Social Work in the Absence of Faith

"the value of observation over judgment was lost upon her, lost as she thought that her life was really somewhere else, somewhere not in this and every moment."

 Discerning rather than judging is hard; often it's really hard. We are reminded in most all the spiritual traditions east or west, about the practice of openness, of emptiness and the great gifts it brings when we are empty to receive in the here and now. Our life is filled moment to moment with the world and ourselves, filled to the top.
The militancy of  persons engaged in 'social initiatives,' 'community action' or the like is unnecessary in Jesus' world. Often it arises in moments of fearfulness, places where 'voids in faith' prosper.
The Christ's strength came from within himself to be shared with all he came into contact with. His peace became their peace, and his love their own.

Jesus, the Christ, reminds us of this when we read the gospels which tell of his decided indifference to the character and style of an individual life. Tax collectors, despots, harlots and others, he was willing to treat them, to attend to the great commandment of love for one's neighbor.

Who is your neighbor? The gospel of Luke 10:30-37 gives some clues:
A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, who also stripped him and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead.  And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way: and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by.  
But a certain Samaritan, being on his journey, came near him: and seeing him, was moved with compassion: And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring oil and wine over his wounds, and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn and took care of him.  
And the next day he took out two pence and gave to the host and said: Take care of him; and whatsoever you shall spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay you.  Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among the robbers?  He said: He that showed mercy to him. And Jesus said to him: Go, and do in like manner.

 It is not necessary to go far to meet one which you and your gifts may help. Neighbors are everywhere. If we are living in the "now moment," the present moment with its most pressing meaning, before long, we will come to understand our self first and our neighbor more clearly who is very human, like our self.
 It becomes clear that a thinking mind may observe and notice without casting stones or passing judgements. 

Questions, after all, are about listening. And they start conversations that may close gaps, increase confidence and strengthen community. Discernment and compassion in place of quick judgement is a valuable way to understand, and to love.

"If only we could be white as snow." 
-- sung by U2

How to Grow Vegetables

"Honor the face of the old man; stand up in respect for the old..." Leviticus 19:32

We are well into the spring time here in the northern hemisphere. With the possiblity of a mild end to winter, many thoughts turn to the growing of things. It may be the green spaces alive in your town square, it may be the return of the farmer's market and the lovely spring abundance it brings for you and your table.

For most all of us in terms food, our choices are actually limited: we must buy food from one source or another. We are indeed absolutely dependent upon those sources for our very lives. Who grows our foodstuffs? Why not us? Why do we think it fine to pay others to do the manual labor of bringing fresh, healthy food to us for the table? Have we really ever thought about it at all, thought about the lifestyle that necessarily results from tolerating, accepting, even encouraging this practice of others raising our food? One thing leads to another, like a slippery slope.

In these days of rising concern of stewardship for the air, the land and the water, do we suppose that we have relinquished all that to the approximately two percent of the population who (feeding more than 98 percent of Americans and a vast percentage world-wide) are indeed the oligarchs? Are we okay with that, or should we react? How we react depends a lot on us, and our current lifestyle.

Some while never thinking about it, work like vassals to a "state of consumption" in which they participate. Yes, we are called consumers, but aren't we more than that? And what if the farmers rebelled, went on strike and demanded their homage? To a serious threat like that, then what are we? While in a civil society something in just that form may not occur, many other potentially damaging disruptions may well be affecting our daily lives in myriad, subtle ways.

Take for example, the price of sugar, oil, wheat and corn. These commodities have been greatly on the rise the past few years. Why? Agricultural economists explain it in several ways: weather, market "forces," export demands, domestic consumption and yes, things like ethanol driving up prices. Farmers as a group are notorious for growing crops which bring the highest return. Who can blame them?
And when they all do, an overabundance may result, actually depressing prices. Then producers are on to the next "big thing," and lately that has been corn. Remember there is only so much land for all crops produced. A balance of supply and need produces price stability; overproduction in one crop results in shortages in others. You pay the difference.

Corn may be used to produce many, many foodstuffs and meats. Most recently it is used to produce not just grain alcohols such as whiskey but also a product they call "ethanol," a less efficient, grain alcohol used to fuel gasoline powered engines. The result is that millions more acres are now being taken to produce this product and not grain to feed you or produce meats or oils for your table. Did you ask for that? Did you clearly know that certain demands for a better environment would be answered by big business in this way? Did they ask any of us? Well, yes and no. Regardless, we all now pay ever increasing prices to those who grow for us. This topic is ongoing. It's another chapter in the politics of food.

So back to you and me and the springtime garden. Yes, we can grow some, or most of our own food! It's not hard, doesn't require a lot of money or equipment and just may be the best tomato, potato or peach we've even eaten! There is a time investment however; also a time and fuel savings too. It takes time to garden, but the time you'll spend at the store shopping, driving or commuting to places where you obtain food can be used in your own garden. If you have land, own a house, you have space and can garden. Others may take advantage of community garden space, or start a community garden in their neighborhood. Grow some tomatoes, herbs or miniature fruit trees on your apartment balcony or grounds.

Nature has a lot invested in the success of your garden. For example, seeds are adapted to your environment. Choose the ones for your area. Plant them according to the package directions, water and they will grow! Weed your garden and provide nutrients. Grass clippings, compost made with the waste produced in your kitchen, leaves chopped or composted in the fall will all provide food for your plants and mulch to conserve water as well.

Choose vegetables you like, those that are your favorites will be best. You will not be pleased with an abundance of vegetables you prefer on occasion. Plan your garden space accordingly. It is not necessary to have a large garden. For many families a space of eight feet by ten feet will be sufficient. Many vegetables may be grown both spring and again in fall, leaving the hotter summer open for others like tomatoes, melons and eggplant.
Don't forget fruit trees.They are pretty with flowers in the spring and luscious with fruit afterward. They also produce at different times. For example, cherries in May and June, apples as early as late July, peaches and pears in August and September. From them you will have fresh fruit, pies, jams, or anything your appetite inspires.
For a family of four, two "dwarf" to medium sized trees each of any type of fruit is plenty, and may be too much some years. Don't forget small fruits like strawberry, raspberries or grapes!

Many locales now permit small numbers of chickens, ducks or rabbits; some allow goats; if yours does, you may be able to almost entirely feed your household like many of our great grandparents did. Enjoy the satisfaction of your own home grown table. Enjoy the calm of the garden, the reduction of time spent as a consumer shopping, driving, and always be confident about your food. After all, you grew it and you know how! Goodness is in the garden.

The Short Run, a Requiem

"Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" -- St. Matthew 9:11

Love's Divine

Performed by Seal

LISTEN HERE

Then the rainstorm came, over me
And I felt my spirit break
I had lost all of my belief, you see
And realize my mistake
But time through a prayer, to me
And all around me, became still

I need love, love's divine
Please forgive me now I see that I've been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name

Through the rainstorm came, sanctuary
And I felt my spirit fly
I had felt, all of my, reality
I realize what it takes

Cause I need love, love's divine
Please forgive me now I see that I've been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name

Oh, I don't bend, don't break,
Show me how to live and promise me you won't forsake
Cause love can help me know my name

Well, I try to say there's nothing wrong
But inside, I felt it lying all along
But the message here was plain to see
Believe in me
Cause I need love, love's divine
Please forgive me now I see that I've been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name

Oh I, don't bend, don't break,
Show me how to live and promise me you won't forsake
Cause love can help me know my name

Love can help me know my name.

 Love indeed helps us to know our name; it was ultimately an untimely end. The beginning seemed like any other -- the birth, the growing, the troubles, the training, and the boy became a man. For one young man, he was born and died in exactly the same place, almost 30 years apart. His end a shock, so utterly unexpected.

There is no dress rehearsal for life, no practice sessions; just a lot of chances for "do-overs" when we screw up. Reckoning the mistake(s) from the first attempt, often we conclude it's worth a second try to do it better, to do it right. So we try again, and many times it is better, and so right. Finally we succeed and recognize our successes and accomplishments; death is the exception, always final, a result.

Like all lives, there is little in the way of 'perfect' and many, like he did, suffer from less than perfect families, less than perfect parents. Parents often negligent or indulgent, sometimes so simply pre-occupied with their own life, they hardly notice the life of their child unfolding beneath their own noses. 

The child grows up restless, wild; in grade school the police enter the picture. They call parents down to the station to pick up this child. Again and again it happens. He learns to smoke and drink, becoming now a 'wild child.'

 As he enters high school, his often pre-occupied parents, become entangled with the police due to problems of their own. They're convicted, both for the same offense. A child with the merest conscience feels embarrassed. His family is in the newspaper; what do the neighbors, his school, his friends think? 
He cares for them all and hopes, needs their acknowledgement, their friendship. Yet these events drive him to secretiveness. He wants to hold his head, to maintain others' esteem.

...your teacher eats with tax collectors and sinners-- is written in the bible in the way of explanation for who was the person of the Christ.  He was, as it's written, one who endeavored to love his neighbor as himself, to forgo absolute judgement and to forgive those who trespass against us and others. 

With disappointments and betrayal come bitter anger, a desire to harm another. Most of us think, we could never do that... never do another bodily harm. When some one we know, care for or love comes under violent attack, even death, it's easy to think that the perpetrator is somehow so very different from ones' self. 
And yet we're human, each and every one of us. It's one of life's challenges to come to grips with this fact.

Secretiveness however, very often becomes a poison, eating away at ones' youth and early manhood. This young man continues to try and still doesn't often succeed. There are to be more contacts with the police; a wild child is trying but not winning the very thing he most wants: to know who he is and what is to be his purpose in life. With high school graduation behind him the world waits... and waits... He's not ready, doesn't know what to do.

Some how, some way he finds a path to further education, to people who support him, to the positive teacher who will inspire him; he begins little by little to believe, to unfold his protective shell. 
To believe that he can succeed, he believes more and more in himself, his natural talents and the will to gain more skills. Acquiring more companions on the way, a community to claim for his own, this young man is now moving forward with some answers to the questions that nag us all. 
A 'eureka' moment gives him the drive to try a business on his own. Wonderful.

But life, whether long or short, has its ups and downs, and tragedy. So sad-- this tragedy, a life so full, so young, so hopeful; a family destroyed now, each and every one of them. The culprit waits for his day, in jail. We mourn a young man's death. Our grief is apparent.

Belief versus Faith

"Do not fear, only believe." --Gospel of Mark 5:36

Suzanne

by Roberta Flack

Listen Here
... Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
He spent a long time
Watching from a lonely wooden tower

And when He knew for certain
That only drowning men could see Him
He said, "All men shall be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"

But He Himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
He was forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

But you wanna travel with Him
And you wanna travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust Him
For He's touched your perfect body with His mind

Suzanne takes you down
To the place by the river
She's wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army's counters

And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbor
And she shows you where to look
Amid the garbage and the flowers...

Be not afraid; come follow me; do not fear, only believe-- these are the central philosophies of the Christ. Jesus, we learn in the Bible, makes them among his central points. Fear must be overcome with faith firmly planted in its place. While fear may be a valuable response as part of a self-preservation instinct, it can also be destructive, paralyzing, controlling us, preventing our living life as the Spirit might direct, unresponsive to free will. The mature person seeks to learn what is in his and others best interest, and endeavors towards those aims. He or she avoids what is contrary and stands against those ills as they may be able.

Frequently the Bible stories serve as imperatives; they prod, define and refine the mind of the reader, so that we may become believers. In this particular story, Jesus recounts his journey to the foreign community of the Gerasenes, who were not Israelites. While there he heals the mind of a deeply troubled man (Mark 5:19-20). He then implores his followers to overlook those peoples' faults and shortcomings, and urges them to bring the message of hope and belief to them.
Continue with the story. Read Mark chapter 5 verses 21-43.

While many will doubt the words they read of a long ago account, faith asks us to "have ears" as the ancient Israelite did, and to hear the message within the story because it is a parable. Today the emotional state of anxiety and fearfulness seem ever more prevalent.
Many of us seek treatment for anxiety and stress in a doctors office with pills and other medication; while these preparations often do effectively tamp down or mask our sensory impulses towards anxiety and fearfulness, the calm of our own mind though the peace the Christ seeks to impart upon us, is not part of the medical equation. Thus we are less free and more under the influence of the drug or other medication.

While some may require medication and rightly so, there is a degree of calm, a direction for all which may be the fruit of the Spirit descended into our lives. It is the nature of the Spirit to come calling upon all, but not by any force or coercion; Spirit knocks. We either answer or we don't and if not, the Spirit is free and it flies. It will not force its way upon anyone.The Christ brings a message of the possibility of freedom from fear: "Do not be afraid, I am with you always."

What is belief, what is faith? We hear the phrase, 'just have faith!' So what is it? Most of us take for granted that religion is a set or system of beliefs; it is to many strictly concerned with beliefs and the adherence to those beliefs. This however is a rather narrow view; the Spirit comes to free us, not entangle us upon a set of dictum.
Many of the world's religions are not characterized primarily by beliefs at all, but by practice, about appropriate behaviors. So it happens that faith is about relationships, and belief is about ways of doing and being.

One of the most unfortunate aspects of religion, all religion, no religion in particular, is that as a facet of life, it instills a set of beliefs very successfully in many without ever bringing a person to faith. Many are familiar with the story, "I attended as a child, but fell away..."
Since both belief and faith formation are important in the spiritual life, one without the other does not often succeed. As persons of faith, we engage and refine our beliefs within relationships, within communities. So the teaching, "love one another," becomes real; it becomes the imperative in faith.

Deeply Resented and the Beatitudes

"ask and you will receive; knock and the door will open to you; see so that you may believe."

There are phrases that the people of the West have heard so often until they're trite. They have become  caricatures, without specific meaning.
Yet the Bible tells us the Christ did say them, did instruct by them, and the Christ Way consists of them and others. For Jesus, the Christ, they were the new thinking, the way to lead from God, the Father.
So today, instead of sentences, the Simple Mind writes here mostly in phrases, ideas actually. These are some of the most essential of all the Christ's teachings, thoughts for all true disciples to strive towards.

First of all, the Good News tells us that we must ask; we are required to ask. Asking is part of listening and listening is a critical part of the voluntaries often called 'free will.' So we must ask--ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you; see so that you may believe.
The reluctance to heed these commandments for those persons who do not, gives an indication that they may well be some one who wishes to be seen as taking either the socially superior or inferior position.
Thus the person who for example, insists on always giving but not receiving, refusing even, is at the same time someone who will not allow the balance to be restored or maintained by reciprocity. They refuse to balance between giver and receiver.

Only when there are both givers and receivers, often one in the same, can a community be established; without this balance, deep resentment often arises between giver and receiver. The Christ recognizes this; he refuses to be caught on this point. Instead, he commands his disciples to think and to behave in the way of love for one another; so feed the hungry; give them drink; clothe the naked; be kind to the stranger; visit the sick or those in prison; bury the dead. Be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful.

And there is the ongoing spiritual work that the Christ calls his disciples to-- correcting those in error; educating the ignorant; counseling those in doubt or confusion; comfort for those in sorrow; bearing wrongs patiently; forgiving the wrongs done by others; pray for the living and the dead, unceasingly.

And again, numerous times the Christ reminds aspiring disciples, of just this-- if you love me, you will keep my commandments; love one another as I have loved you; the greatest commandment is love.

The Face of a Religious China

"Grace means that a life is not assessed for its faults but by a love of God that overwhelms all those faults"  -- Rev. Verity A. Jones

Today, around the world many more are coming to the teaching of the Christ. Forming a community, a Church that stands for all people in solidarity with suffering humanity, and engages peoples of all cultures and religions, is the Church teaching of the Gospels (bible stories). She stands with principle. All peoples the world over, want something to believe in, regardless of their faith heritage, be its origins East or West.

Jesuit Father Myles Sheehan, member of the same Jesuit Christian community as Pope Francis, recounts the Jesuit community experiences since their recent arrival in China. He writes in US Catholic magazine that there were 200 persons attending at a recent prayer meeting; this scene is being repeated every day throughout the country. On Sundays throughout China it occurs in multiplicity. There are now thousands of churches in China, representing all Christian denominations alongside the native faiths of that land.

What is becoming clear is that the number of Christians in China is growing. With the incorporation of Hong Kong into China since 1997, including its free prevalence of all faiths, non-native faiths are now taking hold within the mainland. In fact says Sheehan, there are now more regular church attenders in China today than in all of Europe. China saw more than 20,000 Catholic Christian baptisms in 2011 according to the Church in China.The call to love your neighbor is taking hold.

There are also what Sheehan calls "cultural Christians," many young and educated persons who believe but do not belong. They are a growing group, in many ways coming to the forefront of bringing the Good News to all parts of China. They play a significant role in the future of their nation, carrying with them the ideas, values and philosophies of the Christ.

Their growing Church is a place which holds for her guiding principles, an all inclusive, all-encompassing view, without walls or buildings nor ideologies that omit the value of the dignity of a person. In this modern, industrializing world the Church forms a harbor, a counter-force for harmony, and a home.

This Church of China must stand for all; its aims must be lived, not merely proclaimed through work for charitable causes and advocacy for social justice. In other parts of Asia, this mission takes its fulfillment in solidarity with the Minjung of South Korea, the Dalit of India and the Burakumin of Japan, for example.

While the marginalized in Asia are not all Christians, the indigenous faiths of the region share same or similar deep concerns for Asia. As for the Church in Asia, she stands alongside others with a message of not just a church in Asia but the Church in Asia, uniquely representing her community. After all, building community is at the heart of relationships.

Hope for the Modern World

"Be not afraid. Come, follow me..." Jesus to his disciples, Pope John Paul II to the world

 If there is any message of hope in the modern world for the followers of the Christ, it is this: there is a limit, and this limit has to do with the mercy of God.  There is a limit imposed upon evil in the world, in history, wrote Pope John Paul II as he recalled his youth in Poland under Russian domination. In secret he studied to become a priest.

Despite all our fears, of the human capacity for evil and wickedness, or the confusion of our own hearts, we need not be afraid for God loves. Indeed God is love itself. In Christianity there is the great teaching, the revelation that a being, a creator existed for love, in love with all that was created; this being was Gospel, the 'good news.' In a largely joyless, suffering world of oppression and hatred, the future Pope found joy. In the community of Christians, he felt joy so large that he felt compelled to share; this brought him to his vocation as a priest. He went forth to share this good news. Joylessness turned to hopefulness for the young priest from Poland.

In the modern, industrialized West, threats to human happiness take subtler forms than for those who suffer unjust governments. They threaten the Spirit, the Community no less than overt acts of evil. 
And yet there is the Christ, whose message is taken up by followers throughout the world, all parts of the world, not only in the West. It is a universal message of hope, of peace, of love, faithful love.
Saint John, the disciple, writes of the radiant, burning love made visible in the incarnation of the Christ. The Holy Spirit comes down from above to kindle the hearts of ordinary men so that this love is made visible, tangible and real. 

This love is the ordinary love of the Creator. It is not the love of hearts and candy, romantic and fickle.  "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life..." 1John1:1

What Are We Doing Together, Anyway?

 Signature Of Divine

Lyrics by Needtobreathe Lyrics

Listen Here

Cathedrals have tried in vain

To show the image of your face

But we are, by your design

The signature of divine

We’ll always sing your name

The fortunes of kings and queens

Are wasted chasing what we’ve seen.

Cause we are, by your reprieve,

The beauty framed by your suffering

We’ll always sing your name

Forever and today

Yahweh, Yahweh

Great is your glory when you go before me

Oh, we sing  Holy, Holy

Your ways are lovely. So high above me

Yahweh...

We gather together to work, to learn, to grow; we gather into communities, towns, universities. People everywhere, they live in groups, they live in families; they cherish their friends and they spend time together, supporting and enjoying their ways and their company. We get sick, we go to hospitals to help us recover.
What all these things have in common, with each of us in our everyday lives, is that inescapable fact that humanity, as a species, seems hard wired for gathering.

 Into groups we collect and revel. Together. It all seems so natural. Why, by working together, supporting and accomplishing worthwhile tasks, what could be better?
The person who lives stalwartly alone, who is friendless, who has very little or no community to speak of, that is a person often pitied and eyed suspiciously. We exclaim, "are they ill? Why are they such loners?"
This all makes simple sense. It seems so natural to gather, to enjoy the company of our brothers and sisters, our loves and loved here on earth.
Yet when the matter turns to things such as the lyrics of the song above, many of us recoil. Why? Well, it seems we don't belong after all. We don't want to belong. For some, reinventing the 'spiritual' wheel is okay.

In fact, it's better than okay. It may be for these persons, the only way to demonstrate their will to 'pull themselves up by the bootstraps.' Many among us think, in spiritual terms, that there are aliens around us, to be avoided at all costs.
Infected with perhaps a strong sense of humanist enlightenment, a person with such notions eschews anything of community within the context of faith.

Yet if a faith community is true, existing for a higher purpose, for the common good, then it is, it must be and it will do something. Let me say this again: Churches, mosques, temples, ashrams and so forth exist because they do something for others.
If they do not, they they exist not for long. Communities survive and thrive because of the activities of each of its constituents. What each of us contributes to the good of all, is the community.

It is this fact that escapes many in the blog-sphere. Simply talking isn't sufficient, nor are kind thoughts or nice words and graphics. Communities must do something, and religious communities continue and persist for this very simple reason!
 Join the collective, engage in acts of social justice. Learn about yourself from another's eyes.
Help a friend. Be a community. "We are, by your design, the signature of divine, and we'll always sing your name."

A Taize Kind of Day

On a recent visit to the very important pilgrimage center in Europe-- Taize, France, as a simple mind I was brought into direct experience with what it is that makes this monastery Taize tick, bringing more than 80,000 pilgrims each year. But after a week there, I can explain it no better than frere Paolo who has made Taize his life: the simple way, the way of Saint Ignatius Loyola is his way.

 Frere or Brother and monk of Taize, Paolo is quoted as explaining their lives at Taize:

“The monastic commitment is to three things: to celibacy – to say as a life commitment that you are not going to have any one person in your life to whom you belong or who belongs to you. To simplicity – not having bank accounts, not always looking to acquire more things. To obedience – accepting the decisions made in community, not looking out for your own career, not living together for convenience: trying to take part in the same creation together, the same work, ministry, whatever you want to call it. 

 

Those three things, which are questions of sex, money and power, are the very things which human beings want to be able to control. And the thing is, that, if you live it well, and wholeheartedly, it quite often leads you into times when you feel very, very empty, lonely, at a loss. And you wait there, in the Prayer, in the silence, in the singing of the psalms, in these songs that go round and round, and you wait and you discover that it is actually there, when it is very empty, that the roots of your life arise again.

And the thing is that I actually think that this resonates with the experience of young people It is young people’s experience that life is empty and they want it to be filled, and they wonder where that fulfillment is going to come from, where they are going to discover the direction for their lives, and so I think there is something here in our life at Taize that resonates for them.”


Some 'song-prayers' of Taize: Ubi Caritas, the words are a simple chant: 'ubi caritas, deus ibi est'; where there is charity, there is love, god is.
There are many others such as Stay with Me.... and the chant   Oh, You, You Are Everything  whose sound and images record the simple beauty of the monastery herself.

The voices you hear are not those of professional singers. They are the voices of the many, simple pilgrims who come each day to pray in chant at the worship center. Praying as one voice, chanted in many different languages, the prayers are often spontaneous and many linger an hour or more chanting after the monks have retired to their other tasks, in addition prayer.

The Rescue Operation

We Are One In the Spirit

Carolyn Arends

Listen HERE

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love...

Where there is division, there are things done wrong. It seems obvious when you read a statement like that. An observer from the outside looking in can many times easily discern what is right and what is not in a particular situation. The view from the inside, from the darkness isn't so easy, or so clear.

There was a long standing group who joined together for some common goals like camaraderie, shared interests and professionalism. On the outside, it had all the makings of a group of like-minded persons joined on friendly terms, destined to succeed--until they didn't.

In a vicious and passionate disbanding, this otherwise seemingly congenial group broke apart--permanently. They each, in the end, blamed the other. Perhaps they, in fact, each had a role in the thing done wrong. The rescue operation failed--it never even started. Estranged from one another, the divisions stand.

Those same persons lay low for some years, and then a new wind came to town. A group forms; some of those from the original group join the new group for the same or similar purposes. They joined without the division, as nothing had yet gone wrong.

However the possibility of something going wrong is always present for each one of us. Each one of us views events both from inside of our minds and from the outside of experience. If we are well, we see with a bright light; if not, dimness and fog clouds our eyes. We then may go wrong, with estrangement a possible result.

Many of us with some life experience have been witness to such a de-volution of persons. It may be our family, our church, our club, our workplace, or our community which goes wrong. What part do we play? What was the reason for others? Is there anyone to fault?
 Will fault even matter when things go wrong? Without a guide or some stabilizing compass, many will experience the pains of a community in disarray and the resulting enmity it produces.

There are guides available to the fallen, help for the ones in darkness. The thing about the lost is that they can become 'un-lost' or found if that is what they will themselves to.They may indeed build again to good success.
The Story of the Tenants speaks of this in Mark 12:1-12 and guidance follows in Mark 12:28-34: "the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself."
 "It's such a soothing sound", isn't it?

Really an Everyday Thing, Isn't It?

Silly Love Songs

by Paul McCartney and Wings

Listen Here

You'd think

that people would have had enough
of silly love songs

I look around me and see it isn't so

some people want to fill the world
with silly love songs

so what's wrong with that?

I need to know b'cause

here I go again

I love you

I love you...

Many of us hear the word religion and all kinds of thoughts and reactions arise. We tend to make it complicated, intellectual, even. We like to think it isn't about politics, it's about god; it isn't about society, it's about spirituality, and so on. Well, it is about all these things and some more.

It's simple, really. Religion in another view is about lives, human lives living day to day. We all have thoughts, feelings and relationships. What and how we think about ourselves and the world which we are part of, vastly influences the style and quality of that human existence. So religion need not be icky or avoidable, because it's just about life. And all of us have some experience with that.

So a little help from others may just be what makes a community; for some, it sure makes an opening for a spiritual experience, like this song. Do we need to have an organ playing a dirge song to have a religious experience, do bells need to ring or incense waft upward? In my experience, I have discovered that most often I get out of something more or less what I put into it. If a church, temple or community doesn't move me, then maybe I haven't given much of myself. Maybe my pre-existing notions circumvent me from connecting. Sure, I didn't get anything out of it. But what else did I expect? Nothing gets nothing.

Can our everyday coming and goings be a small part of the whole of life? If so, then this and many other songs may too. They touch us in some meaningful way. A simple song can create an awareness, an appreciation that we had not the sense of before. It's all religion, and like an artist, it's a part of my day. Everyday.

Pride, Stronger than Love?

Love Stronger Than Pride

by Sade Adu, 1988

Listen Here

I still really love you

Love is stronger than pride

I still really love you

`Sitting here wasting my time

would be like

waiting for the sun to rise

It's all too clear

things come and go

Sitting here waiting for you

would be like waiting for winter

It's gonna be cold

There may even

be snow
 
I still really love you

Love is stronger than pride...

For those who choose to remain in the way of faith, conventional wisdom in the light appears foolish; the opposite may, however, also be true: in the glare of conventional wisdom, the love story that is the Christ becomes foolishness. Most people live conventional lives. They do not see a role as artists, seers or poets; they do not heed a call as co-Creators. Accepting this as our role, we, as it is said, 'take up our cross', living a life that is quite often counter cultural. It is a life that values creation and all things made, natural to the world; a life of love and spirit. The disciple John writes, "Do not work for the food that perishes." (John 6:27)

So like the words written above by the artist Sade, where we find our heart, there is where our treasures lie. Intimately, the words direct us perhaps to another place, one not originally intended, but still we arrive-- and it is the right place-- even if we had not known it before. Sometimes, we're just obstinate, until faith intervenes. We are reminded that in love we do, we really do live in a community. There is someone nearby to ask, to call, to rely upon.

Yet to receive, we need to ask and to ask exposes us as part of a community. If we seek only to receive and not to give, "sitting here waiting for you... wasting my time..." because you will not, or perhaps refuse to, ever return the gift, then the words of the Christ would have a very different meaning. A gift would not be a gift. Who would there be to receive it? Who would have gifts at all? Only when givers are also willing to be receivers does the community come alive; only then does the community animate with faith, with love, with trust. I still really love you. Love is stronger than pride.