Division Test : Rivalry poisons God’s farm

A life in the Spirit, Building community, Life as the church, Music, , , ,

This was a message for the church in September of 2001, not long after 9/11

It happened again. I sat in front of MTV gape-jawed the other day. I flipped to it during the commercials on another channel and I happened upon a new video of an Elton John song called “I Want Love.”

I admit, I am regularly tormented by MTV, but I don’t think I have ever seen or heard such a misleading, stick-in-your-head little pop poem as this song — and Elton is probably scheduled to perform it at the Kimmel Arts Center when he’s over there to help open it in December! I’m almost afraid to play it for you, but I have to. Because we need to be able to differentiate between the love of Christ and this false love Elton is overwhelmed by. And even though our scripture is not speaking directly about this tonight, at the base of what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 3 is his own torment about the plight of the Elton Johns of the world and their influence. Listen to cravings Elton describes as he sings through the vacant eyes of Robert Downey Jr.

Elton John and Bernie Taupin are probably writing about the “love” of drugs and how the obsession with them kills people on the inside with easy ecstasy. Robert Downey Jr. had about ruined his career with drug use and this video is the start of his resurrection. Maybe all the MTV viewers get this backstory, but I am afraid more of them admired the song for  “owning” the “reality” of being isolated from true love and being “brave” about it, as follows:

I want love on my own terms. Don’t be nice to me because I can’t feel anything. I’m dead in places where other people are liberated. Don’t make me submit to anything. Don’t ask me to be surrounded by anything. It is what it is.

That’s the kind of  I-want-it-the-way-I-want-it “love” scaring Paul when he is writing to the Corinthian church. In chapter 13 he gives them a little love song of his own, which is a worthy alternative to Elton’s. But here, in chapter 3, he is just trying to get people to look at the symptoms of caving-in to what is worst about us as people. He is not judging people, or saying we should never struggle, he’s just trying to get the love of Jesus at the center of inevitable troubles we face and cause.

Elton’s kind of “love,” the kind of relating he’s describing, kills souls, as I think Elton knows. He can see it makes him dead in places where other men feel liberated. I see that kind of unlove killing whole churches which should be all about liberation. When struggle turns to strife and trouble turns to trauma, we’re into the kind of thinking and acting that killed Jesus. Thank God Jesus rises again! That’s chapter 15.

So let’s check out 1 Corinthians 3. Here’s an outline of what Paul is saying to them, and, by extension, to us:

  1. The jealousy and strife you are demonstrating are killers. Rivalry is killing the world. (1-4)
  2. So let me help you out with some Jesus-type-thinking. How the world was designed to work looks like this: We are all fellow-workers with God as he recreates the world in what might be likened to a huge farm reclamation project. So don’t mess up the parts of the farm that are already reclaimed. (5-17)
  3. To sum it up, here is the reality you live in. You’ve got it all when you have Jesus, so don’t settle for less. Why would we compare and grasp for more when God has already given us everything in Jesus? Pass the division test. (18-23)

The jealousy and strife you are demonstrating are killers. Rivalry is killing the world. (vv. 1-4)

Paul says (I’m paraphrasing):

“People, I won’t talk to you as if you are spiritual because you are worldly–mere infants in Christ.  I gave you milk, not solid food, because  you weren’t ready for solids yet. And you apparently are still not ready.  You’re still stuck in pre-Jesus habits of the heart. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not just like the world has always been? Are you not acting like humans out of relationship with God? When one of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ what’s new about you?”

Can we agree on this? Jealousy and strife are killers. Rivalry is killing the world. One thing, among many things, that has really made me stop and think since September 11 is that many people are amazed that anyone could hate the U.S. so much as to bomb the Trade Centers. It is as if seeing people fight each other surprises them; it’s as if they missed the history of the last century. It is like they never heard themselves going off on their children, or never had anyone go off on them, or never stopped talking to someone because they would just as soon they moved away and were never heard from again. It is like they didn’t know that thousands of children die each day of starvation because no one cares for them. It is like they never heard of the Native American eradication project in the 1800’s in our own country.

We can be so blind. We really need a savior. Jealousy and quarreling should surprise no one. They are our mother’s milk. Most of us think fighting our rivals is an essential way to get justice, even as a way to have a self. We don’t think anything bad is happening among us sometimes, because we think it is “normal.” But it kills us and it kills the church.

The whole point of being the church is to undo this “carnality, this being-a-human-without-God-lifestyle” in us. The love of Jesus is at work among us to free us from being stuck in the world-as-usual. Paul is telling these good people that the rivalries they think are normal and right are going to kill their church. They will close the door to the Holy Spirit in their hearts and close the door to the Holy Spirit in the midst of them as a church if they keep it up. We need to be open to the Spirit of God to feel anything but we are pitted against this group, or excluded from that group, or suspicious or jealous of that group.

We have a lot of love here, but you can see how much we need the Holy Spirit of God as people assess their rivals and feel jealous or opposed to others. Just listen to some innuendo or actual quotes I’ve heard lately:

The artists in our church don’t care about racial reconciliation.
Center City people talk about living simply but they obviously don’t.
I haven’t been to worship in ages because there aren’t any good churches in Philadelphia.
A few people in the church make all the decisions.
I’m not in a cell because I doubt that people would be deep enough to handle how I share my soul.
I’m not going clear up to Germantown. No one goes there.
I don’t fit in because everyone is so young.
I don’t fit because everyone is a Democrat.
I don’t fit in because I am not such an evangelical Christian.

It goes on.

I don’t know whether those things are true or not. But I do know they cause strife. You may have gotten a little steam building up in you just thinking someone said one of them. They make for quarreling. And I know, even deeper, that they are often spoken under the spell of jealousy.

Jealousy is hostility toward someone, often a knee-jerk feeling about a rival who seems to have an advantage over you. I think we are all born jealous of God’s advantage over us. Jealousy let loose in God’s church, where the Holy Spirit resides, is a disaster. It is the anti-love that acts like a computer worm taking over your reactions. Jealousy makes you suspicious, it makes you guarded and defensive. Jealousy makes you competitive, makes your rivalries more important than your contribution to building community. Jealousy makes what others seem to have and what you lack the most important thing to you.

Paul says, “I can’t even talk about God to you! When you pass the division test, maybe we can get somewhere. But as long as jealousy is making you all rivals and not family, we’re back at square one, and even that square is in danger.”

So let me help you out with some Jesus-type-thinking. How the world was designed to work looks like this: We are all fellow-workers with God as he recreates the world in what might be likened to a huge farm reclamation project. So don’t mess up the parts of the farm that are already reclaimed. (vv. 5-17)

This is the idea: God is reclaiming the world from the wilderness. In Jesus, he is the sower, seeds are growing, and the farm is being tilled in territory that was once overgrown with weeds, infested and unproductive. It is like God’s farm, the earth, was overtaken by the jungle, like one of those Mayan cities in Yucatan that Gwen and I saw. One temple near Copan was so covered by vegetation that it looked like steep hill, not a pyramid (like in the pic). The Corinthian church is like part of God’s farm that has been placed back in cultivation and it is growing good things. Paul says, you’ve got to keep it free of weeds. Rivalry is like kudzu. It takes you over. It tangles you up and chokes out love. If you are one of those people who are forming a group around yourself, or even if you just are stubborn enough to want “love” the way you want it, you are like some big thistle of division planted in the middle of everyone’s life.

There is a lot more in these verses we could learn about, but the main thing I want to emphasize is this picture of what life is all about, because farming with God is what our church is all about. Farming is such a great organic picture and we want to thrive with the life of the Spirit growing in us. Being God’s farm is what being a cell, being a congregation and being a network of congregations is all about.

Let’s concentrate on the small group, the cell. Being God’s farm is what a cell is all about. We were discussing this at our meeting the other night. We aren’t similar people in our cell. Some of us would be natural rivals. But we are together because our common faith and love has given us this radical notion that we can grow something new in the world. It crosses divisions. We are God’s fellow-workers in this. So take note about how you relate to cells. If you like to go there and argue so you can feel like someone, you could be a weed. If you want them to give you love the way you want it and get mad if they disappoint you, you could be a thistle. If you can’t even get next to a group of people face to face at all and love them for Jesus sake and for the sake of reclaiming the farm with him, you may need to check out how he wants you to get involved another way.

To sum it up, here is the reality you live in. You’ve got it all when you have Jesus, so don’t settle for less. Why would we compare and grasp for more when God has already given us everything in Jesus? Pass the division test. (vv. 18-23)

Paul thinks his argument is pretty compelling. And don’t misunderstand him, he writes in a particular style that seems sort of combative. But it is just a style. He’s trying to get across God’s heart, not just win an argument. He says, in essence: If you are hearing me, if you agree that division kills and God has a plan for his farm, then, let’s give up the rivalries! All things are ours, whether Paul or Apollos or Peter or the world or life or death or the present or the future–all are ours. We are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

Jesus has opened up the way to eternity. The best is ours — even the best of these different groups in Corinth, the best of Paul or Apollos or Peter, or whoever or whatever, is ours. We don’t have to fight for it. God is delivering what is best to us. He started by giving himself in His son.

I think this is a profound way to live and I am trying to go with it. For instance: Periodically people ask me “what are you guys?” Maybe they mean, “What denomination are you against?” If they wonder if we are Presbyterians, I say, “Basically.” Baptists? “Of course.” Pentecostal? “Yes.” 

When I answer that way I am not being cute, because all are mine. One woman asked me if I were a priest. “Pastor” didn’t make any sense to her. So I finally said, “Sure, I’m sort of a priest.” I am of Christ. Who cares about being this or that other, I have the best of them all.

We are looking to be the new humanity without race or class, where there is no Jew or Arab, low-class or high-class, majority or minority, male or female, simple-liver or entrepreneur but Christ is all and is in all. In our church, where Jesus is in his temple, we are trying to get our minds and hearts around something bigger and deeper. Sometimes we call it the “both/and,” but that is too philosophical. In Christ it is just all – no balance necessary because Jesus personally holds everything together in love.

I don’t know what all this is meaning “practically” to you.

  • I at least think it should mean you look around the room tonight with Jesus eyes rather than the old, killer-instinct eyes of sorting out your rivals.
  • We should at least ask ourselves if we can pass a basic division test to see if we are more than just pre-Jesus humans.
  • At best it could practically mean that we can all breathe easier, now. We’ve got it all. All we can do is get better at accessing all that God is trying to get to us.

So we can let go of that painful, disappointing process of trying to find ourselves in comparison to another person, for better or worse. And we can stop trying to get for ourselves the life that God is desperate to give to us. We’ve got it. Connected to Jesus we have access to all of it, and it is just going to get more complete. I want that love.

Francis and the Living Stone

A life in the Spirit, Building community, Film/TV, Life as the church, , ,

As I rummaged around in past messages I prepared for the church, I came across this one from 2000 focusing on Francis of Assisi and building a church of “living stones.” My interest was heightened because I am reading a classic book about him: The Road to Assisi: The Essential Biography of St. Francis. I thought you might like to be reminded of him, too. In these days of strained community, he is an inspiration.

Bernardo becoming a living stone

Francis of Assisi and others who went before him in what is called the “monastic movement” became strange mentors to me as a follower of Jesus. Francis’ life and his legacy, in particular, reached across 700 years and lit a fire in me that hasn’t died out yet. I read a book about him once called The Last Christian and I can appreciate what the author was saying. He had a very passionate, New Testament, close to the earth, filled-with-the-Spirit kind of life.

In his early twenties Francis liberally used his privilege as a rich man’s son, and was quite the life of the party in Assisi. He was known for his poetry, songs, and for leading the scandalous line dance called the farandole. Call it unfortunate or blessed, he and his friends made up a generation of young warriors who were sent off by their fathers to pillage a neighboring walled city. The war, and Francis’ sickness (or was it a desertion?), left him a changed young man.

In the middle of his desperation, God somehow revealed himself. She didn’t reveal herself through the church — the institution which had blessed the war and received the spoils. It was through nature. Whenever you see a lawn ornament of Saint Francis (and I have one in my living room, if you’d like to), there is always a bird perched on him somewhere and often a bunny at his feet. That’s much cuter than necessary, since his most spectacular association with animals is with a man-eating wolf. But it is a reminder that he sort of got the message straight from God, through the sun, moon, stars, fire and water.

In my twenties I discovered a movie about St. Francis that brought him home to me even more. The 1970’s was a time when a lot of people were acting out how sick they were of their parents’ materialism and war, and a lot of them were again finding Jesus outside the established church. I was very influenced by the whole movement of the Spirit that was going on. Then I saw this movie that put it all together for me. Here was the Francis, about whom I’d read, in a movie directed by Franco Zeffirelli with a lot of hippie trappings called Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

But it wasn’t just the cool-at-the-time packaging of Francis that got to me, it was the timeless content. The word of Jesus breathed truth into the first century, into the 1200’s, and into 1975, and the Spirit of God is doing it today. I hope the following clip from the movie helps draw you into what God is doing in every age.

In this scene, Francis quotes from our scripture for today from 1 Peter. “You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.”  After Francis left his parents to live free as a beggar, he heard a message from God, “Rebuild my church.” He took this message quite literally and started rebuilding a run-down church building out in the country. As Zeffirelli tells it (and who knows exactly how something happened in the 12th century?) Francis’ old drinking buddies and friends began to come looking for him. They found him doing this project. In the clip we’re going to see, one of his future main men, Bernardo, comes to see him. Bernardo has just returned from the Crusades and is disillusioned. He has a choice to make – follow his desire to be real, or get roped into the politics and power-grabbing of the powers that be.

During their conversation, Francis apparently begins to see that the idea of rebuilding the church is not much about buildings at all, it is about people built into a spiritual house. It is about a new community based on Jesus and his ways, not just on his own personal convictions about rejecting the ways of the world. You can see the light dawn as Francis talks to Bernardo about a building stone he’d like to have. Bernardo gets the idea that the cornerstone he’s talking about just might be himself.

Obviously, it is a very European message coming from this movie. At the time of Francis there were already a world-full of acceptable versions and depths of Christianity around. I don’t think one size fits all. Sentiments from medieval Europe may not play too well in Asia or Texas or even in my neighborhood. But in every culture and every style of thinking, I believe Peter is saying the same thing. It is the same thing Francis heard, that Bernardo heard, that I hope you will dare to hear again tonight. It is the bookend phrases of our passage tonight. Very simple:

As you come to him, the living Stone–rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him– you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood…Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.

The living stone rejected

Jesus rejected, Francis rejected, Bernardo getting on the wrong side of Emperor Otto of Brunswick, you chosen by God but rejected by people — this is normative. Followers of Jesus inevitably are called out of the world as it is, as it lives without Jesus as king, and they are built into what amounts to a countercultural community – not anti-cultural or supra-cultural community, just a group of strange people. People filled with eternity are foreigners in this passing away world. Whenever the body of Christ gets comfortable in the easy chair of any culture, it loses its heart. If it isn’t strange to the world it is strange to God.

It is so hard to be strange, that evangelists have often offered workarounds. In Mexico they made it easy for Aztecs to follow Jesus by amalgamating European saints to Aztec gods. In the U.S. they made the church as individualistic as the Declaration of Independence and as bottom-line-oriented as our brand of capitalism. Presenting Jesus in the robes of any culture, kills the whole thing, as far as I can see. I tie my heart together with the people all through the history of the church who have gathered together around Jesus to listen to him, no matter what habits they had from the culture they came from. They did not hate themselves or their ancestry; they just loved Jesus more. Jesus is transcultural – he’s alive in all cultures and subject to none. That’s what I hope you will go for, too.

Peter teaches like we are his family or comrades:

Brothers and sisters, my friends, we were chosen, made alive, and we are being built into the place where the Spirit of God lives. We are the people of God, now. We received his mercy. It makes us strange. So come out that world and don’t go back to be it. When you interact, love it like God does, and to call people into life with you.

This scripture has huge implications, but two main ones stick out.

We all need to keep letting our minds get changed about who we are.

This is the main thing a culture defines for you – who you are. Culture is just “how we do things, what kind of people we are.” So we say, “I am an American. We know we  organize our country around the pursuit of profit and property. We die for individual freedom. Etc.

But the main thing Jesus defines for you is also – who am I? I am a child of God, a member of his family, a part of his household. I am a citizen of the kingdom. I am a valued part of the body of Christ. This mercy I have received demands a response. Etc.

Our pre-Jesus culture and the desires it built into us, needs to get subordinated to the king. There’s a big interior process that needs to keep maturing.

How we decide what to do needs to be transformed, too.

What we do gets launched from our identities as one of the people of God. We are not just our own. We were bought by Jesus and we were transferred to his kingdom and we were given an assignment in the family business. It isn’t all about you; it is also all about God and all of us. That’s going to make a big difference in how you spend your time and decide your schedule. When we decide what to do, we will consider the people of God in general, and the people of God specific – our Church and our church.

Some people see this as an imposition on their freedom, if they still see life as coming from themselves instead of from God and through his body. They make transactions with their time and resources between the church and themselves because the church is something and they are something else.

But once we were no people, but now we are the people of God; that truth demands attention. We have the constant challenge of seeing how we, in union with God, interact as a body and interface with the people we meet — especially those driven by society meeting the undriven.

I’m boiling down a huge discussion topic, maybe you should talk about it in your cells again. I just hope you get this. We are into something new, strange, other-worldly and laced with the Spirit of God.  It feels real to me, and exciting, like I found a piece of meat I could really sink my teeth into (apologies to vegetarians). Peter is talking about life with substance, real people, being the real people of God with Jesus in their midst. I’m as hungry for that as Francis ever was.

I think the communion table is the perfect symbol at the center of this countercultural community that God keeps forming in every era and in every territory and tribe that will welcome him. Tonight we are very much a community gathered around Jesus. As we hand one another bread and then the cup we reaffirm that our desires have been freed from sin and the bondage of living without God in the world, and as we take the body and blood of Jesus from one another we are reaffirming that we are the people of God, one with the whole body throughout the world and throughout time, and one with one another, especially, face-to-face.

Our Poverty Meets God’s Love 

A life in the Spirit, ,

This is a  message I offered in December of 1999. It still resonates with me and challenges me, especially since I am much richer, both materially and spiritually than I was then. 

World Trade Organization 1999 in Seattle

Did you follow the news about the big battles going on in Seattle this week? The world is changing and the World Trade Organization appears to be a “target of choice” for people who don’t like the changes. Thousands of demonstrators this week tried to shut Seattle down and disrupt the WTO because they don’t believe, among other things, that the capitalists and governments getting together to smooth out trade are going to care for the poor. One French farmer who is famous in France for dismantling a McDonalds was there to keep saying that he doesn’t want the globalization of farming and the wholesale hormone infection of his food. People protested the fact that AIDS drugs are incredibly overpriced. The unions protested the exploitation of workers. And I think a lot of people were there because they don’t know what to do with their fear of huge corporations and powerful political people getting together and finding ways to get even richer.

Jesus loves the poor

Whose side Jesus is on? Well, I think Jesus probably couldn’t care less about debating politics which don’t derive consciously from him, so I imagine he finds some merit in arguments on any number of sides. BUT, I can say that everyone in Seattle last week who was attempting to be on the side of the poor, is going to find some sympathy from Jesus. That is exactly where we, as followers of Jesus should always be allied. If you don’t embrace your own poverty or aren’t taking up for the poor, Jesus would like to reveal the heart of God to you by becoming a human to open your eyes and show a new way to live.

Jesus is welcomed into the world by Elizabeth, an old, barren women related to his unwed mother. (Sounds like a quarter of the families filling the rowhouses of this city. Jesus is definitely born in a rowhouse on a street where half of them are abandoned). His coming out is given the big whoop of announcement by shepherds who either actually live out in the fields like one translation says, or who work the night shift. They might be the same class as the night security guards or taxi drivers. Jesus, himself, managed to be born in a stable. I can imagine this manger crib as a terrible accident for which Mary never forgave Joseph – “I told you to get reservations, but no, you were sure there would be plenty of rooms in the inns of Bethlehem.” Or perhaps we should see it as one of many statements about poverty that God wants to make.

It was kind of the Inquirer to publish two versions of Christmas this week when they were telling us about all the winter celebrations coming up. They had a religious column and a secular column for Christmas. From the middle of that glut one might forget the message the circumstances of the Lord’s birth vividly portrays. There is a definite preference for the poor being demonstrated throughout. Mary gets the message right away. She’s standing there with her pregnant old aunt, who recognizes her niece is bearing the Messiah.

Some of what Mary said includes:

“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me–
holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.

That song doesn’t go over big, here in the land of secular Christmas. What bigger irritatant could place in the American religion than to say something like, “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty?“ Jesus turns it all upside down. Old barren women have babies, young virgins become pregnant, kings are born in stables, and suddenly angels are appearing to shepherds in the field.

Blessed are the poor

I’m not sure one can make too much of these shepherds. Of course it is all speculation as to what exactly it was like to be a shepherd in the day God was born as Jesus. But I suppose it must be obvious that if you sit around in a field all night, being a shepherd can’t be a white collar job. We won’t know until heaven just what these guys were really like, but it is reported shepherds were probably scary, hard-drinking types who couldn’t hold a day job. It is nice to sing a French folk tune that sounds relatively sweet and clean, carefully reconstructed to fit into a church service in the 1850’s, like that “Angels We Have Heard on High” song. But chances are, the shepherds were not the type who went to church or spoke French. Face it, God loves the poor. He may be gracious to everyone, and that is love, too. But his heart beats for the poor.

When Jesus appears, this is part of the big announcement, “Blessed are the poor” God is here. Finally, He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

We are all rich enough here for this to make a difference to us. Even the poorest of the people in the U.S. might be collectively considered better off than the poor among the rest of the world. So it makes a difference that Jesus shows God’s apparent preference for the poor, and shows his great interest in revealing himself to the poor. And Mary, at least, has gotten the message that the rich have problems meeting God.

So let’s briefly explore this. Is there some kind of advantage in being poor?

1) Yes. I think there is a spiritual advantage to being literally poor.

Obviously, “poor” is a relative term. And obviously many people do not have a discussion about whether they are poor or not. You decide all that about you — whether you are poor enough just being poorer than “them,” or whether you need to choose to be poor once you actually have a choice.

The Christians in the United States have spent so many years justifying why it is not only OK but a blessing for them to be rich that they are often just about impossible to talk to about their wealth at all. There was this big article in a religious magazine I get that had a report about a revolutionary thing happening in a small group in Kansas; they were actually talking to one another about their money and how they spent it! Some revolution! But when you have grown totally used to being rich and controlling it all privately for your own benefit, just talking about wealth is radical.

I just want to point out that the poor in the Christmas story have an advantage. They are the ones who get direct revelation from God.

2) There is an advantage to being poor in Spirit, too.

Being humble, not considering yourself all-important is basic. Doesn’t Jesus say unless you are at least poor in Spirit it will be almost impossible to meet God?

I think what we do with our bodies makes a difference to what is happening to our souls every time. So I don’t want you to get the wrong idea when I say “poor in spirit,” here. Being poor in your heart is not necessarily different from being literally poor. But Jesus seems to think it is deeper than just being poor. You can be poor and not be poor in spirit.

So poor or rich, whatever you are stuck with for the time being, it appears that it is very difficult to live in the presence of God, unless you are in touch with how poor and powerless you really are.

For instance, it is good to be Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, who is an old, apparently sterile woman, who feels disgrace over never having a child. The poverty of her disgrace is an access point for God. It is good to be Mary, a pregnant teenager, who is going to answer a lifetime of questions about who really fathered her oldest son. Her doubts and distress, her conflicts, are access points for God. It is good to be a shepherd who can’t get a better job and probably feels sort of like the low-life everyone says he is. His low self-esteem is an access point for God.

Be blessed

Everyone is trying to get us all to give in to the philosophy of the day which thinks it is common sense that everyone will be happy when they are happy with themselves. But it is possible that the message of Christmas is that no one is happy and only knowing God can get you anywhere at all. The message is, “Don’t make yourself happy by pumping yourself up until you are rich in self. Be blessed. Get a self from God by finding yourself in relationship to him.”

The poor and the poor in Spirit are the people who get to meet God in the here and now. That is the amazing message of the Christmas story. It is a message worth receiving, and an ongoing gift you can give to the world that just doesn’t get it.

I will leave you with an example of someone who was an incarnation of Christ among the poor and who wasn’t afraid to speak the truth she lived among the powerful.

Mother Teresa and the poor in Calcutta, India in October, 1979. (Photo by Jean-Claude FRANCOLON/Gamma-Rapho)

Mother Teresa leads the way

Five or six years ago, before she died, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was at that famous national Prayer Breakfast in which she took on the U.S. and the President for being a nation committed to abortion and buried in drugs all at the expense of children in the Year of the Child.

Here are some excerpts of her remarks:

The poor are very great people…. These poor people maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home to live in, but they can still be great people when they are spiritually rich. Those who are materially poor can be wonderful people. One evening we went out and we picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in a most terrible condition. I told the Sisters: “You take care of the other three; I will take care of the one who looks worse.” So I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand, and she said one thing only: “Thank you.” Then she died.

I could not help but examine my conscience before her. I asked, “What would I say if I were in her place?” And my answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said, “I am hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain,” or something like that. But she gave me much more – she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face.

Then there was the man we picked up from the drain, half-eaten by worms. And after we had brought him to the home, he only said, “I have lived like an animal in the street, but am going to die as an angel, loved and cared for.” Then, after we had removed all the worms from this body, all he said – with a big smile – was: “Sister, I am going home to God.” And he died. It was so wonderful to see the greatness of that man, who could speak like that without blaming anybody, without comparing anything. Like an angel – this is the greatness of people who are spiritually rich, even when they are materially poor.

Your are hearing the message again: Here it is summarized in a letter to the Corinthian church: “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

What kind of rich is it? It is not the foolish wealth of this world that passes away. It is the wealth summarized in Romans: “Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

God born in a stable is telling us something. “I knows your poverty.” He’s in it with us. It is an advantage to be poor when it leads you to be rich in Christ.

Clinging to what is good: And other crucial verbs

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

Laboring under nouns

John McWhorter’s latest essay was all about verbs. I was happy to have his brilliance confirm my general resistance to how “nounal” Americans are. Like Adam wandering around Eden, we like to wall off a garden and name everything in it. Nouns feel settled and powerful, I think.

I am still healing from a rash of labeling which has been clinging to me for a couple of years – still finding negative nouns stuck on me like a stubborn tag on a piece of plastic from the dollar store. McWhorter wishes we’d get over being nouns and labelling others and move onto verbs, move on to something else, something deeper. He writes:

[L]ife is about much else, and what ultimately conveys this “else” is verbs. What makes all those animals [Adam named] interesting is when they do things like walking, drinking and looking. Verbs can be said to be the core of what language is, Human Expression 1.0.

Although this might seem a revelation to English speakers, it would be intuitive to speakers of, for instance, many Native American languages. In some of them, names can be verbs, as in “Dances With Wolves” with Lakota, a language I wrote about here not long ago. The Lushootseed language of Washington State takes this concept beyond mere names, such that some specialists think it doesn’t have nouns at all, just verbs: The word for “coyote” is the phrase “is a coyote.” In other languages, it’s adjectives that are elusive, with verbs taking over their jobs. In Japanese, today’s cup of tea “hots,” and yesterday’s cup “hotted.” In Fongbe, a language spoken in Togo and Benin, all the adjectives are actually verbs except for a mere 18.

McWhorter’s essay was one in a series of encouragements to live into crucial verbs I’d like to share with you.

Clinging to movement

I got started on the Bible study below because, while I was praying, I was hit by a snippet of Romans 12: “Cling to what is good.” I’d been labelled a few unwelcome things and I was dwelling on them. I was complaining to God about my feelings. God’s apparent reply was, “Cling to what is good,” or where did that even come from? How did a snippet invade my wound licking?

I did not immediately go to the Bible, since I carry a lot of the Bible with me — and the actual text does not always match what the Spirit is saying to me. So I delayed a bit and heard what I needed to hear, which was, “Cling to what is good in you.” That was important, because I was clinging to what was bad in me, as far as someone else was concerned. And in some cases I was clinging to the bad they did to me which had sunk into me.

What’s more I heard, “Cling to what is clinging to you.” That felt good, too, since I’m not always a good clinger. But my good God is clinging to me, coming right next to me and putting his arm around me in Jesus, and is nearer than my own breath by her Spirit.

Call it a coincidence, but I then came across a song by Lauren Daigle, about whom I know very little, and it was just the right thing to sing. I listened. Then I learned her song and sang it into my Smule collection to solidify it in my heart.

Living in verbs

I finally visited Romans 12, in which I have spent hours of meditation over the years. I followed a hunch I think McWhorter planted in me. Although I am not an expert in Greek, I was taught how Greek verbs are formed back in college. They are complex and evocative. They are also central to what amounts to Greek sentences — sometimes they are a whole English sentence in one word.

I thought my precious clause, “Cling to what is good,” might be part of a string of verbs in Romans 12:9-21. I was right. The passage is mostly a string of participles, almost like a bulleted list, which English translators turn into a bunch of sentences that often obscure their meaning. They make paragraphs out of little explosions, sentences out of expostulations popping off the page, much like I imagine God speaking the world into being out of nothing. Those verbs are better to be experienced than analyzed, as if they were a bunch of nouns.

I would not want to present this interpretation to my college Greek professor (she was tough!), or to my seminary Biblical theology prof (he was tougher!). But I think I am getting to the meaning and movement of this wonderful section of the Bible better than the New International Version! This portion said a lot to me. Maybe it will move you, too.

If we are living out our new life in the Spirit
as members of the body of Christ, we will be

    • Loving authentically
    • Detesting evil-sowers
    • Clinging to what is good
    • Nurturing family love in the Body
    • Honoring others with the first place
    • Working with diligence, not slothfully
    • Letting our fervor boil
    • Serving the Lord
    • Rejoicing in hope
    • Enduring affliction
    • Persevering in prayer
    • Contributing to the needs in the church
    • Pursuing hospitality
    • Blessing those who persecute us
    • Blessing and not cursing
    • Rejoicing with those rejoicing
    • Lamenting with those lamenting
    • Protecting community
    • Maintaining equality
    • Practicing humility
    • Refusing to repay evil for evil
    • Living out what everyone can see is good
    • Dwelling in peace with everyone, if possible
    • Reserving vengeance for God’s discretion
    • Sharing resources with enemies
    • Providing warmth and light in the cold of night
    • Repelling the attacks of evil
    • Overcoming evil with good

I was kind of thrilled to see, after I put this together, that the section begins with clinging to what is good and ends with overcoming evil with good. Cling to the good at work in you, it is overcoming evil and seeding the creation with renewed life.

I remembered that the good in me is able to overcome whatever I think is evil or whatever might objectively be so. Cling to the good at work in you, it is overcoming evil and seeding the creation with renewed life.

I remembered that the work for me is finished; I received the goodness of God and I have experienced it. I am living in it now and can be assured I will find it wherever I go next. But that work of good in me has a multiplying and dying creation pulsing all around it. It is alive and completing its purpose wherever I live. Cling to the good at work in you, it is overcoming evil and seeding the creation with renewed life.

If you go back to the bullets above, try, at least for the first round, to experience the good work of the Spirit all those verbs represent. Jesus is alive. Don’t turn them all back into nouns that label who you or others aren’t or what you or others don’t do. Cling to the good at work in you, it is overcoming evil and seeding the creation with renewed life.

I am Disconnected: Why? Can I change?

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , ,

How we associate, kind of, now

How we connect to ourselves, others and God has changed, and we feel it.

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty is a conservative/libertarian research and education think tank. In a 2021 article for them, Joseph Sunde tried to add to the big discussion among researchers about why Americans are so disconnected. He sidestepped the obvious by not mentioning being locked down for a year by a virus that made us suspicious that relationships might be contagious. And he neglected to highlight the Trump effect that made family reunions (and churches) minefields of politics. Instead, he took the long view.

The unraveling of the U.S. social fabric has been well-documented since Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone in 2000. When I was a pastor in 2000, that book gave facts to bolster our instinct that one of the main directions the Spirit was moving us was to create community in a city where every other force was tearing it apart. Sunde reviews what studies are showing two decades later, and they are revealing. One researcher says, “Today, Americans tend to have fewer ties of association with each other and fewer organizational memberships, but they also spend less time on friendships….Many of the ties to social identity Americans do have are less conducive to social flourishing. For example, church attendance has fallen dramatically despite its social benefits, whereas entertainment-focused associations such as sports teams have risen in popularity.”

At some point, sports reached the tipping point vis a vis other associations, especially the church. We could see it tipping when soccer practices began to invade Sunday morning. Another good reason we had our worship times on Sunday nights was so parents did not have to force their children to choose. However, we still had to adjust for the national holiday called “Superbowl Sunday” to take up a Sunday night. We were definitely “second fiddle” then.

Swifties in fan outfits. Click pic for more.

Another example of “entertainment-focused associations” presented itself in Philadelphia  last month when Taylor Swift’s tour arrived. The local CBS outlet said, “Lincoln Financial Field is ‘holy ground’ for Swifties tonight as Taylor Swift will hold the first of three concerts of her Eras Tour.” Tickets were hard to get but “fans who were able to score a ticket dressed up for the occasion inspired by their favorite Taylor Swift songs.”

All that goes to validate how you feel disconnected and why. You probably do. I am a lot more disconnected that I was in 2019. A perfect storm of troubles has atomized the country and wicked people are capitalizing on our disconnection to seize power and keep us divided, as they historically do in such circumstances.  It’s an evil instinct.

So what do we do? Maybe you can fill in your own personal details as we brainstorm how to claw back some connection.

To reconnect with yourself

Now that the church is so weak in many places, we’ve really got to step up our personal spiritual disciplines. After many people lost their churches during the pandemic, they realized their love for the Lord — heart, soul, mind, and strength, was mainly about being associated with the church. That’s a good thing, of course, but it is not the only thing. Without a growing personal relationship with God, spirit to Spirit, we lose ourselves quickly when trouble comes. And it is likely to keep coming.

You probably have some moribund disciplines that could be reignited. And you probably have some you’ve always thought you should try. Look at what your heart, soul, mind and strength each need and do something right now.

Here are some ways to reconnect that might not have some to mind.

  • Sing with a karaoke version of a worship song on YouTube. Singing is very integrative. Here’s one of my son’s childhood favorites.
  • Try sex with your partner again. Stress is bad for sex but sex is good for stress. We feel better about ourselves and our connectability when we get close physically. If you don’t have a sex partner, touch people, kiss your parents, hug friends.
  • Take a pilgrimage. It could be to Portugal or King of Prussia. I just got back. Being out of the rut for a while and rubbing up against new things is a good way to see yourself as who you are now. It is also good for meeting God in surprising ways, which is the crucial element of knowing one’s true self.
From: 5 tips to spice up dining with friends

To reconnect with others

The problem with connecting with others is connecting. We have to do something, move toward someone, organize to connect. The deepest parts of us say this is just supposed to happen, like mom should feed me. But once we’re over 30 or so, we need to take responsibility for meeting our connection needs.

Apart from changing your mind, here are smaller things to try:

  • We decided to end our disconnection with the church by going to a church meeting six weeks in a row during Lent. It worked!
  • Eat with someone. You don’t have to go through a drive through all the time. Make the family gather for dinner. Go out with a couple. Plan a monthly date with a friend or group. At least eat inside where other people are once a day.
  • Do some therapy. The experience of being listened to loosens up our capacity to connect with others.

To reconnect with purpose

The last few years have left use reeling. The huge problems of our politics, climate and disconnection have reduced us to survivors. It is no wonder huge spectacles are welcome distractions from the huge forces that plague us.

The associations for which America was once famous were built by people with a common purpose. Do you think we can still act out such purpose? Here are foundational ways to do it.

  • Listen. Who are you God? Who am I? What shall I do? These basic prayers are the kind that get answered. I don’t think they are answered by books as well as they are answered by meditation. Take the time.
  • Plan. Write down what you hear and let it get shaped into a plan. “I need to stop drinking. What shall I do after rehab?” I don’t think things happen to us as much as we would like. We need to happen ourselves.
  • Create. We just watched the movie “Air.” The theme was, unsurprisingly, “Just do it.” It was a good depiction of how hard it is to give your gifts and do what is best. But that is what are meant to do. We were created to create. Take the best thought you have now that aligns with the resources your have now and do something about it every day. You’ll feel better.

Memorial Day Psalm for Uvalde

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, , , , ,

 Old graves to decorate

Many towns in the United States claim they invented Memorial Day after the horrible Civil War, from which the country has never recovered, I’d say. All over the nation, graves were growing uncared for and many people thought that was shameful. Within 30 years the government made Decoration Day into a national holiday. It was placed at the end of May when flowers are in bloom everywhere.

Roughly 2% of the U.S. population, an estimated 620,000 men, lost their lives in the line of duty during the Civil War.  Taken as a percentage of today’s population, the toll would have risen as high as six million people. 

There are many people to remember on Memorial Day. It is hard to get a hold on just how many there are!

Most record keepers suggest that about 75 million people worldwide died in World War 2, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians. Many civilians died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass-bombings, disease, and starvation.

America has been in 19 known wars since World War 2. But just remember the death toll from three of the bloodiest conflicts: The Korean War, The Vietnam War, and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The total death toll of people killed by American troops in all these wars put together is over 12 million.

Our war weapons are used on our own own citizens, too. 

This week last year, the sad facts of Memorial Day were heightened when we heard about 18 year old Pedro Ramos, who shot his grandmother in the face after they argued over how he did not graduate from high school. He then took his two legally purchased AR-15 automatic weapons to Robb Elementary and shot 36 people, mostly children in two adjoining classrooms, killing 21.

You probably don’t remember the details. There is a year-full of subsequent shootings. As of the end of April this year, in just four months, there have been 185 mass shootings in the U.S. (using the definition of 4 or more people shot in one incident). 254 people died. 708 were wounded. Untold numbers were traumatized. 

The Uvalde victims

I often say, “How could someone do that?”  But there are many terrible reasons. They are not all personal. Pedro Ramos lived in a country in which leaders of his state tenaciously protected his freedom to buy an automatic weapon in the name of freedom. He lived in a country which is committed to spending, if I calculated the unfathomable right, about $26,000 a second in 2023 to maintain by far the largest military in the world to protect Pedro Ramos’ freedom. You can do your own moral math about that and watch the country refight the  civil war on the “news.”

New victims to memorialize

I want to spend my Memorial Day tears on placing symbolic flowers on the graves of
people killed in Uvalde on May 24, 2022. I know the survivors are more overwhelmed by their losses than I can imagine, even a year later.   But I can imagine a lot.

Lord, I pause the fun at the lake.
I dare to look at my lively grandkids.
I force myself to look at the numbers,
at the evil statistics too horrible to know.

I will ask for forgiveness later.
But first I examine the sin, the heartbreak,
the wounds reopened every second
with every dollar spent on power,
spent on the mistaken notion the right to kill
makes Pedro Ramos free, like he must have thought.

Ten year old Nevaeh Bravo.
Her name was heaven spelled backward.

Nine year old Jacklyn Cazares.
Her first communion picture was offered to the press.

Ten year old Makenna Elrod.
Four sisters and three brothers will never forget.

Ten year old Manuel Flores.
His mother said, “He was very good with babies.”

Irma Garcia had taught at Robb for 23 years.
Two days after her death her husband died of heart failure.
Their children were told mom was seen shielding her students.

Ten year old Maile Rodriguez.
She died helping others to safely hide.

There are more Lord. Always more.
We are overwhelmed with more.
You bear the overwhelming sins of the world.

No amount of decoration on graves
will conceal the hideous truth.
Humanity chooses power over love,
even makes you a warrior God
instead of a suffering servant.

Can you forgive us who rarely forgive?
Can you save us who believe AR-15s save?

 

Surprise along the pilgrim way in Granada

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, , ,

I try to let a “pilgrim mentality” dominate my travels. Part of that mindset means staying open to surprise. Traveling reveals how much of our daily lives is devoted to NOT being surprised. We love the illusion of safety we create with our routines and the insulated environments of our homes and neighborhoods. A pilgrimage disrupts my usual defenses as it keeps highlighting how I do not know what is going to happen next. I pretend I can control the future at home but I really can’t do that on the road.  On the road, I will need to trust God. If I don’t, the anxiety I create by trying to manage the world properly will become helpfully obvious. The lesson traveling teaches so well is: No matter where I go, it is always better to go with Jesus as he leads my way through birth, through death, and into life.

Yesterday was Alhambra day. The famous site was not a surprise. It was a wonder, one of those bucket list moments. But I’d seen the pictures and knew the history. In some ways I had it under control.

But before I got there, the day provided two surprises which reasserted how little I really know. They reminded me how pleasant it is to meet God in new ways, like bumping into her in the street, often when the GPS is not tracking well, or when I least expect him.

One surprise was huge.

The Hospitallers of St John of God opened a spectacular shrine to their founder in Granada, Spain in 1759. It has been called the city’s best kept secret. I can attest to that.  It certainly surprised me!

I did not know anything about St. John of God or his monastic order. I just noticed the roof of their mother church when I was going somewhere else nearby. I popped in because I had some time before my plan kicked in. I am still happy I did that.

The Portuguese man, Joao Duarte Cidade, has an inspiring life story. He ended up an orphan, became a soldier, then a refugee, and then a printer. He did not have much direction for his life until he was 42 when he had a vision of Jesus who told him to move to Granada. He moved, and was so overwhelmed by his religious experiences there the townspeople had him committed. A spiritual director helped refine his understanding and he then applied his fervor to helping the sick.

John’s personal hospital housed a collection of people he found who had no way to receive care. Crippled. Mentally ill. Starving. Demented. The same people we still cast off today. Soon people joined him in service, including two notorious enemies he helped reconcile through their common acts of love. Before long there was an order recognized by the church which is still active in 53 countries. John died at 55 of pneumonia after he unsuccessfully tried to save a man drowning in the cold river.

The picture above does not do justice to the gaudy splendor of the order’s  over-the-top expression of praise for God and John. I was surprised again and again by its art, passion and oddness. For instance, around the remains of the saint in a silver chest were collected relics of many others. I took a picture of San Juan Capistrano.  What’s more, as we were about at the end of our time, the attendant herded all the visitors into the chapel seats for an unexpected treat. The wall you see above is mechanized and sections were lit to tell its story of God’s incarnate love in action! I almost missed it!

Another surprise was small

Later, we expected to find a place to lunch on the way up the hill to the Alhambra. I turned my nose up at one little place that seemed beneath my dignity and likely to have substandard fare. But nothing else was open so we backtracked and I reluctantly entered.

Once again, I knew nothing. The food was very nice! And we were seated in this unusual section, by ourselves in a crowded town, surrounded by a big plant reflected in a window of mirrors. I looked at myself a bit bemused. Why am I surprised so often by the wonders of the world, by the blessings around every corner?

Humans are an artful species whether with a chisel and stone or pan and egg. Once we got to the Alhambra and I looked over Granada from the tower in the wall, I let my small mindedness get swallowed up by creation. Thunderheads were forming and light was pouring around them into a valley framed by the original Sierra Nevada mountains. It was another light-show highlighting the love of God. I made sure not to miss it.

A psalm of examen: Bite and bile

A life in the Spirit, Poetry,

Francis receiving stigmata: Seville Cathedral

Not long after I spent a few minutes staring at this amazing piece of art in the sumptuous Seville Cathedral, I popped into a neighborhood church on the way to more gelato. Unlike how I imagine frustrated Francis patiently enduring his place in the wall of a treasure house, treasuring a lost bird winging through the  air near the ceiling, and seeing Christ in the hordes of tourists, I felt a bit too much bite and bile rise up in reaction to the state of the church — my church, and God’s.

This dashed-off psalm down the road by the pool reflects my examination.

An instinctive turn into the church:
Sevillans are intoning a rosary.
The leader gives a glance to verify
We are invisible tourists.

I make my companion sit with me:
Sevillans creating a foreign atmosphere,
making a world for the initiated.
I get through a cycle and leave.

Out on the sidewalk I speak softly,
m sotto voce of contempt lest they hear,
“That’s a good reason for the church to die.”
I am self-righteously upset.

I am right again. So right. So right.
But my scorn is also a good reason
for your beleaguered Church to die.
I kick its last leg in the shin.

Every time I wander here, I lament
when the baroque church was powerful,
when they got a cut of the land and gold
from which I still benefit.

They spread out art in every corner of each town:
brilliant details amplify your honor and glory
with the ill-gotten gains of thieves and murderers.
I inherited murderous thoughts.

I am instinctively turning into this psalm,
Into a place outside my bite and bile.
If for just a moment, I am freed by worship
As my heart sees the invisible.

Ignatius: What must be received and left behind

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, ,

For the next three weeks I hope to keep my hands up and open to receive what God has for me. But I also want to let them turn down when it is time to let something go.

We will end up our Spanish pilgrimage in the Cave of Ignatius in Manresa in a few weeks (above). But all along the way we hope to symbolically pray with him on the bank of the Cardoner River. His biographer describes what happened there:

He sat down for a little while with his face to the river—Cardoner—which was running deep. While he was seated there, the eyes of his understanding began to be opened; though he did not see any vision, he understood and knew many things, both spiritual things and matters of faith and learning, and this was with so great an enlightenment that everything seemed new to him. It was as if he were a new man with a new intellect.

No one knows for sure just what happened because experiences with God are generally rather indescribable. But we know Ignatius changed his life and went a new direction from then on.

Looking back toward Montserrat from Manresa

When he left Montserrat, Ignatius left his aristocrat clothes and his soldier’s equipment behind. He went to the hospital in Manresa to further heal and to further practice the spirituality he had discovered while reading the lives of the saints in the famous mountaintop monastery. He found a cave where he could be alone with God and practiced a severe version of the penance rituals common to monks and others at the time (around 1522). The children called him “the man in sackcloth” as he wandered among the poor. He damaged himself with his asceticism and villagers came to his rescue, as he lay in a fallow state of contemplation.

The vision at the River Cardoner by Carlos Saenz de Tejada (1897-1958)

He got better and took his meditation to the river, as I have often done on the Schuylkill. Ignatius left it to speculation as to what the River Cardoner revealed to him. But he soon abandoned his severe fasting and harsh penitence, and embraced a more balanced spirituality. His new understanding led directly to his decision to write the Spiritual Exercises, which are still an inspiration to many people. The last chapter of his guide, “Contemplation to Attain the Love of God,” probably contains the essence of what was affirmed by the river. God is present in all things, and labors to continually transform what is broken and create what is good. God bathes all of creation in a ceaseless flow of blessings and gifts, like the light emanating from the sun.

I am inspired to take another pilgrimage with my mind and heart open to wherever it leads, because God will be there and I will be focused and free to meet up with Jesus along the way.

Even though the order Ignatius founded became rich and powerful, I can overlook that. They did not gild the banks of the river like they did the cave. So Ignatius the wounded soldier, disciplining himself for the duty of transformation, will not be completely obscured in Manresa. The Cave is a thin place, no matter what kind of human with whatever kind of motives has visited. We will add our faith in Jesus and likely leave with more than we brought. May your May be a similar journey in faith, hope, and love.

Small loves add up to enough love: Make a list

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

One of the most memorable “characters” in the wacky Disney Nutcracker (2018) is the Mouse King. For one thing, it is a technical marvel. MPC, the animation wizards, crafted hundreds of individual mice which they then combined into a oversized monster that could ooze around humans, robots and CGI scenery.

But the Mouse King is also memorable as a fascinating idea. When I was praying, the idea came to me as I sifted through lost and longed-for loves — my own loves and those my clients recount. I thought, “Love is like the Mouse King.”

We wish love were bigger

What I mean is, just like the wicked Mouse King is a conglomeration of many little mice, the big love we long for could be a collection of the little loves presently offered to us. The one with eyes to see, let them see.

As I prayed, I felt lonely and unloved. But I am not, objectively, alone or unloved, so I needed to see what those feelings were all about. They centered on my disappointment over people who were not responding to my attempts to connect and meaningful relationships I felt I had lost. I had a classic moment of eating the holes in the Swiss cheese. I ignored the “cheese” I had for the  cheese I desired. You may have developed variations on this theme:

  • I am not worthy of actual cheese so I make do with holes.
  • I was deprived of cheese and only understand holes.
  • I don’t need cheese and am strong enough to live in holes.
  • I deserve good cheese and no one will give it to me.

Fill in the blank for yourself.

All this is to say, we are hungry for love, for the “cheese” in which we find so many holes, for the main sustenance our souls can’t live without. We usually wish we had more true love in us and coming to us. If only my love were bigger.

Could small loves add up?

Today I got to see a friend’s toddler on Zoom. He barely knew how to wave and wasn’t sure about all those faces, but he waved. Later on, he said in language only his father could understand, “I want more waving.” I said, “That’s worth the effort to get to this meeting!” It was a very little love to receive, but could little loves add up? Could we be more satisfied if we turned into them?

A 2022 movie adapted Sir Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (2001) for the screen. The film is a funny and sinister take on the Pied Piper of Hamelin story. In it, Pratchett creates another version of a rat king. This monster has a magical ability the draw non-sentient rats to itself. They pulse and bubble under his coat (above). Many little energies produce a potent villain.

I think the same can happen with love. Christians often note this when they bravely say their mustard seed of faith can move a mountain, “If we combine the individual gifts we have, we can change the world!” My small faith, hope and love are not too small to be valuable. In this vein, most Christmas cards should depict God, who is love, being born as a human baby. Amazing things came from that small being! Small loves add up to substantial impact.

I think it is a little easier to see how I am obligated to do the right thing by loving others, even if my love is small. It is harder to see and collect the small loves given by people loving me! (Did you add a bullet point above?). Nevertheless, I think these small-seeming loves combine to form enough love for me to live on. But I will need to have the eyes of my heart open so I can see them. They may seem so small they are invisible!

What’s more, these little loves, even when seen and welcomed, will have to find their way through all my defenses against the terrible feelings I fear connected to not getting enough love. I may have decided long before I had language to think about it, that my mother’s love was too small! I wish we could draw all these loves to us like a Rat King draws rats. But more than one acquaintance has said, “But that would be self-centered, wouldn’t it?” or “Wouldn’t I be taking someone else’s love?” Do you have a reason to stay unloved? Is it “big love or nothing” with you?

Make a list

Even though it seems like a daily battle, I keep trying to receive what I am given, even if I feel it is too small, even if I sometimes give into the temptation to think all I have is holes.

Why don’t you try collecting a bunch of small loves with me and see how you feel? See if they amount to more of what you need. Here’s what I piled up today from the last 24 hours or so:

  • My friend’s child on screen felt like a small love to me. There were a lot of layers of love in those waves.
  • My own amazing and devoted children are on my screensaver. I talked to one of those lovers yesterday.
  • I looked at the painting my granddaughter made and we framed.
  • My yoga app surprised me with a new soundtrack: birdsong.
  • New friends invited us over for 70-hour brisket. I don’t know what that is but I already appreciate the effort.
  • I discovered Baby Rose singing about her loves.
  • Fort Lee was renamed and I take that as love.
  • My friend of 40 years has a birthday today.

There were a LOT more bullets. I culled my list because I’m sure you get the idea. To NOT come up with a substantial list of your own will take some stubborn resistance on your part, and you may have that, like we all do. But we can overcome our resistance.

Even without God in the world, you’d have small loves all around you leading to the biggest love of all. It is a blessing the whole world shares. But God is born among us every day. Jesus is walking with us. God, who is love, is the one in whom we live and move and have our being. We’re gifted with love moment by moment.