Over the past few months and weeks I have been alternately thankful and dismayed to read, on the one hand, articles and letters calling for unity of spirit, even when we cannot agree on specific issues, and, on the other hand, writing which underscores, and at times even seems to increase, the deep divisions in our society and in the Church.

Now that the rhetoric is at an ebb with the end of a presidential campaign, I’d like to propose that we all take some time to examine ourselves and consider some new ways, or old ones, of relating to each other. The shouting match methods we have learned so well from secular politics are not serving us very well; we’re spending too much time, money, breath and ink on “dialog” that fails and frustrates us again and again.

What if we all agree that, no matter what the issue, we are not ultimately responsible for outcomes? That God is not a spectator or non-participant in our lives but sovereign? What if we tried to release our obsessions with politics enough to apply the power of Christ’s resurrection to the issues that confront us? We receive and celebrate that power together in the Eucharist. Can we not put it to work in our personal and common lives? What if we all agreed to expect less of our government, both elected and appointed, and more of ourselves as the Body of Christ? The burdens of presidents, and other officials are heavy enough without expecting them to be messiahs too. I believe, even now, that we can surely agree that the Messiah we have is more than equal to any quandary or crisis which might threaten or concern us. What if we began really trusting him with our quandaries and crises?

Please don’t mishear, I am not advocating that we retreat into our diverse corners to simply pray quietly, though that will certainly continue to be a prime element in our struggles to be faithful Christians. But, I am advocating and praying for a widespread re-acknowledgment that “we struggle not against flesh and blood,” that we cease making each other the enemy, and that we rediscover and reclaim all that makes us one spiritually. Then perhaps we can more fruitfully continue to work at sorting out all that might divide us politically. I would make bold to suggest that if we as Christ’s Church, abandon our partisan and sectarian disagreements, however fond or closely held, we might lead the way to a new catholicity, preferring our love for each other to our issues and causes. Might we then discover a renewed perspective on the world for which Jesus died?

Can we set a new tone for international and inter-religious relations simply by displaying love for each other as Christians? Is unilateral forgiveness a realistic option, even among Christians?  Are bridges ever more useful than walls in human relationships? The questions are worth asking. The Good News of Jesus might just work more practically than the political rhetoric that divides us from each other and isolates us from the world. Let’s give it a try.

It was a sunny day today and not too cold.  There were new faces among the volunteers and there were many, many new faces in the line of those asking for a bag of food at the Clare House Food Pantry.  I especially see in my mind and heart two women in their early twenties who were at the front of the line.  Usually the first two in line have been old regulars who start lining up at 9 in the morning, maybe because they don’t have much else to do.  I took the time to talk a bit with these two women and so they’ve become part of my prayer today.  I’ve been handing out food at the Pantry for 18 years now and it still softens my heart  each time. Continue Reading »

Tags: feeding those in need

Ever since my days of reading the chilren’s nature magazine, Ranger Rick, I have responded to the sweeping love of creation found in Psalm 104:  the rain fleeing the thunder of God’s rebuke by pouring down to earth, the rock badgers hiding in crags, thirsty wild donkeys, the stork nesting in the highest branches of the cedars of Lebanon, the lions savagely “claiming their food from God” by night, then “going back to lie down in their lairs” as “people go out to work” by day.  The psalmist is clearly awestruck by both the grandeur of wind and mountains and sea, and in love with the particularities of innumerable creatures.  Today that psalmist would undoubtedly be an environmentalist. Continue Reading »

Tags: Psalm 104

A few summers ago I met two hermits when I went to a Monastic Institute in Collegeville, MN. Both are women, one in her mid-fifties, the other, Sr. Jeremy Hall OSB, is now in her late 80s and probably could be called a “retired hermit”. By that I mean that she is back living communally with the Benedictines of St. Benedict monastery. Continue Reading »

Tags: Silence Solitude Simplicity, Sr. Jeremy Hall

I’m a church choir director, so Christmas inevitably begins in August for me. This year one piece is giving us fits, a new setting of Anglican priest (and later bishop), Phillips Brooks,’ “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” It’s not dissonant and doesn’t appear difficult at all, but no musical material ever recurs. The similar harmonic treatment from verse to verse gives the illusion of a constant melody, though no actual repeating “tune” ever emerges. The effect is glorious, but it doesn’t make the singers’ lives easy. So in trying to help them to get a handle on this brand new music, I’ve tried to dig deeper into the familiar words. Here’s what I find, a very Benedictine essay on radical interior transformation.
Overall, the constant theme is the invasion of the interior life by the historical event of Jesus’ birth in the world–our transformation into a new Bethlehem. Continue Reading »

Tags: "O Little Town of Bethlehem", Christmas, interior life, John Donne, music, Phillips Brooks, Roman liturgy

In Ephesians 4:32 it says “And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.  These last words of the Epistle speak of forgiveness.  In Luke 6:37 it is written, Stop judging and you will not be judged.  Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.  Forgive and you will be forgiven.  This is also the major premise behind our most universal prayer “The Lord’s Prayer”. . .”Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”  It is, if you will, a two way street.

When I was three I made my Grandma cry.  I loved my grandma more than anyone.  She was kind and so loving and she would let me brush her hair for hours.  I would stay with her overnight and as a treat we would walk from her house downtown and go to Woolworth’s or Kresge’s and sit at the lunch counter where I would spin around in circles on the stools and have ham salad sandwiches and a coke. Continue Reading »

Tags: forgiveness