Sunday, October 11, 2020

The neighbor unlike myself



Wikimedia Commons, James 919 2017
I have a new friend of uncertain origin, uncertain motive, undeniable beauty. 

 A week or so ago a Black-throated Blue Warbler landed on my patio table while I was drinking my morning coffee just a foot away. 

It appeared to be looking for crumbs from my breakfast muffin, but then hopped onto the arm of the chair where my feet were propped, cocking its head to examine me. I’ve never seen a wild bird so casually interested. So unafraid. It studied me for several long minutes, then dropped to the patio below, picking at crumbs, looking for bugs, moving toward the potted plants nearby, then continuing on through the garden edge and out onto the lawn. 

 It came by again a few day ago, looking for bugs in the logs that line by woodsy garden paths. Then again yesterday, back on the patio while I sat there with my breakfast in the cool, overcast dawn. 

Just the day before I had a different kind of guest. I would have missed it if not for the cardinals loudly objecting, just at dusk, in the trees at the back of the yard. They sometimes chip with a loud warning, but I’d never heard quite so many gathering together carrying on with so much energy. I pulled out my binoculars and watched them jumping from tree to tree, then there, in the middle, a large brown shape; a Great Horned Owl, silently watching. I watched them carry on, watched the owl, until called inside for an evening Zoom meeting. 

I carry that imagine in my mind, and the picture of the lovely warbler, watching me from the arm of my chair. In God’s economy, diversity is a given. Every warbler has its own lovely coloring, its own preferred food source, its own needed habitat. Every owl has its own call, its own flight pattern, its own distinctive nest. 

Does the word “different” make you uneasy? Or does it fill you with joy? Or hope? Or both?

I have always preferred friends different from me: different temperaments, different stories, different life experiences. Among the treasures of my life: evenings around a camp fire with a woman who grew up in Vietnam, then spent years in a refugee camp after the fall of Hanoi. Long, laughter-filled walks with the brown, freckled granddaughter of southern sharecroppers. Afternoons gardening with a Ugandan refugee. 

I am thankful that the churches I’ve attended, since old enough to choose myself, have been welcoming places for a wide mix of God’s people. Our current church is a friendly mix of cradle Episcopalians, new converts to the Christian faith, people who left fundamentalist churches years ago and are finding their way back toward a waiting Father. We have members born in other nations, others states, baptized or confirmed in other denominations. Our stories and assumptions are very different. Those differences force us to listen well, walk humbly, think before we speak. 

Today four children were baptized into the family as rain threatened the service on the church’s lawn where we gathered in folding chairs, camp chair, benches, all socially distanced, sporting a wide mix of masks. 

The final words of the baptismal vows set me thinking: 
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? 
I will, with God's help. 
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? 
I will, with God's help. 
Last week was the vice-presidential debate, with the first woman of color taking the stage. I’ve heard Christians dismiss Harris as a godless socialist, and have seen the much-shared social media posts saying she refused to be sworn in as senator on a Bible. In reality, she regularly attends a Baptist church, refers to scripture often when she speaks, and was sworn in with a well-worn family Bible. She is far more moderate than many others of her party, like Joe Biden often attacked from the left for her pragmatic, non-radical stance.

Policies that some might describe as socialist she would explain as love for neighbor. She speaks of this fairly often, in terms like those from a 2019 speech:
Jesus tells us how we should define neighbor. Jesus tells us your neighbor is not just the person who lives next door, who drives the kind of car you drive, the person who shares your zip code, the person who has their school at the same school your children attend, who shops at the same grocery store that you shop at. 
No. 
Jesus tells us your neighbor is that man by the side of the road who you walk by, who has faced hardship, who may be one of those people who has an opioid or a drug addiction, may be one of those people who has fled one of the murder capitals of the world and seek refuge here in our country, may be one of those people who lives in one of the 9i counties of the United States who, if they are a minimum wage worker, cannot afford a one bedroom apartment . . .
Your neighbor, my neighbor, may be - WILL BE - someone different from ourselves. That's a gift and opportunity, not a problem or a danger.  

Today, International Day of the Girl, it’s worth pausing to note: the US has never had a woman president or vice-president. Pennsylvania has never had a woman governor.

There are men and women who can’t envision a woman in leadership. Just as there are people with white skin who can’t imagine voting for someone with brown or black skin.

I’m troubled when I hear fellow Christians repeat slander about Harris without stopping to ask if the statement is true.

I’m troubled to hear that there’s only one vote God will accept. That’s a tragic lie, no matter who says it.

I’m troubled to hear labels that dismiss and diminish. Troubled to hear complex problems flattened to one tired, unworkable solution. Troubled to hear the immediate dismissal of different ideas, different approaches. Deeply troubled at the lack of love and respect for those not exactly like ourselves.

I’ve written much in the past about voting out of love for neighbor. Some of those posts landed in a section called “What’s Your Platform,” mostly written in 2012. 

Others were part of a series in 2016. All still apply.

That series ended with Election Examen. I wrote:

We’ve been living through the most destructive campaign season in at least the last half-century, with swirling rumors, echo-chamber accusations, wild statements about God’s plan or preference, a growing inability to listen to any view or fact that doesn’t line up neatly with our own.
That election was just prelude to this even more divisive season and the likely unrest that will follow. The God of warblers and owls, of springtime and fall, of all truth, all nations, invites us to hold still, listen well, then speak, vote, act in a way that shows our trust in him and our love for neighbors, even those unlike ourselves.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
I will, with God's help.
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
I will, with God's help.
Posted by at