Spiritual

Broad subject-matter, including reflections on the Bible, personal beliefs, spiritual leaders, theology

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Meeting Jesus, the Great Teacher

In Freeing Jesus, Diana Butler Bass says that Jesus grows in us as we age, not that Jesus himself is variable, but we discover his depth at different stages of our lives, times when Jesus meets us, speaking to our particular needs. I can see that progression in my own life: when I saw Jesus as the only the Son of God, as the Question Answerer, as the fire within us, as an absent betrayer, and as a brilliant teacher. There may be more, but this is what I see this morning.

Today, who is Jesus the Teacher?

At the Tony Awards (2015),  famous performers cited a favorite acting teacher for lifting them toward eventual stardom. Rarely do we hear teachers say, “I made her what she is today.” Yet we hear it from students all the time.

For some reason students are glad to give teachers credit for identity or character formation. If it weren’t so immune to measurement or controlled experiments, we might believe that teaching is more about compassion and example than test score elevation. A classroom:

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah, and still other Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?”he asked. “Who do you say that I am?
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
(Matthew 16: 13-18)

Jesus was concerned with unleashing the potential of his followers. He planned a short stay on this planet, and he needed disciples who would seamlessly take up his work after he left. In the verses above he contrived an unstandardized test to measure the readiness of his disciples.
1) Who do people say the Son of Man is?
2) Who do you say that I am?
The first question has several answers, more in the way of reporting than solving a problem. “Who do people say that I am?” ranged everywhere from “John the Baptist” to “Jeremiah.”
The second question “Who do you say that I am?” is clearly the summative measure of their progress, and Peter, the star pupil, steps into the breach with the best answer “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

The next move is where the teaching really begins, even as the learning curve often rises in the post-mortem of a test, more than from the test itself. Why do these questions even matter?
Jesus’s first lesson is “this was revealed . . . by my father in heaven.” You get your best answers from God, not man. You learn by listening to God, not those who speculate that Jesus was Elijah come back from the dead.

The next move is lending perspective to what has just happened. Another thing you can’t readily assess: the pupil graduating to a new identity. First, Jesus addresses him as “Simon,” then as “Peter” signifying his growth and potential for growth. And then prophetically, “On this rock I will build my church.”

In my latter years of teaching teachers, I suddenly began to hear myself say “You’re going to be a great teacher” when a student shared a great insight or experience. And I wished I had made such outrageous predictions much earlier in my career. Because I realize now that students remember those moments better than all the professional wisdom I could impart, and the memory may help them later in their careers.

Why did Peter need to hear that bold prediction from Jesus at that moment? First, he had made himself vulnerable by saying what the other disciples were afraid to utter. They were all thinking it. Only Peter was willing to say it. Second, he was about to see the man he called “the Christ” imprisoned and tortured. The whole dream was dissolving. Third, Peter was going to contribute to Jesus’s humiliation with the three denials, something he swore he would never do. The timing of Jesus’s prediction was crucial, because it would carry Peter through his trial by fire.

With the disciples Jesus was interested in the highest form of teaching: the forming of new identities. As Jesus prayed later, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.” (John 16:17-19)
All the other stuff, the interpretation of the Law, the parables, the apprenticeship, much of it did not take until Jesus was long gone. The sanctification, the love, the working together, that was crucial right away.

There is a cliche in teaching that we teach the student, not the subject matter. I have found this accurate, not only in high school, but in college, with students aspiring to teach. Students remember who you are and how you teach, not just what you teach. Research shows that education students often imitate their best teachers in the past more than the teacher we try to impose on them in their teacher education. This is good from the point of view of knowing good teaching, but bad from the point of view of developing your own character as a teacher.

In teaching student teachers I finally learned that how I teach and how I treat students is the curriculum students receive more than the research about best practices and new classroom approaches. I began to realize that Jesus’ effectiveness as a teacher came from his daily actions as a compassionate, inclusive and personal teacher that left the most enduring memory on his pupils.

My conversion to Jesus, the teacher, came late in my life. At least half way through my journey.  But it came in the nick of time, when I was trying to teach teachers, who were desperate for my experience as a high school teacher. What they did not know was that I was teaching more and more by example as I learned what the real curriculum was, what they would carry with them into student teaching.

Jesus shows us that character and identity formation are the heart of great teaching. His teaching was not successful because his disciples had a good grasp of the Law and the Prophets or even impressive faith. He was successful because he taught them as individuals, as much as the curriculum of the Good News.. He was successful because they could take up the cross as they had seen him do it: feed the hungry, heal the hurting, encourage the hopeless. They caught the spirit and the intent of his teachings, the part that would stay with them after graduation. And that’s what made this rabbi a Great Teacher.

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Sincerity Not Symbolism

“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon                                                       us,  our parents, our teachers and our Country.”                                         (prayer required by the New York Board of Regents, 1951-1962)

When I was fourteen the Supreme Court scandalized the Protestant and Catholic community by ruling that required recitation of the above prayer was a a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. (Engel v. Vitale, 1962) I was fifteen, and I remember thinking, Good riddance to that useless prayer.

My parents and their friends moaned about how the government was taking prayer out of the public schools. When the issues of  drugs and racial strife were grabbing headlines, it was because “the government has taken prayer out of the schools.” I was reciting that prayer when I was seven years old, but I am pretty sure I didn’t know what “acknowledge our dependence on thee” meant until I was eleven. I got A’s in English.

I was a regular in Sunday School my whole twelve years of public schooling. I can recite the Regents prayer from memory, but I have never missed reciting it in school. Probably because I recited it every day. Same with “My Country, ‘t is of Thee.” When did I figure out ” ‘t is” , meant “It is” and that the “It is” referred to the words “of thee sing” later in the sentence. I never gave it much thought. 

Obviously I had issues with memorizing things, but I had a reason. Most words, after you say them too many times, lose their importance. For some reason adults thought that memorizing them enhanced their meaning. If you recited something, you had to internalize it.

That version of literacy died out about 160 years ago with the rise of written literacy.  Most words you memorize give you indigestion, unless the words have special meaning, for example the 23rd Psalm or the lyrics of “The Sounds of Silence”.

And yet Christians fondly remember when we started every single school day with the same prayer and the same song.  It kept us grateful when we were eight years old during the 1950’s, the good old days. I was not a very grateful kid, and I was raised in a devout household. Reciting that prayer, singing that song, did nothing for me.

The 1960’s were the beginning of Christian grievance politics. A succession of Supreme Court rulings made Christians feel victimized. They took the Bible out of the schools with

Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963)
School-sponsored Bible reading before class is unconstitutional. 

Then they took the Ten Commandments out of the public square

Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980)                                                                                                                                                      The “Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact,”

Then they  ruled against the broadcast of a prayer from the school’s public address system

Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000)
Students may not use a school’s loudspeaker system to offer student-led, student-initiated prayer.

And the same practices were overruled when school boards convened (Coles v. Cleveland Bd. of Educ), and when coaches initiated prayer at football games (Borden v. Sch. Dist. of the Twp. of East Brunswick).

I consider myself a devout Christian. I pray every day, but not in public display. Jesus actually frowned on that ((Matthew 6:5). Observances like loudspeaker prayer, Bible reading before class, and display of religious texts and symbols do not inspire spirituality. They are observances to show whose religion gets public endorsement.

The enforced observance of religious practices is a travesty of prayer or contemplation. It turns spirituality into meaningless rote practice and sets a pathetic example for honoring a religion or its God. It assumes that faith is communicated by repetition ad nauseum, until the recitation breaks down the resistance of the reciter. That would be the premise of television advertising, not for a religion desiring sincere reverence or  conversion.

 When Christians complain that the government is taking religion out of our lives, I wonder what they think religion is, a symbolic or a sincere practice? If it is no more than a symbolic practice, then I wonder if protesting its removal from public spaces is less from religious conviction, than from political grievance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Writers

As the year closes, I remember those who write with me all the year around- in my church and across the miles- those who write to recognize faith in their lives- and those who revive their family stories.  They write, not only to remember, but to learn about themselves and to draw together as a community. This spiritual practice shows itself in all forms: memoir, poetry, travelogue, book reviews, family stories, faith stories, to name a few.

We gathered outside of Zoom in early May for a Writing Marathon, a movable feast: writing, traveling and eating. I wrote about  it at  https://wtucker.edublogs.org/2023/05/09/11032/

At Thanksgiving I wrote about my writing family, Writer’s Life:

When I think of my closest friends here, I think of you, because we have shared our most intimate stories, our joys and our griefs.  Thank you for welcoming me when I was a stranger. I am a little reserved and sometimes remote, but among such expressive and kind people, I feel secure.

Then there are those who spent last summer pondering the moments when God was visible in their lives. We call them “Faith Stories.”  These seekers read examples of faith stories, from Anne Lamott  to Brian McLaren to the collection called “This I Believe,” by National Public Radio. They worked and re-worked their stories, and many of them published their work on our church blog “Discover St.Mark.”  In this effort we tried to model the “Share” part of our church theme: “Seek, Discover, Share.” I cannot share the blog link here, because some of the writers did not wish their work to go beyond the church family.
I want to acknowledge and give thanks for my primary editor,  my spouse Victoria Sherman, who gives welcomed and un-welcomed feedback, particularly for pieces I submit to the St.Louis Post-Dispatch. She didn’t edit this blog entry, so don’t blame her for it. Victoria is also a “faith story” writer.
Finally, I acknowledge the frequent readers of this blog, many of them writers themselves. Without readers, most of us would give up, because what’s the fun of only writing for yourself?
In such great company I have rejoiced in the life of writing. If you contemplate writing in 2024, think of it as a “life,” so you don’t forget that anything can be story or a poem. Don’t confine yourself to “high thoughts,” or you will never begin.
Just enjoy the life.
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The Paradox of Stubbornness

Why do sports fans stay faithful to a team that has cheated, been mismanaged, and insensitive to fans?  Why do church members remain faithful to an established denomination that has been mysogynistic, discriminatory, and insensitive to followers? Why do voters remain faithful to a politician, recognized as fraudulent,  contemptuous, heedless of the rule of law?

Are these followers loyal, resolute, or just plain stubborn? The attitude of consistent and unwavering loyalty can be defended if it reflects a commitment to a church or nation, and yet unwavering support can also be interpreted as stubbornness. How do you define it?

1. Refusal to Change: A stubborn person often refuses to change their opinion, even when presented with facts or new information. They tend to cling to their beliefs, regardless of how much evidence contradicts them.

2. Rigidity: A stubborn person can be very inflexible in their approach to things. They may insist on doing things a certain way, without considering any other options. They tend to be very resistant to change and may become angry or defensive when challenged.

3. Difficulty in Compromise: A stubborn person finds it hard to compromise with others, even if it’s necessary for the situation. They may feel like they are always right and that their way is the only way. This inflexibility can make it hard for them to work with others and create a cooperative environment.

4. Resistance to Authority: A stubborn person may be very resistant to authority. They may challenge or question rules and regulations and may struggle to follow them. They may feel like they know better than those in charge and may resist any attempts to control or direct them.

5. Defensive Behavior : A stubborn person can be very defensive when challenged. They may feel like they are being attacked and become angry or hostile. They may try to justify their behavior or beliefs, even if it’s obvious they are in the wrong. https://www.solhapp.com/blog/how-to-identify-a-stubborn-person

Ironically if you’re stubborn, none of these characteristics seem negative to you. Why do we find it difficult to “compromise” in politics and religion? Because we know we’re right and compromising means “giving in.”  Why do some voters believe in “resistance to authority”? Because authority can not be trusted. Better to rely on yourself. What is wrong with “rigidity”? Isn’t it just another word for “courage of your convictions”?

That is why a stubborn person is invincible: no rational pleas or offering other loyalties can shake the stubborn person free of his or her convictions.  It is an unassailable position because it’s very nature is to reject alternatives. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The hypothesis that so many remain loyal to Donald Trump, because of stubbornness makes logical sense, but it is impossible to test, because the stubborn person defends his or her rights by turning a flaw into a virtue. It is an alternate universe where everything that psychology and religion consider a characteristic flaw becomes an indisputable loyalty.

This is the only explanation I can come up with to explain why so many evangelical Christian believers cling to Donald Trump despite many confirmations that he is disloyal, vengeful, immoral, and fraudulent. As Trump diverges from Christian values, loyalties stretch further and further to accommodate him. The elasticity of these loyalties keeps the true believer connected to the true narcissist.  There is no logic or scandal that can disconnect this loyalty.

One of the horrors of evangelical Christians used to be “moral relativism,” the idea that we are not wrong as long as others do the same thing.  Evangelicals of my generation (boomer) were taught to hold their standards against the immoral standards of “the world.” Sex before marriage was a significant prohibition because it was widely accepted in the world. So we practiced moral absolutism. We stood our ground against moral relativism.

This belief has given way to “what-about-ism,” because Donald Trump cannot be defended unless you accuse his opponents of the same thing.  Moral relativism is now widespread among radical evangelicals, because as long as they can claim Joe Biden is as corrupt as Donald Trump, they can justify Trump.

Donald Trump may be responsible for the slip from moral absolutism to moral relativism, and especially for evangelicals.  He has become an acceptable standard for morality because his Christian followers have compromised their values to bring him into their sphere of approval.   If you had predicted this move in the 1990’s Christians would be appalled.  The rigidity of stubbornness has allowed our morals to stretch. How is that for ironic?

Or maybe Christians were moral relativists before Donald Trump emerged on the national scene. It was our compromising our values that made way for such an admired public figure. Is Donald Trump the chicken or the egg?  Have some Christians allowed their morality to cave so that the way was clear for the Trump miracle of 2016?

That answer is beyond my pay grade, as are most answers. So I ponder what has perpetuated the adherence to Trump among a tight group of evangelicals. I can hardly see any cause but stubbornness.  But one person’s “stubbornness” is another person’s “loyalty.”

And there goes the neighborhood of moral standards, as the “what-about’s?” move in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Assurance of Things Hoped For

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. (Hebrews 11:1 – NIV)

In a lecture/ dialogue Monday night at Graham Memorial Chapel (Washington University), Heather Cox Richardson described our primary business in a democracy: to promote the idea that “all are created equal and have a say in our government.”  She referred to that idea as “faith in democracy.”

And I was struck by how similar “faith in democracy” was to faith in the religious context, because “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for  . . .”  Democracy continues to be an aspirational form of government, because it is challenged every day by those who want to use it for their own ends. This is not a political claim, because people on both ends of the political spectrum believe that democracy is on trial– just listen to the speeches on the stump of the Presidential campaign.

And some people of faith want to weaponize religion for their own agenda. It means making unholy alliances with political movements to advance a religious cause.  As Dr. Richardson urged, “Your politics should be informed by your faith, but it should not be used to garner power.” Just as religion is about the acquiring of faith, politics is about the acquiring of power. Religion should not be about the acquisition of power.

Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for.” It is not a bargain between religion and political parties, because partisan goals are political platforms, whereas religious goals are hopes yet unrealized. And religion was never intended to arm itself with political causes: look at (many of) the Crusades; the Catholic Inquisition; the Thirty Years’ War; the established churches in Europe before the American Revolution; the uneasy alliance between Christian churches and the Nazi regime of World War II. These were not the churches’ finest hours.

Those dark hours could be relived in a corrupted vision of American democracy. Those who believe the wall between church and state was not preserved in the Bill of Rights have no good designs on faith or democracy. They are using both faith and democracy to weaponize each other. It is not a good design for churches or political parties. It is corruption of both the sacred and the secular. In the word of Jesus, “Give, therefore, to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s”(Matthew 22:21-22, NIV).

Dr. Richardson encouraged her audience to oppose the narratives of theocracy (merging of church and state) with their own narratives, whether political or religious.  The counter-narrative of faith, whether in God or in democracy, opposes the deceptive narrative of Christian nationalism currently on the rise.  Stories have power to disentangle the twisted narrative of a nation founded under one religion.

In our church this summer we began to write “faith stories,” a genre of personal writing meant to explain why we believe as we do. They are not so much “testimonies” as stories that illustrate the differences between faith experiences and “ordinary life,” stories that confirm or strengthen our beliefs. They are as diverse as the people that write them. Most of all, they are narratives that we can share with anyone who wants to know why we believe as we do. I can not share them here, because I do not have permission, but I will try to make some of them available, if anyone is interested.

We are not really evangelists, but we want to be articulate to share a story of our “conviction of things unseen.” I cannot doubt but what we share about our faith would apply to what might be shared about faith in democracy. Why is democracy, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “the last best hope of earth” ? (Annual Address to the U.S. Congress, 1 December 1862).  Many of us could echo the words of Lincoln, and it would be interesting to think and write about why we believe what we do.

Belief in democracy is not a partisan cause, but it can be corrupted for private purposes, religious or otherwise. It remains for those who can frame the story of why they believe to share with the overwhelmed and hopeless. Those with the “assurance of things hoped for” have a lot to offer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for short nights and long days

Grace-filled God,

It’s 6 a.m. I have been up for an hour and a half, and it has been satisfying. In the quiet of the morning, I am with you and you with me.

I realize that I did not cheat time with my short night, because I have to recoup sleep in my afternoon nap, but I have gained the quiet, reflection and engagement I get less of during the heart of the day.

In my twenties and thirties, when I taught high school, I longed to be a morning person, so I didn’t have to stagger out of bed to get into school at 7:15 a.m., and nurse my coffee before dragging myself to a first -period Sophomore English class. I thought, an early morning would accommodate a more alert, reflective life.

I was right. In retirement I have transformed into a 5-6 hour per night person, rising an hour or ninety minutes before dawn in a quiet house, where prayer becomes more of a priority. And writing comes naturally.  I pray for 8-9 minutes, read something devotional, and something more political, then write, and I feel glad to be awake.

I worried that my erratic sleep could be a disorder, but then I read about someone who said,     ” I’ll have plenty of time to sleep after I’m gone,” I quit caffeine, turned over once, then got out of bed, and it gave me new perspective. Mornings are a gift; they no longer oppress me as they did for my first sixty years.  I usually wake conscious and grateful for a new day.

Thanks for the gift of an alert awakening, when I can seek your presence. I am living out a dream of earlier days, catching up on the mystery of the morning.

 

 

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Thanks for Our Electronic Angel . . .

. . .Which from the street looks like four white-hot appendages growing out of a bell-shaped skirt, a few blinking intermittently like something at the airport and strung together with silvery reflecting ribbons,

but up close looks like the inside of a six-foot tall LED network and you can clearly make out the outstretched robed arms and giant wings like an eagle just setting down on its perch and there are some dark red circles that resemble a sash and the sleeve cuffs of a robe.

Like a compressed constellation.

And if it is a little electronic and spidery it does suggest how the night sky could produce these flashes of light, portraying an angel choir, just before it broke into neighborhood-alarming hymns of praise, “Glory to the new-born king,”

which I would not simulate in this neighborhood more suited to “Silent Night.” Angels have been known to disturb the sleep of human beings, but their announcements always broke forth in the country,

where there are no “Disturbing the peace” laws that would slap a fine on your humble abode.  So our electric vision sings silently.

Suddenly it seemed appropriate to spring for a $100 Electronic Angel

after spending excessively to overhaul the landscaping in front of our house this fall, a wondrous improvement, but invisible in the night,

where our dark house lies calmly on a street with scattered Christmas decorations. We do not go in for the spectacular, our plantings stooped dark evergreens bordered by coppery, grayish boulders, but we wear winter fashion well.

Overnight the flashing white LED’s have awakened our yard and the gloomy end of our street,

reminding us of a miraculous story in the lightly trafficked darkness.

Most of all the story is about light shining in the uncomprehending night after night for two thousand years and

if the Electronic Angel gives it a tacky spin, it is ok with me if only it reminds me that heaven has come and

keeps coming into our most darkening moments.

For the intrusive glow illuminating our dining room window with mute alleluia,

Thank you, Holy Light.

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The “One Reality” of Baseball

[A re-posting of a blog: https://wtucker.edublogs.org/2020/09/03/the-one-reality-of-baseball/]

Unfortunately, separateness is the chosen stance of the small self which has a hard time living in unity and love with the diverse manifestations of this One Reality (i.e., ourselves, other people, and everything else). The small self takes one side or the other in order to feel secure. It frames reality in a binary way: for me or against me, totally right or totally wrong, my group’s or another group’s opinion—all dualistic formulations. (Richa Rohr Meditation, Separateness is Suffering, September 3, 2020.

I have struggled to understand how to escape the “dualistic formulations” Richard Rohr describes in his online meditations today. Politically I find myself drawn like a magnet to a certain pole, even when I am trying to make a fair judgment or reacting to “breaking news.” Spiritually I am often drawn to the same pole despite my Evangelical roots. I know the harsh judgments I project on the opposite pole of believers are self-righteous and uncharitable, but that “smart-ass” in me is always alive in my soul.
Today I went to familiar ground and thought about the competition among Major League baseball teams. I know there is healthy and ruthless competition among fans, as well as players. But I know there are fans of baseball who understand excellence and sportsmanship in the game.
We often speak of “fans of the game,” who are not merely fans of one team. If a player on the opposing team makes an outstanding play, the true baseball fans will cheer the effort and performance. They recognize excellence and freely appreciate it with applause or cheers.
Baseball announcers and managers will often refer to a “baseball town” or “knowledgeable fans” because the crowd responds to plays that are just “good baseball” regardless of which team makes them.  This is a good analogy to the spiritual individual breaking through the “dualism” of life to a revelation of beauty and excellence. It is a wisdom born of much experience and a sense of how the game should be played or how life should be lived.
Catcher Mike Piazza of the Los Angeles Dodgers is slid into by Rickey Henderson of the San Diego Padres during an MLB game circa 1996 at Dodger...Maybe it is a crude analogy for the wisdom of the spirit, but it has meaning for me. When we remember a great baseball game, it is often with appreciation of a certain play that excited us, regardless of which team made it. “I remember when Ricky Henderson, that SOB, stole home home and won the game.” We appreciate the play, even while raging against the outcome.  There is an admiration of the skill and an understanding of what “good baseball” is that you usually don’t hear from the young, but the older fan has a different perspective. That is like the appreciation of the divine.
If I had a larger perspective of politics and religion, I think I would grow in appreciation for the world as God sees it, as God wants me to see.  If I could see my adversaries with charity and empathy I would be closer to what God sees in them. It is what Richard Rohr calls living in the likeness of God.  It seems like a long road, but it is worth traveling, I think.
The small self is still objectively in union with God, it just does not know it, enjoy it, or draw upon it. Jesus asked, “Is it not written in your own law, ‘You are gods’?” (John 10:34). But for most of us, this objective divine image has not yet become the subjective likeness (Genesis 1:26‒27). Our life’s goal is to illustrate both the image and the likeness of God by living in conscious loving union with God. It is a moment by moment choice and surrender. (Richard Rohr Meditation, Separateness is Suffering, September 3, 2020.)
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Self-Made

[A re-posting that seems relevant in the election season.]

They say he was a self-made man.

Well, that should absolve the Creator of considerable responsibility.

I can’t locate the author of this wry remark, but it sounds like one of Abraham Lincoln’s one-liners. It surfaced as I was reading about Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand this week, wondering how different he was from me.  I don’t know much about Ayn Rand, but I know one thing: I can’t trust anyone who thinks he or she is a self-made man or self-made woman.

Humility is not a primary requisite to be a politician or an exceptional athlete or performer, but the illusion of self-sufficiency is not a luxury I can afford those who make decisions for me.  Such illusions have brought this country to reckless invasions and dizzying financial risks with other people’s money. These decisions are based on an attitude of invulnerability and so-called “exceptionalism.”  Ironically it also builds on a kind of  “entitlement,”  the assumption that we get what we earn in life.

Tell that to the martyrs, the casualties of war, the victims of congenital diseases, the victims of violent crime.  If these victims were “self-made,” their expiration date was premature.  They might have lived consecrated lives, but they did not receive their just desserts in this life.

We can either romanticize the lives of those unjustly sacrificed or we can learn what we owe the grace of God and the mercy of friends and strangers.  I want to be led by the latter, by those who know their debt and providence, those who know that a “hand up” is not a “handout.”

Power either corrupts or humbles. We have been fortunate to have been led most often by the humbled. I believe that most of our Presidents have left office with this disposition.  The staunchest conservatives, self-made men like Goldwater and Reagan, finished their terms with more compassion for the weak than when they entered politics. Like the aging King Solomon they accepted that “The race is not always to the swift.”  They knew the need for mercy by the sheer responsibility they bore with their political power.

In the campaign season we will likely hear a lot of humble rhetoric. Probably most of it is for show, so I will not judge candidates by their words. However, I will not vote for anyone who subscribes to the “self-made man” philosophy. I will vote for those who respect power as a vulnerability, not an entitlement.

God save us from the “self-made man” or “self-made woman.”

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Insatiable Hatred

There is no recent precedent for the scale of the hostage situation in the Gaza Strip. Hamas, the militant group that governs much of Gaza, abducted about 150 people during its weekend invasion of southern Israel. Most of the hostages are civilians. Hamas has threatened to execute them one by one and videotape the killings each time an Israeli airstrike hits Gazans in their homes. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGtxdVpGftlXjlblqQpkFPXMqzr

In the New York Times, October 11, 2023, the images of hostage-taking in Israel by Hamas are heart-rending. The images are of mothers holding children, sickly elderly people, children being pushed down a path to a truck.

Noam Elyakim, a father, can be seen limping while militants march him across the border into Gaza. When attackers entered his home on Saturday, they shot him in the leg and used his wife’s phone to livestream as they abducted the family, including his daughters Dafna, 15, and Ella, 8. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGtxdVpGftlXjlblqQpkFPXMqzr

The footage of members of the Hamas militia, shows them breaching the boundary fence with savage warrior cries, suggesting the intensity of their anger. Images of Hamas terrorists pulling an Israeli, presumed dead, from a tank and kicking the body on the ground, display their fury.

“War is hell,” said one who knew, William Tecumseh Sherman, during the Civil War.  But even war should respect innocent civilians, taking civilian captives with restraint. War should pause with a truce, not with threats to execute hostages one by one. Wars should be fought for a cause, not with vengeful vendettas of violence.

There are levels of hatred. We might hate someone who vehemently disagrees with us. We might hate for deceitful public remarks about friends or relatives. We might hate someone who harmed a relative or someone we know.  It is the festering hate that drags us down the path to personal hell. Hate that starts at the cradle and deepens as we mature. Hate that is publicly sanctioned and draws people together in fury. Hate that creates an unthinking mob.

We saw hate like this in the lynching of Black people in the South,  in mobs after 9/11, wishing revenge on all Muslims. We even have seen hate like this at furious political rallies organized by George Wallace, Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump.

The common denominator to these is the agreement to hate. A leader inspires weak-minded followers. A group forms against a perceived enemy of their race or religion.  Perhaps a grim public organizes around hatred of innocent people on trial for heinous crimes: the Central Park Five trial, satisfying a need to avenge a brutal rape and murder.

When people agree to hate, no matter the reason, a vicious power grows and deepens, unlike the fleeting hatred we may all feel from time to time. It takes a durable root in the soul, a poisonous vine, gripping others and pulling them into the circle of hate. It grows beyond the reach of reason or repentance, as long as a mob sustains it.  It may create a victim narrative, making hate seem legitimate. Hate can be institutionalized.

That is the level of hate in Hamas. It will not relent or listen to reason. It will fester by strength of the mob and the generations of grievance. Yes, there are real grievances, but they are being fed by a self-destructive conspiracy to hate.  Can we negotiate with it? Not really.  We can bargain or succumb to blackmail, but negotiate? Unlikely.

We can learn from this tragic atrocity. Individual hate is one thing, but agreement to hate is deadly. If you hate, find a way to forgive or carry the burden yourself. If you have to share, do it with regret, not fury. Do not conspire to hate. Do not suck others into your anger. Do not give it room to grow by agreement. There lies death.