“Not even a month and I’m already weary,” a friend said yesterday. “How will I ever make it through 4 years of this?” Another responded “I don’t read the paper or listen to the news anymore. I know I need to stay informed but I can’t handle the daily assault on things that matter so much to me. I don’t want to give up but I need a break and I don’t know what else to do.” “I know how you feel,” I said to them both. “I feel the same way.” People come into my office each week with overwhelming personal and family issues. Yet those issues rest in a cauldron of social unrest and general anxiety that amplifies their concerns because the foundation of the world appears to be crumbling.
When the ground gives way beneath us people scramble for something to hold onto. I remember being at the epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake in Santa Cruz, 1989. Like most people, I suppose, I had always taken for granted that the ground I stood on was dependably solid and stable. But in those few minutes the earth itself gave way. It shook and rumbled with an unnerving roar and I reached for the door of my office, holding on, unsure the building would remain standing. When the first wave was over a second, third and fourth followed.
When it seemed safe to leave and go outside, everything was absolutely and eerily still. I made my way home through debris cluttered roadways, downed power lines. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my house still standing but inside the shelves were askew, their contents thrown across the floor. Cupboard doors were blown open, dishes flung and broken. The rooms were in shambles. Now and again the earth would thunder to life once more. Many chose to sleep outside that night and the next as aftershocks continued. Downtown looked like a war zone. Heaps of rubble were everywhere. The bookshop, coffee shop and other local landmarks were gone. Many died—friends of friends, neighbors. All roads leading into and out of town were impassable. We were cut off from the world for over a week. The inability to move in or out was frightening.
These memories return as I look at the state of collapse in so many of our inner cities with people stranded and dying on our streets, social networks and environmental protections threatened, healthcare divorced from a basic need for support in sickness, the value of a healthy society shattered, pieces strewn across the lawns and fields of every town. The earthquake mirrors my experience of what I see and feel happening today. The ground of shared reality has come undone. Gaping craters appear where there were once stable roadways. Even many of our operating principles lie in piles of rubble or are threatening to collapse. Laws we passed and thought invincible are being torn from their moorings. The nation-town has crumbled. Everyone is in shock, waiting for the next wave of after shocks.
None of us know how to function in this unreal new reality we find ourselves in. Where do we turn when roads are impassable, when there is no exit, no entrance, and no fresh supplies or assistance heading our way? We have only each other and our skills, wits, courage, camaraderie, good will and concern for one another. But we do have these! Yes! We have these—even when they are obscure or seem in short supply. And with these we have hope.
Loving, supportive relationships have always been the key to building the reign of God. Everything that fractures or impedes those relationships—anger, abusive language, bullying behavior, deception and manipulation, self-centeredness, lewd conduct, lying—all of these and more undermine and destroy that web of relatedness that IS God’s image in human form.
Jesus taught, and continues to teach his disciples, that the commandments don’t exist for themselves. They aren’t rules God expects us to obey because OBEDIENCE is top on God’s list of virtues! In fact God doesn’t care much about obedience per se! God wants us to learn to love—always, everywhere, under every crazy or impossible condition. Jesus came to show us just exactly what that means. And most of us don’t want to see it, because who wants to love the betrayer, the bully, the hangman or the crucifier? But that’s the road. That’s the challenge. And here we are, face-to-face with that challenge as Christians. What do we do now?
We didn’t know it would come to this, or at least not in our lifetimes. We didn’t expect the challenge to be so gut-wrenchingly REAL! We thought we could just slide by following the RULES as best we could, knowing that if we messed up a little, or maybe even a lot, God would still love us and we would be OK. As “progressive” Christians we believe this. And though it’s true God gives us choice without condemning (the reading from Sirach confirms it) God also does not support the lies we tell ourselves. The goal God has for us is a life filled with wisdom in a beloved community of harmony and peace.
Spiritual maturity advances through rugged times, through negative and positive choices. We learn and grow from these experiences, not just emotionally and psychologically, but spiritually as well. As painful as this time in our history IS, as chaotic and hopeless as it seems, remember this: we are truly in God’s hands and immersed in God’s plan. As Paul reminds us today, this plan was created before time began for US. If we are to believe Jesus, it was created that we might learn to live in a permanent state of LOVE as a people, as the family of God that we are.
We are well on that road now. This crisis-time is one indication among others that our time has come to learn this lesson at an even deeper level. We are in the throes of birthing a new age. What seems to be a tomb on the horizon is actually the womb of the world whose waters are breaking. Take hold of each others’ hands through these terrible waves of pain. Let’s not make promises but speak and act with courage. “My word will achieve the end I intend,” says God through the prophet Isaiah. I intend your glory, your transformation into Love-Light. You are safe in me. I am your solid, stable Ground. I am Holy Ground.
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