No life is entirely planned. Some of us are well-displined and well-organized, living structured and carefully measured lives. Others of us are impulsive or indecisive, living rather chaotic lives. But to all of us — disciplined or not, well-organized or not — unexpected things happen. And it is often the unexpected pleasures that are the sweetest.
The grace of God is an unexpected pleasure …
Among the letters read on air today during NPR’s Morning Edition program was a letter from an Arizona correspondent objecting to an NPR story that cited the disproportional effects of hurricane Katrina on people of color and people of low income. He wrote: New Orleans is a sandcastle built at low tide … The storm did not discriminate on the basis of race or class.
Absolutely right. The storm did not discriminate. People discriminate! And discrimination did lead directly to greater suffering in the aftermath of the storm among people of color and people of low income. Poverty means you live in homes less ready to withstand the damaging effects of wind and in places less protected from the damaging effects of water. Poverty means when they say Get out, you don’t have the means to get out or a place to get out to. Poverty means when disaster does strike you have fewer resources with which to mitigate its effects, fewer resources with which to rebuild your life. You don’t have health insurance, homeowner’s insurance, savings accounts.
Poverty means when help is mobilized, you aren’t high on the priority list. A classmate of mine who works for the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta noted that Charity Hospital, a large New Orleans hospital serving the low income community, was not evacuated until two days after their generators ran out of gas. He writes:
Meanwhile, high priced Ochsner Clinic Hospital was evacuated almost immediately …
It is our shame that we ignore the devastating effects of poverty among our own neighbors until something like Katrina “lifts the covers” for a moment and forces us to look. It is our shame that we support programs and elect leaders that protect our own interests rather than the common interest. It is our shame that our hearts are moved by the specter of a great natural disaster, but unmoved by the great unnatural disaster that plagues our nation every day.
Faith without passion …
… is like playing soccer without the ball. You may go through all the motions, but you don’t really accomplish anything and it’s not much fun!
Faith without passion …
… is like marriage without love. All form and no substance. It may serve a purpose — for maintaining some kind of social stability and keeping people out of trouble, but has no depth or intimacy or life … or satisfaction.
Faith without passion …
… is demeaning to God. If God is God — the one whose breath is the source of life, whose power and wisdom and glory are beyond imagination, whose grace and mercy and love seek and save and lift up a wandering and broken humanity — how can we relate to this God with indifference, with a shrug of the shoulders or a nod of acknowledgment … or a lukewarm faith?
Faith without passion …
… is an oxymoron, because faith is passion!
Grief …
Grief takes something from us that can never be regained. We cannot get it back … but nevertheless what we do have is enough. We have Jesus.
Jesus is with us … and that is enough.
Faith is not magical. We do not invoke the name of Jesus and expect everything to bounce our way. Faith is mystical. Jesus is with us, at all times, in all circumstances, in this very moment … and forever. And when Jesus is with us, it is not that everything will be okay … it is that everything is okay!
Read the article posted by Matthew Gilbert, a Gwich’in himself. (NRDC Action Fund Blog: Why is drilling the Arctic Refuge wrong?) Here’s an excerpt:
The fact that it’s even a question whether we should drill in a pristine place like the refuge, the breeding grounds of Polar Bears, Porcupine Caribou Herd, and many bird species, is an ethical travesty of our time …
The Arctic Refuge should not only be protected for its natural value, but also for its value to the Gwich’in. The Porcupine Caribou Herd calves in the Arctic Refuge and is very sensitive to humans. Establishing oil rigs, roads, drill pads, and other industrial additions will drive animals out, change their migration routes, and harm the land.
Gwich’in who hunt the Porcupine Caribou Herd will be affected in more ways than one. We implement products of the Porcupine Caribou Herd in every area of our lives; warm skin clothes, ivory-tools, arrowheads, and traditional dresses. Gwich’in are extremely efficient with every animal we kill; we use a dead animal in the utmost efficient way. So when we harvest even one caribou, it provides us with a host of things used to survive and flourish.
If the Gwich’in lose the refuge they lose their identity. Without the caribou the Gwich’in will have a harder time making ends meet or move into the cities. So it is not only environmental doom that industry would bring to the Gwich’in Nation but also social doom. The refuge needs to be protected! Please join the Gwich’in in our fight to protect a way of life older than all the monumental wonders of the world. Protect a critical relationship that the Gwich’in have maintained with the caribou for nearly 20,000 years.
For thirty years and more, the American people have said “No” to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. How many times do we have to say “No”?
This choice will be a test of our national character. Will we choose a one-time short term energy “fix” at the cost of an irreplaceable natural wonder and a whole way of life? Or will we take a longer and saner and humbler point of view, recognizing that the value of this land rests not merely in what it can produce, but in what it is?
We need to keep the oil companies out of the Refuge for the sake of the Gwich’in, for the sake of the caribou … and for our own sake. For the sake of our own spiritual well-being we need to set limits on our gluttony, our greed, our hubris, and leave some things alone!
When hateful people produce lasting hatred in us … hate wins. When violent people make us violent … violence wins. When cruel people leave us with nothing but a burning desire for revenge in our minds and hearts … cruelty wins. When evil done to us gives birth to evil done by us … evil wins.
As I drove to work this morning, I listened to reports on NPR of the Israeli pullout from the Gaza strip. I heard interviews with militant Palestinians who credited the pullout to the armed resistance alone, giving no credit to the political process, showing no support for the diplomatic efforts of their own leadership, calling only for more violence to oust Israel from the West Bank as well. It was most disheartening.
It was disheartening to see once more that steps toward peace — baby steps though they may be — do so little (do nothing!) to soften the hardened and entrenched hatred of one people for another, do so little (do nothing?) to change the tide of history and move people toward rapprochement.
Is there a moral imperative for victims? Or does their victimization “excuse” whatever choices they may make? Can we expect the victim of oppression to show grace and mercy and restraint and maybe even love to the oppressor? Or is that a preposterous expectation?
There can be no shalom until victimizer and victim alike are set free from the cycle of oppression. There can be no shalom until the oppressors humble themselves before God and until the oppressed humble themselves before God. There can be no shalom until God does it … and until we are ready to let God do it!
I was a generation too late to be much exposed to the music of Frank Sinatra, but I have heard enough and seen enough to know that I don’t like it. Sinatra’s style and demeanor evoke an image that is antithetical to values I hold especially dear. He is about the big city; I love open spaces. He is about life in the fast lane; I crave a life filled with energy and passion and excitement — a fast life, but a life traveling down an entirely different road! He has the swagger; I admire a man — or a woman — who combines bold conviction with a gentle manner. He is about doing it “my way;” and I …
Well … okay … I’m about doing it “my way” too! Who isn’t? Who isn’t? Some of us do it by bullying; some of us do it by withdrawing; some of us do it by plotting; some of us do it by careful attention to detail; some of us do it by putting a price on our affections … but all of us try to fashion a world that works the way we want it to work. My vision of the “way things should” may be virtuous or it may be scandalous, but in any case, what is important to me is that it be my vision.
Jesus said, If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself …
What does it mean that in losing ourselves that we find ourselves? What does it mean that in taking up a cross, we find life? It is truly way out there, on the frontier of human experience, but maybe you have caught a glimpse, maybe you have had a taste … of what it is, even for a moment, to say … “your way.” Of how saying that and meaning it does not diminish you one little bit, but suddenly enlarges you in strange and wondrous ways.
And more than that, makes you realize it’s not about “you” at all, but about being an “us” … not about finding yourself, but about finding ourselves. About losing yourself, and finding ourself … in love.
Your way …
I never really liked Frank Sinatra. But he was a “you,” too.