Healing

I don’t think I can stand to hear about another mass shooting: the event, the chaos, the lives of the victims, the sorrowful stories of the survivors and families, the speeches, the visits to the site, the national lamentations. And what all comes of it?

Columbine, Sandy Hook, Charleston, Parkland, Orlando get resurrected on their anniversaries only to remind us of how little was done. What does come from sermons of consolation, from the cowardice of legislators, from the distractions of daily life?

This is a cultural problem. And it’s not the culture of them. It’s the culture of us. All of us. We need to care for our children. We need the call to determined action from the pulpits. We need to challenge the empty patriotism of rigid interpretations of the Second Amendment. We need legislators who have the spine to say no to the NRA agenda. And we need to make time in each of our lives, in any way we can, to heal the ailing society we live in.

Death

Death brings life into perspective, but it’s curious how we as a culture deal with death.

The coverage of mass killings brings us the horror of the event, the individuality of the victims, the sorrow of the survivors and witnesses and the sense of national tragedy. All soon fades away absent vigorous dialogue about  how to solve these problems.

A young girl hangs herself. She is press worthy for a day with little supporting narrative. There is hardly a word about the kind of culture in which this could happen and about the tens of thousands of other similar stories that could be told.

Children across the world die of disease and malnutrition or die from attacks by guns, drones and jets. We might dig through the news to discover their stories, but we are often the perpetrators and they are not a part of us.

We create the cultures in which these things happen. We decide how far beyond healing words we are willing to go to find solutions. We decide how far out to cast the net of our own sense of who is brother.

Nature

Nature was going about its business long before we got here, and it will be going about its business long after we are gone. We arrived, the real freaks of nature with our superior brains and our big ambitions. And here we are moving along the road to our own self-destruction. Nature is mute as our greed and stupidity wipe out its creations and play havoc with its delicate balances. 

Nature though is in charge of the game plan. It is the ultimate winner and the ultimate creator. Nature laughs at our arrogance, believing ourselves to be the apex of creation. We continue to be the primary topic of the conversations between Nature and God.

Some teachers

Some teachers will teach you information and skills.

Some teachers will teach you how to use the information and skills to see the big picture.

Some teachers will teach you the wisdom necessary to be a human being within the big picture.

Some teachers will step back and simply guide you on your journeys.

Face of God

Every genuine belief in God, every image of God and every narrative of God, point to action. That action of the believer in the world and on the world is the only face of God we can see. It is the only evidence we have that God exists. Worship and ritual are the call to action.

Trickle

Consider war, poverty, suffering and disenfranchisement. For those with all the money, wealth will only trickle down. But blood, pain and life struggle will never trickle up.

God

Occasionally someone will ask me if I believe in God. I often hesitate to answer because there will be an assumption that we are talking about the same God. Which, of course, we’re probably not.

Unless the asker is a one-true-God person, we could be talking about any of the myriad Gods that humans have worshipped throughout time—what Joseph Campbell so insightfully called the Masks of God. Since no one really knows the true nature of God, we have to acknowledge that cultures create the God images that best access God in their time and need. After all, since these are human imaginings, it’s impossible that any can encompass the true fullness of God.

My best conception so far is that God is in each of us. That way we are just as responsible for God as God is for us. It also makes it more difficult for us to escape our responsibilities as God-connected human beings.

The other aspect of this concept that is that when the fullness of God in each person becomes connected to the fullness of God in every other person, we have achieved Oneness. And that is God.

This concept is very easy to understand, but very difficult to actualize. So yes, I believe in both God and the human need for God.