boddhisatva of compassion. I imagine that Kwan Yin is not delighted with my behavior, but suspect she has seen much worse.
It’s funny how we all –well, most of us anyway–make peace with the violence in our lives. For the most part, I eat meat that’s local, organic and where the animal had a good quality of life…does that make the violence any less when the animals’ lives are taken? I use all kinds of leather products without a bit of guilt, but would never consider a fur coat or hat.
And, aside from the damage of those chewed up leaves, and the stench of that sun tea, my garden is a place of joy, beauty, and sustenance, not only for me but for many neighbors who walk or drive by just to savor it. After I’ve done my murder detail, I relax and weed, harvest, and take delight in the color, texture, and life that makes a garden.
In the garden, in my house, in my car, I have no illusions that all of my contributions to the planet bring peace and love for all. With my behavior towards the Japanese beetles, I can’t say this keeps me up at night (though I do wish the beetles had a different name. A name which is also a human nationality makes me think of people who are Japanese, and I hope that I am not somehow participating in hurtful behavior towards them by using the name Japanese beetle, but it’s the only name I know!)
I’m keeping a quiet tally in pretty much every area of my life—I drive a hybrid car so I can feel good about using less gas (as I drive pretty much anywhere I feel like going, whenever I feel like going). I have central air conditioning, but I only use it when it’s going to be over 90. I mostly shop at thrift stores (for whatever on earth I feel like consumingI) I am constantly balancing. Bargaining, balancing, tallying, and always wondering what the score really is that measures what I am contributing to the planet.
I remember a New Yorker cartoon from some years ago. Two men are in a very fancy restaurant, in suits. One says, “I do a lot of pro bono work to make up for all of the anti bono work that I do.” And for some reason, I feel better when I remember the movie made a few years ago about Al Gore, back when he was traveling around warning all of us about global climate change. As compelling as his talks were, as frightening as his predictions were, there he was boarding plane after plane, being driven around in giant cars, guzzling up the world’s resources to tell us. There he was.
And here we are! As I make my way, seeking to find balance in an imbalanced world, I am grateful for friends who accept me just as I am, and who remind me to have a sense of humor about myself. Yes, I only bank at a local credit union with great politics, but I never turn down a Diet Coke. Sure, I try to live from a place of love, but I can be right there for whining or for gossip. And while spiritual community means the world to me, don’t take away my computer solitaire!
Good luck to you, my fellow earthlings seeking balance. May our care and respect for one another, even in our deep inconsistency and imperfection, keep us ever seeking the path where we can find more life together as a people on this beautiful and fragile planet!
This past Sunday’s horrific shooting at the Oak Creek Sikh Temple just outside Milwaukee is more than just news headlines to Unitarian Universalists. It took place just a week after the four-year anniversary of an unnervingly similar crime, the killing of two and wounding of seven on July 27, 2008 at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church by a lone gunman whose perception of reality was warped by hate.
There is much we may never know about Wade Michael Page, the apparent gunman in the Oak Creek shootings, as he was among the dead in the violence he unleashed (apparently by his own hand after being wounded in a shootout with police). Why did he do what he did? Why did he choose that site for this awful deed? We do know that Page apparently participated for years in the so-called “hatecore” music scene, playing in a band called End Apathy that spouted a violent white-supremacist message. Like Adkisson, he imbibed a fearful message of suspicion and denigration of others; like Adkisson, Page’s life appeared to be spiraling into a frightening maelstrom of frustration, discouragement, and despair — none of which justifies their dreadful acts, of course, but once again we see a life unraveling into monstrous violence. Could any compassionate intervention have saved these deeply troubled men from themselves? We will probably never know, yet the question haunts.
Sikhism, not well known in the United States, in many ways embodies a polar opposite of the evil rage that assaulted our sisters and brothers in Oak Creek: it teaches compassion, the equality of women and men and indeed of all people, and emphasizes social justice and activism. Perhaps those of us who embrace Unitarian Universalism should reach out to the Sikh community not only with compassion for what they have endured, but because we might find ourselves allies with common goals.
It’s trite to point out how so many of the world’s religions point toward the universality of love and compassion; equally tiresome are the clichés about how religion divides us and creates enmity, from the Crusades of old to the conflicts of modern times: partition in south Asia following Indian independence, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Northern Ireland, et cetera, et al., ad nauseam. These observations are overused because they both contain truths, and they are wearisome because neither of these simplistic sets of perspectives really helps us identify the ways in which we can be authentically religious and also lead constructive lives dedicated to progress, fairness and decency. Likewise, though our love of justice demands that we condemn these deranged acts of violence, that is never enough. Indeed, everything feels inadequate in response to something like the horrors that unfolded at Oak Creek and Knoxville.
So what can we do?
We can form and sustain alliances with other religious peoples and work together toward common constructive goals.
If we know an individual whose life appears to be plummeting toward destruction and self-destruction, we can try to offer support and point him or her toward help.
In a world full of suspicion, meanness and violence, we can try to live each day with compassion, patience, knowledge and open-mindedness.
No, it won’t bring back those who died in Oak Creek or Knoxville, or anywhere else that hate has left its deadly mark. But it is something.
I have had to tear myself away from my television to write this post. After all, the gold medal match in women’s doubles table tennis is on, and I hate to miss it. That may sound tongue-in-cheek, but I’m serious. In the past 10 days I have been consumed by the Olympics. While others criticize the strangle-hold NBC has on the games, I’ve enjoyed watching wrestling on my phone, sailing on my computer, and all manner of racquet sports on the various cable television outlets.
While I consider myself somewhat athletic, or at least active, I’ve been wondering why I’m so consumed by the “Games of the XXX Olympiad.” Yes, I watched the Olympics as a kid, and every four years they catch my attention. And I enjoy watching sports on television as much as the next person. But my experience of the Games is qualitatively different this year.
Like most, I’m drawn by the amazing achievement and ability of the athletes. The things they can do with their bodies, as well as their minds, is truly astounding. And the competition itself is compelling. Watching an individual or team progress from the early rounds to trying for a gold medal, we’re drawn into the battle ourselves. And while sometimes the “back story” that the network tells us about the athletes feels forced or rehearsed, there is genuine human drama involved in each stroke of the oar and each smash of the shuttlecock. I also enjoy the complete surprises, the “no-name” athletes from small countries who shock us with spectacular performances and unexpected victories.
But beyond all of this, what has captivated me this year as it never has in the past, is the pursuit, and sometimes realization, of human potential that Olympic competition represents. One of the sponsors of the broadcast runs a commercial showing the swimmer, Ryan Lochte, swimming across an ocean. His voice-over says that dreaming did not get him to the Olympics. That imagination didn’t get him there. That hope didn’t get him there. “I had to swim there,” he tells us. It was, he says, simply hard work that got him to the Olympics. And I think that’s the most egregious misrepresentation of what it takes to excel at athletics and, for that matter, any human endeavor.
Work without dreaming is drudgery. Work without hope is slavery. To toil without imagination is to repeat by rote, wearing down a rut that eventually will become a grave. It is imagination, dreams, and hopes that fuel our efforts, that inspire our achievements. And what has inspired me during these Olympics are the dreams of these athletes, along with their commitment to pursue them.
I watched a young American table tennis player named Ariel Hsing progress through the early rounds of the singles tournament. At age 16, Ariel was playing on the world’s biggest stage. We were told that, at the age of 8, Ariel dreamed of playing ping pong at the Olympics, that she wrote that dream down on a piece of paper that she kept in a box in her room. And there she was. She eventually lost to the number two seed in the tournament, but her dream had become a reality.
And as I watched Ariel I wondered what my life might have been, had I had such a dream and had I pursued it with such dogged determination from such a young age? Or what any of our lives might have been had we done so? And then I realized that we needn’t ask that question in the past-tense, like only our youthful dreaming matters. Each day, as long as we’re still breathing, we have the chance to dream, to imagine, to hope. And each day we have the chance to work to make that dream a reality.
What is your dream for yourself? What do you imagine doing, or being, or becoming? What is your hope for the future? How and when will you (and will I) start the work of making them a reality?
I think August is the midlife crisis month of every year. At least here in Minnesota, this is the time when things I haven’t done begin to loom around the edges, saying, “If not now, when!?” It’s hot and sticky here, but the days are getting shorter, and we all know where we’re heading. Mortality calls us by name.
I was driving down the street yesterday and saw a treehouse. Not a fancy treehouse, not an amazing treehouse, just a pretty basic backyard maple tree treehouse. To my shock, upon seeing it, I burst into tears. Happily, I was alone, and not in heavy traffic, so I could pull over and get my bearings.
As I cried, what was running through my head was that it was suddenly, inarguably, completely and utterly clear that I would never be building my own kid that treehouse she once wanted. She is 16 now, breezing by occasionally in between the events in her complex social calendar. If I built her the fanciest, most spectacular treehouse on the planet, she would glance out the window, say, “Thanks!” and continue on her own way.
It’s not that she begged for a treehouse when she was younger, or even particularly wanted one. It’s not that I didn’t give her other cool things, or experiences. It’s that the window has closed on that possibility, and on the whole Mom-as-center-of-desire-fulfillment stage of her life. Don’t get me wrong: It’s not that she doesn’t cozy up like a toddler when she wants something, usually money or permission to do something. But in her life’s soundtrack, I am mostly the background music now, not very often the plot or the dialogue.
I know that’s just as it should be, and still I sat by the side of the road and had a moment. A moment of grief and loss, a moment of clarity that it is time for me to redefine my own life, refocus my own days. Then, as I pulled myself together, a sense that there is some joy and excitement in that refocus. The regrets are real, but the pull of life’s new possibility is much stronger.
Regrets come to me in surprising way. One morning, stacking dishes into the dishwasher, I ached with regret that I had never spent time on Ebay searching for particular dinner plates that my father said once, in passing, he liked. I still regret that I didn’t give him a college sweatshirt—I know that he wanted one the Christmas that I was 19 and he admired the one I had one myself, but I told myself I couldn’t afford the twelve bucks to get him one of his own. For God’s sake, I think now, with all that money he shelled out!?!? I finally went back for a college reunion years later and sprang twenty bucks for a college t-shirt, which he received politely, but with no visible enthusiasm. I found it, clean and unworn, when I cleaned out his dresser after he died last year.
I don’t know if this is true for other people, but the regrets that I have are much more about things I didn’t do than things I did. I’ve done some really stupid things. Careless things, wreckless things, inappropriate things, occasionally something downright mean. I’ve made huge mistakes. But forgiving myself for those is somehow easier than forgiving myself for the things I never did. The trips I haven’t taken, the risks I looked away from, the conversations and relationships I avoided.
So, in this final stretch of summer, I am thinking, what will I regret if I don’t do it now? That lake down the street that I mostly just nodded to in June and July? I’m in it every day now. The garden, so easy to visit superficially? I’m diving into it now with my whole body, not caring a bit how filthy I get. My days have a mantra: grab summer now! This is your moment! Stop lamenting how hot it is and have some fun!
As a minister, I am constantly learning, and sometimes learning about completely unexpected things. At my congregation, my summer worship services have used movies that are currently in the theaters as the text. I chose the films by reading reviews and story lines online. I chose them before seeing them and sometimes before they were released. The movies have led me to new learning. This week, the text is the independent film, “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” Many critics have praised it as mythical and as fantasy, but my research has led me to believe that it is not fantasy. Indeed, filmmaker Benh Zeitlin said in an interview posted in a Patheos blog, “I don’t think of the film as a fantasy film, I think about it like what it’s like to be six. There’s no real separation between reality and fantasy a lot of the time.” (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tinseltalk/2012/06/interview-benh-zeitlin-on-beasts-of-the-southern-wild-falling-in-love-with-louisiana-and-prehistoric-monsters/)
What my research showed me was that the film was made on Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana. The people of the island are indigenous and Cajun, and their island home is literally disappearing. The story of this island and its people is not at all mythical. The people of this real and highly endangered community jokingly call the community “the Bathtub” which is the name Zeitlin chose for his fictional community. It is a very real, very troubling and very urgent tale of environmental racism, climate change and loss. It’s a true tale of loss of culture, loss of home, loss of livelihood and loss of community. It was once a rich and fertile ecosystem for farming and fishing. As we can see in the movie, it is still a beautiful place.
Before 1953, the only way to reach the island was by boat; in 1953, a road was built through marshland. Now, the marshland has turned into open water and the road is often flooded and inaccessible. The island was 11 miles long and 5 miles wide in the 1950s; now it is only 2 miles long and a quarter mile wide. Climate change has led to rising sea levels. Saltwater has killed the forests and made the land infertile. Saltwater flooding is due to the construction of levee systems to protect Louisiana and the canal dredging for the oil industry. State and Army Corps of Engineers decisions left Isle de Jean Charles outside of the levee system because of the cost. Fishing is decreased in part due to the BP oil spill. Once a thriving small community of 400 people, now about 70 people remain, and the tribal chief, Albert Naquin, has urged folks to leave the island. He is hoping that they could sustain their native culture on higher ground. They are probably the nation’s first climate change refugees.
Just like the fictional residents of “the bathtub,” many residents defend their right to stay in their homes. Edison Dardar, Jr. has posted a sign, “Island is not for sale. If you don’t like the island, stay off. Don’t give up. Fight for your rights. It’s worth saving.” Another resident, Delores Naquin, said, “You can’t just uproot – like this oak tree – you uproot it and it will die.” They’ve seen so many hurricanes that some the storms as an annual ordeal to endure in order to keep their connection to their home.
The people of the Isle de Jean Charles may be the first North American climate refugees but they are unlikely to be the last. It is troubling to witness people losing their homes and communities; all the more so because so much of the reason is due to human actions. They need help to find a new home and to sustain their community and culture.
“My tribal council and I have been traveling far and wide to meet with government officials to ask for help in finding a place for our community to live together again. They all want to listen to our cry, and then we never see or hear from them again. Yes, I get mad and frustrated but we will not give up the fight and ask for your prayers and support and ask that you spread the word about the plight of our community and hundreds of other communities just like us along the Gulf Coast that will soon lose our land, our home and sadly, our culture.” Albert Naquin, Chief Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw
This community is no fantasy. My theology says that we owe these people and their culture respect as all people have worth and deserve respect. They deserve to flourish as human beings. I believe that we are responsible to help each other. We need to listen to each other about how we can help. Climate change is no myth. We are also responsible to the earth. We must address climate change now. There is no time to wait.
(See http://www.isledejeancharles.com/island.php and http://www.pbs.org/newshour/multimedia/isle-de-jean-charles/ and Can’t Stop the Water on facebook)
One of the aspects that I believe defines the religious liberal is the acknowledgement that we encounter the world and everything in it through our own lenses. These lenses are shaped by years of experience… by the people we meet, what we have read, and the journeys (literal and metaphorical) that we have taken. Religious Liberalism is often spoken of as a “Faith of Meaning Making”. At its best, Religious Liberalism is guided by principles, developed together and shared in covenant. At its worst, Religious Liberalism becomes a formless relativism. In either case, it is a faith practice that requires comfort with uncertainty. As I said in an article a few years ago, Religious Liberalism is the faith practice of living on the shifting sands, because such sands are all there are.
This aspect of Religious Liberalism has distinct implications for our encounters with anything in the world, but perhaps the difference is seen most clearly in how Religious Liberals encounter anything recognized as “scripture”. Such scripture may include the Hebrew or Christian Scriptures, the Buddhist Sutras, the Koran, the Baghavad Gita, the Popul Vuh, or even some of our own “scriptures”, such as the writings of some of our theological forebears (Francis David, Emerson, Parker, Channing, and so many more). The experiences of our lives can be understood as living scripture. It might be poetry or fiction, it might be science or art. What counts as scripture for those of Liberal faith is, unsurprisingly, liberal… and often very individualized. For myself, scripture consists of writings and experiences that have had a profound impact upon my life, or have had a profound impact on the lives of countless others. The philosophical writings of Mark Twain have had a profound impact upon my life, and so I include “What is Man?” and “The War Prayer” in my personal canon. Though I am not much moved by the Gospel of John from the New Testament, I recognize that millions have been so moved, so I also recognize its scriptural authority and seek to dance with it.
As I have encountered it in myself and others, the metaphor of a dance is the best I can find for how I and many other Religious Liberals (though perhaps not all) encounter scripture. In taking classes with non-religious liberals studying scripture of varying kinds (from transcendentalism to Christianity to Buddhism and more) I found the questions they most often asked were: “What meaning can be authentically derived from this scripture (exegesis)?”, “What is the context of this scripture?” and “What does this scripture require of me?”.
In encountering some of these same classes and scriptures with my fellow religious liberals, I found a different set of questions being asked… and I think this difference contrasts how religious liberals and others practice faith. Instead of asking “What meaning can be authentically derived from this scripture?”, I found Religious Liberals far more likely to ask “What meaning is there for me in this scripture, in this moment and in my context?” In other words, I found myself and many of my fellow Religious Liberals called to an eisegetical approach to scripture (reading meaning into the scripture) and not purely an exegetical approach (reading meaning from the scripture).
Now, there is a broad divide between how exegesis and eisegesis are viewed in the academic approach to scriptural reading and interpretation. That divide can be stated clearly… exegesis good… eisegesis bad, bad, BAD! Every class studying scripture I have ever encountered (save the one on Buddhist scriptures) understood the purpose of the class in part as purifying eisegesis out of the student’s engagement with the scripture. Students are required to write exegetical papers, and are chided by professors when they make what are interpreted as eisegetical statements. Papers are graded in part for the amount of eisegetical content that might be found in them.
There are two main problems I wish to highlight with this approach. The first is to ask the post-modernist question… Can we ever achieve objective exegesis? Is it possible to encounter a scripture (or anything for that matter) and leave all of the other experiences of our lives out of the encounter? Does not a poor black woman and a rich white man encounter a certain metaphor about camels and eyes of needles in different ways? How do you decide which of these ways is more valid or objective?
One of the answers to this problem of the variability of exegetical work that has gained traction, not in the academy, but in the encounters with scripture by many Conservative Christians, is the “Common Sense” approach. It is the belief that the biblical scriptures of the Christian tradition can be understood with “common sense”, and that you do not need any particular training or skill at interpretation… because there is no interpretation to be done. The meaning is plain and the same to everyone… and that if you do not agree on a scripture’s meaning that is because either you are being deceived by Satan or you are over-thinking it (or both).
Both the academic search for an exegetical objectivity and the “common sense” answer of many of my Conservative Christian friends share the same problem… they often seek to define the scripture as having one meaning, one interpretation, and one purpose. At least in the Academy they invite dialogue and conversation between different interpretations, however the purpose of that dialogue is often (in my opinion) is to convince others of your position. There is similar variability of interpretation among those who follow the “common sense” approach, with much less dialogue. I do find my “Common Sense” Christian friends to be a bit more strident on what will happen to you if you do not agree with them than my friends in the Academy. Failing a class seems so much less scary after listening to descriptions of hell and damnation.
I highlight these two different approaches to interpreting and finding meaning in scripture not to put them down, but to highlight the difference that I see between these approaches and the one I believe we are called to practice as Religious Liberals. Both the academic exegetical approach and the “common sense” approach have value in that they provide a basis for meaning for those who practice them, and each provides a larger base of thought on the scripture for the Religious Liberal to encounter and dance with. My concern with the academic exegetical approach comes when it does not make room for the validity of any other way of encountering and understanding scripture. My concern with the “common sense” approach comes when it seeks to enforce such an individualized interpretation of scripture upon others (for I believe that the common sense approach is actually a mask for doing eisegesis while pretending it is exegesis).
As Religious Liberals, I believe that we are called, as a spiritual practice, to “dance” with the scriptures that we find move us and have power for us in our lives. I believe we are called to “dance” with the scriptures that others find moving and powerful, and that we have yet to find the same within. I believe we are called to “dance” even (and perhaps most importantly) with those scriptures that we find disturbing, that challenge our basic assumptions, but that others see as authoritative. Our encounters with scripture (of all types) should be fluid and dynamic, an interplay between that which makes up who we are and the scripture.
Let me use a section of Christian scripture as an example of one part of my own personal dance. As a teenager in a Southern Baptist Church, I remember a day when a scripture reading seemed to contrast strongly with the practice of my church. I had long begun to believe that for many of my fellow Church members, they came to church mainly to be seen coming to church. There was always a show of how much each tithed to the church. Some people seemed to want to be noticed in prayer during the service. Some seemed to compete for who could say “AMEN!” first. I had accepted that trying to show your piety publicly was a part of what it meant to be a Christian. We had regularly been told that we should “wear our crosses on our sleeves”, so that we could better witness to others. Everyone we met should know that Jesus had saved us, and that he could save them too.
Then one day the Pastor read to us Matthew, Chapter 6. At first, I thought I had heard him wrong, as he said “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them”. I was flabbergasted when the scripture told us not to pray in the temples and synagogues or on street corners, but rather to “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.”
‘God is in secret?’ I thought. ‘Since when?’
I had been trained in the “Common Sense” school of understanding the Bible, and the common sense meaning of this scripture told me that I should get away from this church as fast as possible… something I eventually did. At that moment in my life, this scripture became part of why I asked my parents to quit making me go to church (there were other reasons, many of them not so religious). It was then that I really began developing the idea of an individual understanding of my relationship to God, and seeking a private understanding of prayer. By twenty, I was a Christian Deist.
Years later, as I was studying with a Zen Buddhist Roshi and practicing Zen meditation, I encountered this scripture again. I remembered how important that verse had been to me in my teens, but now my dance with it had new steps. I had found a way to “pray” behind closed doors, if not always alone in a room then in silence, seated on the floor and facing a wall. I realized that part of my practicing Zen was a public form of piety… I was given credit by many of my fellow Unitarian Universalists for being “pious and spiritual” because I spent some time every day sitting and facing a wall, even though a spiritual piety was not necessarily my internal reality. I used my connection to Zen to foster that image however, because it was useful to be seen that way in seminary. And when I prayed as a minister in public, I found myself at times “heaping up empty phrases”, and realized there was a disconnect between my private prayer life and the public prayers that were a part of my understanding of the role of “minister”.
Encountering Matthew 6 was a part of my re-evaluation of the places that Zen, Unitarian Universalism, and prayer were playing in my life. That evaluation eventually led to my stepping away from Zen (among other reasons), and focusing again on my own personal practices of prayer and meditation. Eventually I will seek a re-encounter with Zen, but at a time when I am not seeking it for reasons of public piety and ministerial formation.
Two very different encounters with the same scripture… what was different? The scripture was the same, but the meanings I found at each time were very different, and in each case they were transformative for me. What was different was me. The scripture spoke to me differently because I had changed. I had different lenses, different needs, and different experiences. The ability for something, anything, to speak in different ways to different people at different times in their lives may be the unifying definition of what is scripture for me.
The dance with scripture is an interplay, across experience and time, between an individual human being and a fixed point of wisdom, story, experience or thought. I do not have to agree with the wisdom for it to be scripture… I do not agree with John 14:6, (I am the way, the truth, and the light. No one comes to the father except through me). Yet each time I encounter that scripture it teaches me something new about myself and what I do believe.
The exegesis, the context of the scripture, the criticism of the scripture and other interpretations, and the meanings the scripture has held for others… these all form the dance floor. To truly be dancing with a scripture, you need to be aware of these… what others have claimed the scripture objectively means, how it relates to other scriptures and to the whole of the religious system, what meanings have been regularly found within the scripture. This is the setting for the dance, and you cannot dance without it. But they are not the dance…
The Dance is the interplay between your sense of self and the life you have lived with this fixed point of wisdom we call scripture. The interplay and interconnection between myself and scripture is one of the places where I see the Holy Spirit within my life. The transformations and inspirations from that dance are primarily for the individual who experiences them. My purpose as a Religious Liberal Minister is not to teach others my dance, but to help others discover their own. Perhaps then I might also be inspired and transformed by how they dance with scripture.
I invite you to dance.
Yours in faith,
Rev. David
There’s been a lot of controversy lately about chicken sandwiches. Specifically the fact that the family that owns the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A has donated millions of dollars to groups opposing marriage equality for same-sex couples. Suddenly, supporters of marriage equality are calling for boycotts of the chain and opponents of it are feasting there to prove their conservative credentials.
Most perplexing of all to me are the people who insist that chicken sandwiches have nothing to do with marriage equality. Maybe its just the crowd of folks I’m friends with on Facebook, but I’ve seen a lot of people insisting that where the owner of Chick-fil-A spends his money is none of their concern—they just like their pickles and sweet tea. These folks are indignant that anyone would dare ask them to give up this pleasure by connecting it to things they claim to care about.
Unfortunately for these people, it is impossible to separate where we spend our money from what values we espouse. While we might claim to hold certain things dear, if we’re not supporting those things in the world through the way we use our resources (even the smallest amounts of those resources), our value claims are lies we tell to ourselves and others.
I learned a long time ago that each time I spend money, I make a choice. I can make that choice intentionally—to support the things I care about—or not. If my choices are made in ignorance, I might just wind up supporting things I oppose. When I take the time to examine my actions, I can decide which values are most important to me, and how I want to support those values in the world.
Having lived in North Carolina for fourteen years, I know Chick-fil-A and its owners’ politics well. Even when their sandwiches were otherwise-acceptable in my diet, I didn’t eat there because I knew what my money would be used to support. It is possible that you value time and cheap food more than equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. If so, please continue to buy your lunches from Chick-fil-A. I won’t be joining you there.
Lest I leave you with the impression that this is all about chicken, it is not. Every time we spend money—even a few dollars—we make a value statement.
When I travel from my home into New York City, I choose to spend the $20 it costs on a round-trip train ticket rather than on gas and parking for my car. In doing so, I am saying that I value mass transportation and environmental sustainability more than freedom and time.
When I buy coffee, I choose to spend my money on fairly traded beans even if it means going to a store I know sells them that’s a little out of my way. In doing so, I am saying that I value economic justice and accountability more than convenience.
And if I want a chicken sandwich, I’ll get it from a company that supports my right to marry. I don’t honestly know which company that is (can I order chicken sandwiches from Amazon?), but rest assured I’ll find out if I’m ever jonesing for some chicken. Maybe I can convince whatever company it is to throw a few pickle slices on the sandwich for good measure.
Yesterday was my birthday, so I thought I’d explain how I came about my name Matthew Tittle.
In the Christian Scriptures, in the King James Version of the Book of Matthew (5:17-18), during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is recorded as having said:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
In English, jots and tittles are best described as the cross of a t and dot of an i, respectively. In the original written Greek of the Christian scriptures they were iota and keraia, the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet and a serif or accent mark. In the spoken Aramaic of Jesus’ time and place, they were probably the yodh (the smallest letter in the Aramaic alphabet) and small diacritical marks, hooks, and points that help to distinguish one letter from another. The point in all three cases is attention to the smallest detail. I could say that my study of linguistics and credentials as a language teacher, combined with my theological training are my credentials for explaining jots and tittles, but I would be misleading you….The real story is this…
My parents, Mr. and Mrs. Tittle, bestowed upon me the biblical name of Matthew. They were, at the time, churchgoing folks, Presbyterians, my mother with perfect attendance for many years. So, they certainly knew that the passage in the King James Bible that read, “one jot or one tittle,” came from the book of Matthew. Hence my name Matthew Tittle is inherently biblical. That is, as long as you’re reading the King James Version of the Bible. My parents would not have overlooked this detail, especially since I know my family was focused on the gospels. You see, my older brother was Mark. My older cousin was Jon. I came third as Matthew, but my mother’s youngest sister rebelled, when her son was born, she refused to name him Luke. So we had Matthew, Mark, Jeff, and Jon. If I had been a girl, I would have been Mary, I don’t know if the intent was mother or Magdalene. So, being especially qualified to do so by virtue of my name alone, I am writing on what it means to attend to every jot and tittle in our spiritual lives! (written tongue-in-cheek for those who might think I’m serious…)
Unitarian Universalist minister Edward Frost says, “liberal faith in the perfectibility of humankind is tested to the breaking point by the daily demonstrated truths that human beings are capable of just about anything.”
We need to think deeply and attend to every detail in our practice and understanding of religion. We all encounter much that requires us to understand every jot and tittle of our own religion and that of others.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
When Jesus explains that he hasn’t come to destroy the law and the prophets, he is referring specifically to Jewish law and the teaching of the many prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Remember, Jesus was a Jew, and was preaching to those who knew the Jewish law and scriptures, both Jew and Gentile. He had to explain himself in this way because he had just seconds earlier done something incredibly risky by saying, in what we call the Beatitudes, that the poor, those in mourning, the meek, the hungry, the thirsty, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and the falsely persecuted are those who are blessed. He raised them up over the rich, those without feeling, the bullies, the well-fed, the merciless, the deceitful, the war makers, and the persecutors. He also told them, the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, and so on, that they were the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and that they needed to let their light shine. This was heretical, dangerous stuff. And so, he felt it was necessary to explain himself.
Jesus’ disciples asked him later why he hung out with such low lifes as tax collectors and sinners. He responded that those who are well don’t need a physician, but those who are suffering…
Again, he said he wasn’t trying to destroy the law. He even told the people to specifically obey and not break the Ten Commandments. But Jesus was very much an activist and even subversive. I think he was trying to change the law. He promoted nonviolence, but he also promoted active resistance. He told the people to turn the other cheek, effectively offering an oppressor the chance to take another shot, which may very well land them in trouble. He said go the second mile. Soldiers could enlist citizens to carry their gear a certain distance, but no further. Jesus suggested going the second mile, not to help them out, but to get them into trouble. He said give them not only your shirt but also your cloak. A debt collector had to leave something for people to be afforded basic comfort. The cloak was both a coat for warmth and a blanket for sleeping. It couldn’t be taken, but if you gave it to them, again those charged with protecting the law risked breaking it. And even if these measures are interpreted as gestures of good will to the authorities, the result is additional suffering on the part of the poor, the meek, the pure of heart, the peacemakers. The result either way is that the weak are really the strong. They are the blessed. To invoke a phrase from Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church across town, “the victims are the victors.” Or as he says to his congregation “Be a victor, not a victim.” A sound soundbyte.
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
What was he fulfilling? I think this is the key to the whole passage. Traditional interpretations suggest that the meaning here is nothing short of eschatological– the end times, the fulfillment of the apocalypse, and final judgment. I think that modern Christianity would be a wholly different and even more appealing religion if the book of Revelation had been left out. Which it almost was. Some even tried to have it removed as recently as a few hundred years ago.
If we separate the wheat from the chaff (to invoke another biblical nugget), we find that the heart of Jesus’ teachings (the wheat in this case), was almost exclusively devoted to the theme of love and care for one another, neighbor, and enemy alike. It was for the creation of a beloved community. His message was one also of personal empowerment of those who were considered the least among us. He told them time and again that faith would heal them. Faith comes from within. Faith is the very hardest thing in the face of truth, which is why he spent so much time trying to empower them to overcome adversity through faith.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
This first phrase, “For verily I say unto you” in the King’s English (I’m sorry I don’t have the Greek or Aramaic on the tip of my tongue) is universally interpreted by biblical scholars to be an attention getter. “Hey folks, listen up, you better believe me when I say…” My own paraphrase of the rest of the passage goes like this: “Hell will freeze over before even the smallest detail of the law changes, until all is fulfilled, until you do something about it. Don’t go breaking the law, but change it so that this beloved community can be formed.”
After going through a few examples, he told these underdogs that until their righteousness exceeded the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, until they became victors and not victims, that they would not enter the kingdom of heaven. The scribes and the Pharisees were the recorders, and the interpreters and the enforcers of the political, social, and religious law. Jesus was saying that those who suffer, those who care, those who are oppressed, those who look out for the world, are as well and even better equipped for the task of interpreting the rule of law, than are those charged with doing so.
The kingdom of heaven that he refers to isn’t in the hereafter as many would have us believe. It is here and now. We can create heaven or hell here on earth. Human beings are capable of almost anything. Nothing is going to change until we change it. We need to attend to the details of our spiritual lives. We need to challenge the status quo, as Jesus did, so that we can bring about heaven here on earth. We can sit back and watch and do nothing and feel sorry others, or feel sorry for ourselves. But this would be the worst sin of all.
Over the past few years in the United States many have been criticized and ostracized, and persecuted for doing just what Jesus did–for dissenting–for being critical of the status quo and of those in and with power. But this is our task. This means speaking out, and more importantly, acting out in the world. It means knowing who you are spiritually, and being as certain and secure in that faith as are the scribes and Pharisees of our times. If we shy away from this moral imperative, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.”
The place is still dust brown, probably even more so than when we got here. The harvest is over and most of the green that was here is gone until next year. Things are still dust brown, but I don’t really notice it anymore. I am dust brown. The mongoose was at the mail container yesterday… looking for care packages? He/she/it is interesting, but I’m no longer impressed. The excitement of riding in the back of armored trucks across a strange, new land has faded. I don’t bother to take many pictures from the back of the truck anymore. Mostly it’s hot, bumpy, and uncomfortable. Which all feels pretty normal. I don’t like the explosions, but anymore it seems like most of us just frown, rather than jump, when the earth shakes.
Last week was Fourth of July. The chow hall served steak, lobster, hamburgers, bratwurst, cold sodas. We even had condiments! The next day we had fireworks… real ones. The EOD guys (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) brought in several IEDs that were discovered before they blew anyone up. I didn’t have my radio turned on, so I didn’t hear the announcement for the detonation. My teeth shook. I don’t think I’ve ever been overly bothered by explosions. In spite of the fact that my physical response is mostly reduced to a frown, I wonder if a person can ever get totally used to them. If so, I know I’m not there yet – probably a good thing. Even if you know it’s coming, it is disconcerting to have the Earth shake under your feet. It makes me mad.
My friend David, also a minister, explains that when you experience an event of grief, every occasion of grief you have ever lived through is present in you again. I can testify. The other day the sadness of losing five Marines caught up with me. I didn’t bother holding back the tears. There have been times when I could name all the people that I have known who died – either in combat or training for combat. As the list grows, I can no longer keep track. In my mind there is a visual image of David’s explanation of grief. It is a cloud shifting from its boundless potential to hold and store to its kinetic state of drops catalyzing every nearby drop and pouring profusely. Then the cycle starts again, only now there is more raw material for the next experience. People in combat report that it is the same with moral dilemmas. The weight of every decision they’ve ever made is present in the decision they are making now. When someone looks calm and cool on the outside, it’s hard for others to notice the existential mule of past experience kicking around inside them.
War changes your heart. It’s not so much whether you choose left or right and things turn out right or wrong. Your heart changed before the decision was made. What changes your heart is that you were the one called to that decisive moment – you were the one that had to choose and act. Circumstance is unforgiving out here. It’s a place where people become overly familiar with being between a rock and hard place. We learn about the severity of consequence and adjust our lives around considerations that feel rather ultimate, but eventually it just seems normal. When we get home, the rules will be different. There will be a few weeks, if we’re lucky, during which we won’t know what to do with ourselves. And we won’t really be able to either tell anyone what we need or listen to what they think we need. So, we’ll just go about our business of scanning the yard for signs of IEDs before we walk out to the car. The vigilance switch will remain in the “on” position for a while.
The other day we heard some chatter on the radio about an engagement and people getting injured. We waited for patients. The Aid Station was prepped for mass casualty. I’ve never seen a gunshot wound or an amputation up close. It was exciting in the way that terribleness can be exciting. We hold a fine emotional balance as we try to both urge providence away from any more casualties and accept the reality that we can’t influence what’s already happened. Everyone was in their well-rehearsed places. The mass casualty turned out to be one Afghan National Army soldier. The GSW and AMP turned out to be a superficial wound to the side of the head. He was taken to the ANA medical facility. They didn’t ask for assistance.
We’ve been eating a lot of flapjacks. I help cook them, and even though cooking a thousand flapjacks tempers one’s appetite for them, I still eat them… in a deliberate sort of way. By now, RP and I, and the cooks that have helped us, have served over 2500. Several organizations and individuals have made very generous contributions. I had been thinking about and planning the first pancake breakfast for weeks. The date was set. Wednesday, 13 Jun. Two other chaplains and two RPs (religious program specialists) were visiting my base. Everyone wanted to chip in. We were going to eat like kings. We mixed the batter the night before. By 0430 in the morning, both burners in the galley were running. Flapjacks were getting poured, flipped, and flopped into insulated bins by the dozen. At 0440, the executive officer walked in to the galley. He isn’t usually in the galley at 0440 in the morning. He looked at me. “Chaps, come outside for a minute.” I stepped outside. “We had a KIA last night,” he said. He told me the name of the Marine and what company he was in. My heart sank.
For weeks I had been coming back to my mud hut after the evening meetings and I would just sit down and pray thanks. People had stepped on IEDs that only partially detonated. People had taken one step to the side and bullets crashed into the wall behind them. We found many IEDs before anyone was injured by them. And now the XO was telling me that one of our Marines was dead. Within two weeks, four more would die.
War puts mundane things and ultimate things on the same shelf. A day that began with a sense of celebration culminated ten minutes later in grief. In my mind pancakes were at fault. I wondered if I would ever eat flapjacks again. By the hard bend of its lens, war distorts our sense of being oriented. Things that were friendly are now the enemy of serenity. My experience put breakfast and mortality next to each other. Many of our Marines and Sailors will face similar spiritual juxtapositions. The particular ingredients will be different. Using your hands to hold someone else’s guts gently inside them is a kind of intimacy that will challenge the prospect of intimacy that people hope for from love relationships. Putting a sheaf of artillery rounds on a building full of bad guys will blend exhilaration and nausea together in a way that Hollywood can only hope for. I went back into the galley. The more experienced chaplains probably already knew. I asked the chaplains, RPs, and cooks if they would gather around me for a moment. I tried to explain that in ministry sometimes we need to be present for both joy and lament in the same moment. In war, it is the same. I let them know that one of our Marines had been killed in an IED blast. At 0630 we opened the plywood doors of the chow hall and began serving. The Marines loved it – all but one. No one else noticed; the connection between death and flapjacks would be my private affair.
The other day I sat down next to a few Marines for evening chow. They asked if I was enjoying my time in Afghanistan. I asked if it was a trick question. We all laughed politely. I knew it wasn’t a trick question. I responded that it was exciting, rewarding, adventuresome… but that the reality of losing Marines tempered enjoyment. If it wasn’t for the snipers and IEDs, this probably would be enjoyable in an odd sort of way. It’s a place to face a challenge and be of service. Even if there are ways in which the rite-of-passage, which challenge and service ought to be, feels hollow, there are also ways in which this aspect of war is still profoundly true and rather thick. We lived in a world that was once familiar and seemingly within our scope of control. Now the spiritual furniture has been rearranged and we are going to stumble around for a while. Grief and moral dilemma will be our teacher – whether we want them to or not. What is still ours to choose is what we decide to learn from those teachers. Will we gradually add light to see the new furniture, or will we use the toe-stub method.
Apparently, I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Colorado has suffered yet another tragedy. Let’s help each other to all shine bright. Next week, there will be flapjacks.
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
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