Hidden in Plain View

I’m part of a small group of dedicated Weed Warriors that meets twice a month to weed, prune, and plant in Exton Park, an 800 acre tract of land five minutes from my home.

Several weeks ago, working on the berm along the old farm pond, one of our group casually mentioned he’d seen a coyote with a kit in her mouth and another following behind.

 

I paused in my digging: “Where?”

“On the ridge. On Old Valley Road.”

The ridge runs along the north edge of the Park. Old Valley Road is a partially closed gravel road that skirts between the fields, still leased to an area farmer, and the woods hide the steeper slope of the ridge.  I’d heard rumors of coyotes far north of us, but never in our suburban county.

“And I saw pink lady slippers. Blooming.”

“Where?”

I’ve never seen pink lady slippers blooming, except in books. I’ve occasionally seen their thick, waxy leaves, in small clumps, in New York’s north woods, but never blooming. And certainly not in Pennsylvania.

“On the ridge. Just up from the white barn.”

“Blooming now?”

“Yesterday.”

I asked how to find them, listened carefully, then spent the next two weeks thinking of coyotes and lady slippers. The only way I could see to get to the barn was up a lane that said “private road.” And was that the right barn? I wasn’t sure.

Two weeks later, in a light rain, we were back on the berm, planting. The group was small (not everyone loves planting in the rain), and I asked if we could take a short field trip at the end of our work, to see where the lady slippers grew.

Up the private road, turn onto an unused segment of Old Valley Road, park in a little gravel pull-off, then look for the bit of orange caution tape, tied shoulder-height in a bush beside the road.

I felt a little like Alice in Wonderland, stepping through an unexpected door.  Or Lucy, pushing through the back of the wardrobe into the wintry woods of Narnia.

Just past the weedy, brushy thicket along the road was a steep trail leading up into beautiful, open woods.

 

Beech trees, oak, tulip poplars with an understory of native azaleas, ferns, wood aster.

And there, at the top of the hill, in a clearing where multiple trails converged, were pink lady slippers. Still in bloom.

There was more to see: two springs. A rushing creek, tumbling noisily down the rocky hillside. Remains of an old farm quarry. A precipitous drop clothed in mountain laurel.

I went back alone a few days later, for a short evening walk, and saw a brown thrasher, wood thrush, a great horned owl just heading out for its evening meal.

I haven’t seen the coyotes, but at least I know where to look.

How is it possible I drove past that spot almost every day, for over a decade, and never really saw it?

I’ve walked, worked, birded with that ridge in plain view and never spent much time wondering what was there.

I would have missed it completely if our friend hadn’t told us what he’d seen.

Hadn’t offered to show us how to find it.

After my introduction to the hillside beauty I almost missed I find myself burdened with the knowledge that it’s possible to miss, completely, the wealth and treasure we’ve been already been given.

If our guide hadn’t mentioned what he’d seen I could have driven right by that ridge for the next twenty years and never bothered to venture up to see.

I find myself wondering, what else have I missed? What beauty, treasure, riches, wonders, are hidden in plain sight and I’ve not had eyes to see?

But I also find myself wondering: what are the treasures I’ve seen, myself, that I’ve never bothered to share?

I lead bird walks – in part – because I want to help others see and delight in the beauty of nature that’s been shared with me by others.

This past weekend I sold plants at our neighborhood yard sale – in part – because I wanted to share what I’ve learned about plants and backyard ecology.

I write this blog – in part – because I want to share what I’ve seen, heard, begun to understand about this rich, complex, deeply-loved world we live in.

I posted last week about Pentecost, Church, churches, how easy it is to sit outside and judge.

How maybe the truth of what “Church” is only becomes clear when we step inside, spend time in relationship to others.

Maybe, as friends, we need to share what we’ve seen, and offer to show the way.

I’ve seen a pink lady slipper on a nearby hillside.

I’ve seen a rushing stream dance down a fern-clad ledge.

I’ve seen worship where broken people find joy.

I’ve seen kindness melt icy walls and warm cold, brittle hearts.

I’ve seen unexpected families embracing unconnected children.

I've seen grace and forgiveness take human form. 

Surprising treasure in jars of clay.

All hidden in plain sight.

If you want to see, I’ll show you.

Sweet Taste of Freedom

I spent last weekend in a place that changed my life.

I first arrived there on a hot Sunday evening in June, 1975, suitcase and bed roll in hand. I was a thin, painfully shy, quietly angry nineteen-year-old, between sophomore and junior years of college.

I was feeling stuck in more ways than I could count: constrained by family circumstance, constricted by fragile finances, unsure about major, direction, or why I’d signed on to spend my summer in a muggy, unfamiliar place in a muggy, unfamiliar state.

I’d promised I’d never go back to the little Christian camp I’d been part of for the last dozen summers. I’d seen God’s grace and provision there, and I loved the expansive view of Catskill mountains, bright New York sky, rolling cow pastures. But I’d also seen more than I needed of a social construct that said “no” to me at every turn, while guys I’d grown up with were handed privilege and opportunity they hadn't earned, sometimes didn't even want.  

I was tired of being treated as "less than".

Title IX had passed three years earlier, and that June regulations on enforcement were about to be released, but in my little world it was still the case that the least capable, least committed man would be given deference before the most capable, most committed woman.

My plan, that long-ago summer, had been to find an exotic job in an exotic place, and never set foot in a Christian camp again. I needed an adventure, an opportunity to grow. I needed someone to trust me, and I needed a way to shake free of the simple-minded script my culture had drafted for the female follower of Christ.

But the internet had not yet been invented, and exotic jobs were hard to come by. I applied for everything I could find and by the start of May had only one option left: go home to share my grandmother’s mobile home and hope for a job in the local Rite Aid.

I had been invited to apply for a job at Sandy Cove, had ignored the invitation. Another Christian camp? No thank you. 

But just days before the end of the spring semester, I sought out the director to see if there were any openings left.

Canoe instructor.

And two or three weeks of out-of-camp canoe trips.

Maybe some backpacking? And could I help lead an experimental three day horse trip?

Looking back, I marvel. Who would I be if that avenue forward hadn't opened?

I don’t have room to tell all I saw, learned, and still treasure from that summer and the next. The exhilaration of heading out into open water with ten girls, six canoes, and one fellow leader.

The excitement of ten days on the Appalachian Trail with two women I admired and a dozen counselors-in-training. 

The amazement when confronting challenges along the way: they trust me to do this? Me?

The growing sense of freedom in a setting where girls and young women were allowed, even encouraged, to be funny, loud, competitive, in charge.

My months at Sandy Cove were among the most formative of my life, and certainly the most freeing. 

Two years ago I was invited to the first ever “Camp Sandy Cove Girls Camp 70s Staff Reunion.” I said no – for many reasons: I only worked there two summers. It was over three decades ago. I hadn’t stayed in touch. I don’t do reunions. Ever.

But God has been teaching me much about what it means to have my life woven into the lives of others, and when invited to the second annual reunion, last year, I overcame misgivings and went.

And went back again, this year, for the third annual reunion – now more “retreat” than reunion.

Even now, when we gather, there’s an unexpected sense of freedom: freedom to laugh, sing old camp songs at odd times, jump in and lead, or sit back and watch. During a rowdy, creative team game, the group competed without apology, challenged the leader, stretched the rules, improvised freely.

Not all who gather know each other, since some were there during different summers, or worked in different parts of camp, but with new friends and old, the protocol of superficial conversation is easily suspended. Conversations move quickly to issues of substance: What has God been teaching you? What’s been hard? How are you growing?

One of the group challenged us all, last January, to work toward a 5k run, a way to invite us to examine our stewardship of physical health. When do fifty and sixty-something women talk honestly about weight, exercise, ways we use food to deaden frustration, stuff down our sadness, hide from our failures? Yet there we were, chugging up and down hill, some walking, some jogging, a few dancing circles around the rest, while conversations bloomed, about disordered patterns of eating, about places we’re stuck in our efforts to get fit, about ways those who are strong in this can help and encourage those who are weak.

And we’re all weak, aren't we? Women I was in awe of, years ago, are quick to share their places of struggle. Conversations turn freely to areas of need, acknowledged failure, places of doubt, discouragement, uncertainty.

And we’re all strong, aren't we? In a setting where there are no pre-assigned roles, gifts bubble up to serve the group, and everyone has something to offer.

This morning, looking around the circle gathered for a simple chapel service, I found myself giving thanks for the witness of so many strong, joyful, fiercely faithful women.

The funniest women I know were in that circle.

Some of the most adventurous.

Some of the most fit.

Some of the most generous.

Certainly the most encouraging.

How many lives have been touched by gifts brought to light during those fruitful years of girls-only ministry?

How many lives are touched even now by women in that circle: teachers, coaches, pastors, camp directors, lawyers, writers, nurses, mothers, grandmothers, faithful friends.

And then there's the larger circle, the women who weren't with us, readying their own camps for the first week of the season, training indigenous missionaries and pastors on distant continents, serving and caring in ways too many to mention.  

But here’s the question that traveled home with me:

How many other women, other gifts, have been smothered, stifled, shoved aside, in a Christian culture that even now measures women as “less than”?

What enriching perspectives have been thoughtlessly dismissed?

How much creativity and joy has the church, and surrounding world, lost?

Savoring the freedom of a lovely weekend, remembering the freedom of those summers in the seventies, I find myself wondering how to carry that freedom with me, and how to offer it to others, not just women, but men, children, teens, adults, those who follow Christ and those who see the Christian faith as a narrow box to be avoided at all costs.

In a paternalistic, legalistic, highly-authoritarian world, Jesus said "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

I catch glimpses of that freedom, and I want more of it. Not just for myself, but for all of us: freedom to be the people we were made to be, to use the gifts we were given to use, to shred the predetermined scripts and enter the adventure God has in store for those who follow him.

Staying Grateful

I had the good fortune last week of seeing my favorite living author, in person, here in Pennsylvania. My younger daughter texted me to say "Hey I just saw that wendell berry will be at villanova today receiving an award at 4 . . .  Want to go with me?"

photo by Guy Mendes, 2012

I’ve been reading Berry for decades, savoring his Port William novels, memorizing parts of his poems, giving volumes of his essays as Christmas presents, quoting him in this blog. My son, living in DC, has seen him in person twice, and once invited me to travel down for a major Berry event, but the timing didn't work and since Berry is now 78, with a preference for staying in one place, I thought it unlikely I’d ever have the privilege of seeing him.

So – "want to go with me?"

I fired back an answer: "You betcha. Tell me where and when!"

Just a few hours later we gathered, my daughter, her boyfriend, and a friend who manages a local community farm, and off we went through suburban rush-hour traffic to hear the voice of rural Kentucky.

We found parking, found the Villanova University Connelly Center, found our way to the well-lit meeting room just as Berry was introduced and took his place at the podium. The room was full, but we slipped into four seats together, slid off our coats, felt our pulses slow as Berry eased into a short essay: “The Fifty Year Farm Bill,” published in The Atlantic that same day.

Berry speaks slowly, with a self-deprecating good humor and a soft Kentucky drawl, but his insights are sharp, and deeply critical of much that passes for current wisdom:

Industrial agriculture characteristically proceeds by single solutions to single problems: If you want the most money from your land this year, grow the crops for which the market price is highest. Though the ground is sloping, kill the standing vegetation and use a no-till planter. For weed control, plant an herbicide-resistant crop variety and use more herbicide.

But even officially approved industrial technologies do not alter reality. The supposed soil saving of no-till farming applies to annual crops during the growing season, but the weather continues through the fall and winter and early spring. Rain continues. Snow falls. The ground freezes and thaws. A dead sod or dead weeds or the dead residue of annual crops is not an adequate ground cover. If this usage continues year after year on sloping land, and especially following soybeans, the soil will erode; it will do so increasingly. And this will be erosion of ground already poisoned with herbicides and other chemicals. Moreover, even with the use of no-till and minimum-till technologies, an estimated half of the applied nitrogen fertilizer runs off into the Mississippi River and finally the dead zone of the Gulf of Mexico. Thus an enormous economic loss to farmers becomes an enormous ecological loss as well.

Berry moved from his critique of current agricultural practice to a story written in remembrance of the Civil War: "The Girl in the Window",  published in the Winter 2010 issue of The Threepenny Review, and recently gathered with other of Berry stories in A Place in Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership.  In his fiction, as in his essays and poetry, Berry captures the joy and sorrow of what it is to be human, the contradictions of beauty and brutality, the timeless moments that shape who we are and who we become.

Listening to Berry read his own work, I found myself thinking about integrity: his determination to be consistent across time, to live what he says, to say what he lives. And I found myself thankful for his resonating message, stated quietly, calmly, across decades, across genres:  there are rules and laws impervious to our egocentric longings, and we thrive, as individuals, families, communities, when we live within those boundaries. Berry restated this most recently in his National Endowment for the Humanities Jefferson Lecture in April, (the event I wanted to attend, but didn’t),  “It All Turns on Affection”:

“We cannot know the whole truth, which belongs to God alone, but our task nevertheless is to seek to know what is true. And if we offend gravely enough against what we know to be true, as by failing badly enough to deal affectionately and responsibly with our land and our neighbors, truth will retaliate with ugliness, poverty, and disease. The crisis of this line of thought is the realization that we are at once limited and unendingly responsible for what we know and do.”

Berry has done his best to demonstrate what it means to be responsible for what he knows and does. He has farmed, for years, the same small farm in Port Royal, the town where his family has farmed since before the Civil War. He has been a faithful husband and father, grandfather, now great-grandfather, and a life-long Baptist in regular attendance at his local Baptist church. He’s been engaged in non-violent civil disobedience since the sixties against nuclear power plants, mountain-top removal, most recently against the proposed XL pipeline. He has spoken out against unjust and unwise wars, against abortion, against the death penalty:

As I am made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life before birth, I am also made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life after birth. . . .Probably we have no choice against illegal killing, which continues to happen against the wishes of nearly everybody. But it is possible, morally and rationally, to choose to withhold one’s approval from legal killing, and I so choose.   (Port Royal, KY; January 23, 2009)

After Berry finished reading his story, he entertained questions from the audience. “By contract, I’ll listen to your questions. But I’m not promising to answer them.”

The questions themselves weren't memorable, but the answers showed Berry’s ability to hear what's said, then flip the question on its head to see what might be of interest.

The last question seemed like a throwaway: "Where and with whom will you spend Thanksgiving? And what are you most thankful for this year, and why?"

With a gentle smile, Berry said "That’s four questions!: then courteously sidestepped them all:

"This business of identifying one thing to be thankful for. Gratitude is a complicated thing. Everything is connected. If you’re thankful that a dear one has recovered from a serious illness, well then, you need to be thankful that you HAVE a dear one." 

I doubt my quotation is exact, but it's a familiar Berry theme: everything is connected. The health of the land leads to the health of the people; the strength of the family depends on the strength of the community. We all belong to one another, to the past, to the future, to the economic and agricultural systems that bind us to each other. Healthy systems yield healthy people; disordered systems lead to increasingly disordered hearts, minds, bodies.

Wendell Berry, more than anyone else I can think of, has looked deeply into the disordered systems of our current culture and has described as carefully as he can the implications for marriages, children, identity, food, farming, faith, trade, our economy, our environment. Yet seeing what he sees, knowing what he knows, he persists in gratitude for the beauty of the world, the kindness of friends and family, the rich goodness beyond what human minds can understand or acknowledge.

He ended his answer, and his session, with this: “My great hope is I have enough sense to be grateful to the end."

I've been carrying his thoughts with me through this Thanksgiving weekend, thinking about what it means not just to be grateful, but to stay grateful.

Those thoughts were clarified the day after Thanksgiving, as four generations gathered to celebrate my in-laws' sixtieth anniversary. In their own ways they, like Wendell Berry, have modeled a gentle, generous life lived within the boundaries of marriage, faith, and family. As their children and grandchildren shared memories, the mood turned to one of thanksgiving: for the security of an ordered family life, for the courageous witness of a faithful, determined marriage, for the freedom of learning together what it means to grow in wisdom and grace.

I’m grateful for my mother and father-in-law, for family gatherings, for shared memories, for lives woven together over decades of games and laughter and far too much pie, for marriage, for friendship, for examples of faithfulness and forgiveness and quiet service to the common good.

And I’m grateful for Wendell Berry’s work and the vision he offers of healthy, nurturing communities, and thankful for the ability to read, to think, for teachers who pointed me toward the joys of thought, books, conversation, thankful for friends and family who share ideas, recommend new authors, pass on books they've found of value, thankful for the blogging community that helps keep the conversations going, that helps to deepen the discourse far past what’s possible in sound bites or passing comments, thankful for stories shared over coffee, questions dissected over leisurely lunches, the ongoing exploration of what it means to be human, faithful, engaged, generously involved.


I could go on – and will, in my own thoughts, prayers, journal, conversations.

And what good fortune do you have to share?

What are you thankful for this week?

And how will you stay grateful?

Learn by little the desire for all things

which perhaps is not desire at all

but undying love which perhaps

is not love at all but gratitude

for the being of things which perhaps

is not gratitude at all

but the maker’s joy in what is made,

the joy in which we come to rest. 

  (Wendell Berry, from ‘Leavings’2005) 

Blessed Are the Peacemakers?

Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”

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Do we believe him?

When we worry that our city streets feel hot and desperate, one solution is to buy a handgun and keep it close.

When we fear for the future of democracy, one solution is to stockpile guns.

When we learn there are nations that hate us, one solution is to vote to build more bombs.

If our goal is increased violence, those solutions just might work.

But if our goal is peace, we might need to rethink.

In the garden of Gethsemane, confronted by palace guards, Jesus calmly waited for arrest. When Peter grabbed a sword and swiped off a guard’s ear, Jesus picked it up and put it back. Luke, the doctor, the meticulous researcher, is the only gospel writer to record the replaced ear. Did it happen? I believe it did, a small, sweet miracle to remind everyone present, and all who would hear the story: God’s power has nothing to do with swords, with guns, with bombs.

For the first three centuries of the Christian church, a hallmark of the Christ-follower was a willingness to face persecution, punishment, even death, rather than pick up sword or stone in self defense.

A quick survey of early church writers reveals a wealth of wisdom regarding the call to peace:  “Christ, in disarming Peter, unbelted every soldier,” wrote Tertullian.  Clement of Alexandria agreed: “If you enroll as one of God’s people, heaven is your country and God your lawgiver. And what are His laws? You shall not kill, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. To him that strikes you on the one cheek, turn to him the other also.” According to St Basil the Great, “Nothing is so characteristically Christian as being a peacemaker.”

The early and unanimous witness to peace began to shift during the period following the dramatic conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine. Faith became allied to political power in a way that has plagued the church ever since. Over the years, theology has too often been twisted to fit the needs of the ruling regime, and compliant Christians have found it easiest to go along. We can trace the sad history of unthinking acquiescence through the crusades, Papal persecutions, Inquisition, colonial conquests, witch hunts, the alignment of the German establishment church with the agenda and actions of the Nazis. When church leaders confuse obedience to God with the quest for political power, when everyday Christians follow along rather than face group-think disapproval, disaster is never far away.

And so we find ourselves confronted with groups claiming “Biblical values” and “Christian convictions,” yet wholeheartedly endorsing ever-higher expenditures on weapons of every kind, despite the fact that our current defense spending outranks, by five to one, the next country in line.

Spend a minute contemplating the current global distribution of military expenditure. Then consider: does the US dominance of the military scene make us safer? Or does it make us a more compelling target for those who oppose us?

As I puzzle over this issue, I see two questions worth pursuing. The first is spiritual: As a Christian, should I be supporting guns and war?

The second is pragmatic: If the US is already spending more on defense than the next fourteen countries combined, double the investment of the remainer of the world, surely some of those resources could be spent in other ways?

I’m tackling the first question this week; I’ll pick up the second in a future post.

Blessed are the peacemakers?

For centuries, theologians have argued the idea of a just war, and some faith traditions have outlined clear teaching about proper reasons and limits for war. The Catholic Catechism of 1992 offers an apologetic for just war:

"All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. Despite this admonition of the Church, it sometimes becomes necessary to use force to obtain the end of justice. This is the right, and the duty, of those who have responsibilities for others, such as civil leaders and police forces. While individuals may renounce all violence those who must preserve justice may not do so, though it should be the last resort, 'once all peace efforts have failed.'"

Some church traditions have nothing at all to say about war, violence, peace, as if somehow those topics are extraneous to the Christian faith. Some prayerfully, or less prayerfully, issue statements dependent on current situations or the prevailing political climate.

Some church and parachurch groups seem consistently hawkish in a way I find  disconcerting. The home page of the Biblical Patriot network offers a sad example, somehow equating guns, violent self-defense and angry rhetoric against national leaders with “Biblical foundations” and “conservative values.”

Sadly, that loud voice has captured the spotlight, to the extent that many people I know, Christians and those alarmed by what they know of Christians, believe that somehow Biblical values endorse and affirm violence and guns.

From what I know of the witness of Jesus, nothing could be further from the truth.

from A Journey for Nonviolent Change

Faith traditions that are strongly for peace are much less likely to attract attention, but their witness has been strong around the globe as they combine quiet, faithful service with an unswerving opposition to war.

The Mennonite Church, through the work of the Mennonite Central Committee, supports a global network of sacrificial peacebuilders providing help in farming, water supply, schools, medical aid:

"As followers of Christ the Prince of Peace, we believe His Gospel to be a Gospel of Peace, requiring us as His disciples to be at peace with all men, to live a life of love and good will, even toward our enemies, and to renounce the use of force and violence in all forms as contrary to the Spirit of our Master." 

In their 1970 statement on war, The Brethren Church again affirmed

"We seek . . .  to lead individuals into such intimate contact with Jesus Christ, our Lord, that they will commit themselves to Him and to the manner of life which He taught and exemplified.

"We believe that such commitment leads to the way of love and of nonviolence as a central principle of Christian conduct, knowing full well that, in so doing, violence may fall upon us as it did upon Jesus." 

The Quakers, since their origins in the 1650s, have continued to speak firmly against war, insisting, as they insisted again in a joint statement in 2002:

"We know from history that acts of violence only breed further violence.

"We also know that the terrifying spiral of violence and hatred can be interrupted by acts of creative nonviolence, conflict resolution and courageous love. The real path to global security lies in a stronger global civil society based on increasing trust and respect, the rule of international law, and the removal of the roots of violence and war."

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

In thinking about war and peace, I came across a speech given by Father George Zabelka, chaplain for the bombing crew that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki in 1945. Zabelka spent the remainder of his life wrestling with the idea of a “just war,” repenting for his involvement in the death of so many innocent people, and seeking ways to make reparation. His speech was given on the fortieth anniversary of the bombing he condoned and is well worth reading in its entirety.  Here are a few of his conclusions: 

There is no way to conduct real war in conformity with the teachings of Jesus.
The justification of war may be compatible with some religions and philosophies, but it is not compatible with the nonviolent teaching of Jesus. 

All countries are interdependent. We all need one another. It is no longer possible for individual countries to think only of themselves. We can all live together as brothers and sisters or we are doomed to die together as fools in a world holocaust.

Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating in its preparation and in its execution. This includes the military. This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the weapons. . . Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest sins.

Militarized Christianity is a lie. It is radically out of conformity with the teaching, life, and spirit of Jesus.  

As I listen to the quiet voices advocating for peace, I hear echoes of scripture, and of Jesus' example of peace in the face of threats and rage. His early followers sang when persecuted, prayed and offered forgiveness when faced with violent death. There was no cry among first century Christians to fight back, to defend the faith with arms, to further religious freedom through enslavement to violent means.

What do I take from this?

• Now, more than ever, churches, denominations, and individual Christians should think carefully about a theology of peace and war, and be clear about where justification of violence will lead us.
• Christians who promote ever-increasing investment in defense need to rethink their loyalties, the source of their safety, and their blatant misuse of the term “Biblical values.”
• As an agent of peace, I’m called not just to advocate for peace, but to demonstrate it in my actions and interactions, even with those with whom I disagree.

Jesus said: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”

Do we believe him?

The Road to Peace, Gilad Benari, 2006, Israel

This is part of an continuing series about faith and politics: What's Your Platform?

More than ever, I welcome your thoughts about which issues to consider, as well as your insight, comments, and questions.  Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.

Struggling to Proclaim Good News

We’re four months away from an important election. Pundits who have watched our election seasons for years seem alarmed at the way this particular season is playing out, and respected analysts who track the ups and downs of economies and parties worry that we are at a particularly troubling time in the progress of democracy.

We all have theories about what’s gone wrong, who’s to blame, what should be done.

How many of our theories have been carefully explored? How many of our assumptions have been handed down, gathered up, passed on with little understanding of what’s behind them, where they might be taking us?

I’ve been puzzling over a lecture by N. T. Wright, until recently Bishop of Durham in the Church of England, now Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at  St Andrews University in Scotland. The lecture, delivered at a symposium on “Men, Women and the Church” sponsored in 2004 by Christians for Biblical Equality, was about women in ministry, not American politics, but in his introductory remarks Wright called attention to a concern I find increasingly relevant, and increasingly troubling. Wright was attempting to explain that his position, and his language, might easily be misunderstood and misrepresented by American Christians:

Part of the problem, particularly in the United States, is that cultures become so polarized that it is often assumed that if you tick one box you’re going to tick a dozen other boxes down the same side of the page – without realising that the page itself is highly arbitrary and culture-bound. We have to claim the freedom, in Christ and in our various cultures, to name and call issues one by one with wisdom and clarity, without assuming that a decision on one point commits us to a decision on others. I suspect, in fact, that part of the presenting problem which has generated CBE [Christians for Biblical Equality] is precisely the assumption among many American evangelicals that you have to buy an entire package or you’re being disloyal, and that you exist [that is, CBE exists] because you want to say that on this issue, and perhaps on many others too (gun control? Iraq?), the standard hard right line has allowed itself to be conned into a sub-Christian or even unChristian stance.

Wright highlights a problem that any thoughtful Christian has surely encountered: if I say I’m a Christian, the assumption, from both left and right, is that I endorse a long list of positions that have little to do with faith in Christ or commitment to scripture. As Wright says, many American evangelicals, and many who oppose them, assume that the Christian platform is predetermined, uniform, and clear.

But if, as Wright suggests “that standard hard right line,” as he calls it, “has allowed itself to be conned into a sub-Christian or even unChristian stance,” then as followers of Christ, we not only have the freedom, but the responsibility, of naming and calling issues “one by one with wisdom and clarity.”

Wright’s concern, in the lecture in question, has to do with the role of women in ministry. He mentions gun control and Iraq as two other places where assumed agreement with “the hard right line” might be problematic for thoughtful Christians, but that list of questionable check boxes grows longer by the day:

Global warming? How did the “Christian” view become so strongly linked to the ambitions of the fossil fuel industry, and so strongly opposed to concerns about climate change, desertification, clean water and clean air?

Gun control? Since when do followers of the Prince of Peace endorse the right to own machine guns, carry concealed weapons, shoot first rather than turn the other cheek?

Immigration? Health care? Nutrition assistance? Public education? What shapes our views? How do “biblical values” play out in the political arena? What do we do when “biblical values” have no biblical basis, but instead mirror the agendas of global corporations, wealthy investors, powerful entities determined to protect their power?

As I was thinking and praying about the role of government, I received an email update from a blog I follow. Vinoth Ramachandra, a Sri Lankan leader in the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, reflects on "Compassion and Justice":

"Justice is the fundamental calling of governments. The biblical picture of the ideal king (e.g. Psalm 72) is of one who renders justice to the afflicted and downtrodden. Interestingly, even the healing ministry of Jesus is seen by Matthew as not merely expressing compassion, but as the fulfilment of the Messianic promise of justice realized (see Matt 12: 15-20). Justice restores human beings to a state of flourishing.

"All this is deeply relevant to the debates taking place today, in Asia and Africa, as much as in Europe and North America, about the responsibilities of government. Churches and NGOs are often unwitting instruments in the hands of those governments who want to abdicate their responsibility to their poor citizens (and, indeed, the poor elsewhere who are affected by their policies). Governments would rather have the churches and NGOs alleviate the social discontent arising from their misplaced priorities. Alleviation we should do, but not at the price of silent complicity in those policies.

"Whenever Christians unthinkingly join the right-wing protests against “welfare cheats” (a miniscule number in comparison with the number of rich folk and companies who steal from public funds), argue against government economic regulation (in the name of “minimal government” which, in practice, is government that gives charity in the form of tax breaks, subsidies and bail-outs to the wealthy and powerful), or speak of poverty as if it were simply a matter of individual choice, even their private charity (however sincerely motivated) may be cementing the walls of injustice in the world. Should they not be returning to their Bibles and delving more deeply into the Christian tradition that they profess?"

One of my goals for the months ahead is to do what both N. T. Wright and Vinoth Ramachandra suggest: to look at individual issues that confront us, to see them in the light of scripture, to think them through as faithfully as I can.

For those dear friends who have said “I like when you talk about prayer, but wish you’d leave politics alone,” please understand: when loud Christian voices affirm policies that oppose the good news of God’s kingdom, when groups espousing “biblical values” denounce attempts to help the poor and unprotected, my (our) silence is complicity. The message of hope we’re called to share cannot be heard when the message of “Christians” becomes a message of exclusion, self-protection, judgment. How do we join with Christ in proclaiming good news to the poor without first examining our allegiance to the rich?

More than ever, I welcome your thoughts about which issues to consider, as well as your insight, comments, and questions.  Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.

‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
    to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
    (Isaiah 61:1-2, Luke 4:18-19) 

This is part of an continuing series about faith and politics: What's Your Platform?

More than ever, I welcome your thoughts about which issues to consider, as well as your insight, comments, and questions.  Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.

Reconciling Righteousness

"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out - perhaps a little at a time."
"And how long is that going to take?"
"I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps."
"That could be a long time."
"I will tell you a further mystery," he said. 'It may take longer."
— Wendell Berry (Jayber Crow)

We live in a divided world and the divisions seem deeper by the day. Are you friend or foe?  One of us, or one of them?  We keep our checklists handy: check the wrong box on any one of fifty issues and the walls go up, alarms sound. Dialogue is over.

The world Jesus walked in was surely as divided. Romans and Jews, Pharisees and Sadducees, men afraid to speak with or acknowledge women, lepers and other “unclean” living in isolation out on the margins.

Read through the accounts of Jesus’ trials and watch the deceit and manipulation as each group maneuvered toward preservation of power, with Jesus, the blameless one, propelled toward his death. He didn’t fit, wouldn’t affirm the checklists of any party. His very silence threatened those committed to their own authority. The solution was obvious: make the silence permanent.

The Baptism of Cornelius the Centurian
Francesco Travisani, 1709

The resurrection is the great rebuttal to that attempted silencing, to those confident in their own power, to those dependent on their own divisive categories. From the Acts of the Apostles to John’s Revelation, the New Testament shows the followers of Christ struggling to explain and live out the profound implications of his unexpected return, not just for themselves, but for the opposing groups around them, for the nations beyond their borders, for the earth itself, groaning under the weight of human folly.

Christ’s followers found themselves living into mysteries beyond their understanding. We read through their writing, looking for bits that are easy to remember, that line up neatly with our own preferred positions. But much of what they had to say, lived out across a backdrop of miraculous events, unexpected alliances, frightening persecution, leaves us baffled. We shrug, and go on with our own agendas.

Here’s one of those passages I’ve been puzzling over:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:14-21)

The Christian faith is often presented as a simple, personal transaction. If we say we believe in Christ, God forgives our sins, gives us eternal life, and all is well. No worries.

But this passage draws us into a net of relationship – not just with God, but with others, a wide mix of unsorted others. According to the Apostle Paul, this resurrection life demands our alignment with Christ in his love, in his death, and in his role as reconciler. He took our place on the cross, so now we take his place as ambassadors, agents of reconciliation.

But Paul goes further than that: as people of the resurrection, we are agents of God’s reconciling purpose, but even more: “we become the righteousness of God.”

St. Philip Baptizing the Eunuch
Theodore Chasseriau

That’s a startling statement. Most theologians take one look and head off into discussions of “imputed righteousness.” In fact, this passage about reconciliation and righteousness has itself become a point of less-than-righteous division: what exactly did Paul mean? Does your interpretation line up with mine?

I’m not sure Paul is talking theology here. To me, he’s concerned with a day-to-day, walk- it-out practical question: What does it mean to live as resurrection people in the broken, battered right-now world? How do we show God’s glory in these imperfect jars of clay? How do we live God’s power when we’re so worn down we have trouble standing?

And if Paul is using the term "God's righteousness" in a way that reflects his study of Torah, he's talking about relationships: How do we engage in consistently redemptive relationships that show, in action, the steadfast love and faithfulness of God himself? (For insight into translation difficulties check section 4 in this challenging discussion).

Miroslav Volf is a theologian who has inhabited these questions for decades. A Croatian who grew up in Serbia under Communist rule, a Pentecostal whose theological studies were interrupted by forced military service in Yugoslavia, he has struggled personally with the challenge of reconciliation, of forgiveness, and the call to love in a way that reflects God’s faithfulness. In Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation, Volf reflects on this passage in Corinthians:

"'So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.' When God comes, God brings a whole new world. The Spirit of God breaks through the self-enclosed worlds we inhabit; the Spirit re-creates us and sets us on the road toward becoming what I like to call a “catholic personality,” a personal microcosm of the eschatological new creation. A catholic personality is a personality enriched by otherness, a personality which is what it is only because multiple others have been reflected in it in a particular way. The distance from my own culture that results from being born by the Spirit creates a fissure in me through which others can come in. The Spirit unlatches the doors of my heart saying: 'You are not only you; others belong to you too.'"(51)

Volf talks about becoming selves capable of including and forgiving others, not just tolerating those with different ideas, cultures, values, but embracing them:

"Inscribed on the very heart of God’s grace is the rule that we can be its recipients only if we do not resist being made into its agents; what happens to us must be done by us. Having been embraced by God, we must make space for others in ourselves and invite them in - even our enemies" (129)

Is Volf right? Is our experience of God’s grace shaped by our willingness to extend it to others?

The resurrection men and women of the New Testament lived God’s embrace in a way that broke down century-old barriers between ethnic groups, that dissolved ancient hatreds between nations, that drew the most marginalized into the heart of community. Their faithfulness as agents of reconciliation shook the Roman empire, radiated across continents, rearranged social constructs and left a heritage of hope that still echoes across the globe.

Where does Christ’s love compel us today?  What new selves are we called to be? What will it cost us to make space for others?

We Are All One in Jesus Christ, Soichi Watanabe, 2009, Japan

This is the sixth in a series about the resurrection:

Risen Indeed: The Hermaneutic Community 
The Great Reversal: A Resurrection People 
Earth Day Shalom: Ripples of Resurrection  
Resurrection Challenge: Feed My Sheep
Resurrection Laughter 

Resurrection Women: Happy Mother's Day 

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Click on the ___comments link below to see comments and to post your own.

The Great Reversal: A Resurrection People

“Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. . . . Our task in the present . . . is to live as resurrection people in between Easter and the final day.” ( N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope)

What does it mean to live as resurrection people? As agents of hope in a world where hope is in short supply?

How do we demonstrate – in our daily actions – our confidence that death is no longer the final word?

What does it look like to live so aligned with Jesus, so like him in word, deed, motive, that people who see us see evidence of resurrection?

The sermon on the mount is a good place to start. Looking back, it becomes clear that Matthew 6 is the proclamation of the Great Reversal: a new kingdom coming, a new way to live. Jesus says: Look, you do it this way. Turn it upside down.

Blessed are the rich and powerful? No – blessed are the poor and humble.

You love those who love you? Love those who don’t as well.

You worry? Learn to trust.

You want your own way? Want my way instead.

This reversal shows up in small ways through the gospels: tax collector Zacchaeus, stunned by Jesus’ acceptance and forgiveness, decides to give half his possessions to the poor and pay back four-fold anyone he’s cheated.

Woman at the Well, Hyatt Moore, US

The Samaritan woman at the well starts her story afraid to draw water at the normal times, reluctant to talk with Jesus, a secretive woman burdened by shame. She ends her story sharing the news of Jesus with everyone in town; according to Orthodox tradition, she was renamed Photini, "Equal to the Apostles,” and went on to witness in Africa and Rome before being martyred for her faith.

Were there others whose lives demonstrated a reversal of intent, a radical, visible change? Certainly people were healed. Lives were redirected. The teaching and example of Jesus attracted plenty of attention.

But in the gospels, although Jesus taught about the coming kingdom, it wasn’t really visible in the lives of his followers. The sons of Zebedee, James and John, were still wondering how to maneuver their way to power. Peter, self-focused from the start, was busy with his own off-beat agendas. Mary and Martha bickered about the proper role for a spiritual woman. All seemed convinced their own ideas, their own plans for the future, would somehow work better than whatever Jesus had in mind.

What Jesus had in mind, in his cross and resurrection, took their ideas, plans, hopes, vision of how the world should work, and shredded them. Completely.

Want power? Turn the other cheek. Again.

Want a future? Let your best hopes die.

Want to be an insider? Part of the gang? One of the club? Align yourself with the marginalized, forgotten, despised. Set your reputation with theirs. Claim their abandonment as your own.

The resurrection isn’t some sweet idea of spring and tulips and happy thoughts rising as the days begin to lengthen.

It’s God’s deep song of joy, rising up from the very darkest place of pain and grief: the story isn’t over. The hardest word is not the last. The thing you feared most is the best gift yet. The deepest loss is the avenue to deepest joy.

Beyond that, with the knowledge of that, everything changes.

The Crucifixion of Peter, Filippino Lippi,
c. 1581 , Florence

The disciples, once fearful, found themselves courageous beyond imagining: singing in the face of imprisonment, merry in the face of floggings, buoyant when confronted with crosses, lions, vats of oil, stones, beheading, new instruments of torture. Their persecutors exhausted themselves trying to find more frightening forms of execution. And still the disciples, and those who came after, women, teens, thousands on thousands, went to their death rather than deny the truth they’d come to believe: Jesus was God himself, raised from the dead, bringing freedom for anyone who would follow.

Origen, an early church theologian, at seventeen lost his father to beheading, lived most of his life under the threat of persecution, spent years in hiding and more years suffering a mix of ingenious tortures. In his “Principles,” he wrote:

“When God gives the Tempter permission to persecute us, we suffer persecution. And when God wishes us to be free from suffering, even though surrounded by a world that hates us, we enjoy a wonderful peace. We trust in the protection of the One who said, ‘Be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. . .  From His victory we take courage.'”

The power of the Christ’s victory showed up not just in the courage of the new followers, but also in outrageous generosity.

Resurrection people, from the start, have shared things with each other, and with those in need. Not just now and then. Not just when the harvest is exceptional, or the person in need a particular friend.

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. . . They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people” Acts 3. 

The early resurrection people acted as if they understood, and could trust completely, what Jesus had said: we don’t need to worry about our own stuff. We can let go of the anxiety, the fear of scarcity, the competitive worry that if I feed you today, my family will go hungry tomorrow.

Ignatius of Antioch:  "I prefer death in Christ Jesus
 to power over the farthest limits of the earth. . .
 He who rose for our sakes is my one desire."

Justin Martyr, in one of the earliest histories of the church, wrote:

“We who used to value the acquisition of wealth and possessions more than anything else now bring what we have into a common fund and share it with anyone who needs it.”

Clement, describing the change visible in any person who took on the name of “Christian,” noted:

 “He impoverishes himself out of love, so that he is certain he may never overlook a brother in need, especially if he knows he can bear poverty better than his brother. He likewise considers the pain of another as his own pain. And if he suffers any hardship because of having given out of his own poverty, he does not complain.”

Clement, like the others who chose to live the resurrection, put a high value on love: your pain is my pain. Your poverty is my poverty. Your illness is my illness.

In Philippians 2, Paul says “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Who does that? Who puts the interests of others first? Not occasionally, but daily? Not when it’s easy, but when it costs health, future, personal safety?

When plague devastated the 3rd century world, Christians cared for the sick, gathered and took into their homes people thrown into the street by family members fearful of becoming infected.

When Romans and others threw their deformed, surplus, unwanted babies on trash piles or into rivers, Christians gathered them up, fed them, cared for them as their own.

John Chrysostom taught, "If you see anyone in affliction, do not be curious to enquire further... [the needy person] is God's, whether he is a heathen or a Jew; since even if he is an unbeliever, still he needs help."

As Justin Martyr observed:

“We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.” 

Inexplicable courage, outrageous generosity, sacrificial love. There have been glimpses of those in every culture, in every age.

But only in gatherings of resurrection people do these traits become visible on a scale that rearranges history.

St. Francis and the Leper, Frederic Loisel
1961, France

Resurrection people were the first to imagine free, generous care for the sick.

Resurrection people were the first to offer financial and emotional support for the aging who had no families to care for them.

Resurrection people started the first orphanages, the first free schools, the first homes for the mentally unwell.

Resurrection people worked, and continue to work, to end the ugly sin of slavery.

The story goes on and on, from the first centuries following the resurrection, through stories of Benedict and Francis, through the leper colonies of Africa, mission to untouchable Dalits in India, prison ministry in forgotten holes of misery around the globe.

Yes, generosity shows up in people of other faiths, and no faith. So does courage. So does love.

And yes – people calling themselves Christians have done great harm, in many ways. That’s a story for another day.

But the sheer volume of care, poured out by resurrection people, year by year, country by country, gives proof to a reversal of agenda with no other explanation than Christ’s defeat, through love, of hate and death, and his invitation to live as new people in a new, unending kingdom.

Where that reversal is visible, God’s glory is made clear, the good news is heard and joyfully received, and God’s people “shine like stars as they hold out the word of life” (Philippians 2:15).

This is the second in a series about Resurrection.

• Risen Indeed: The Hermaneutic Community

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Click on the   __ comments link below to post.