meanderings

Those who oppress the poor insult their maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him. Proverbs 14:31
i am a muddle of images and memories these days. my mother is fading in the gentle fashion of the sunset. some days it's hardly noticeable. other days her loss is like a sudden jerk of the brakes. and like all selfish creatures, i am left wondering what memories i will keep and which will leave me. because i have been full of memories and images these days.
i reread the letter from terry's mom about jeanne's funeral and the note from jeff's mom, who loved jeanne and had hoped to be her mother-in-law. and it always amazes me how shadow grief can be so strong. those are memories and images that might be better lost.. the unyielding flesh of a once soft and sweet smelling baby, the sound of the phone in the early morning, troubled whispers and the look on kerry's face when he told me, the desperate and unsuccessful search for her last words to me... perhaps these memories could fade from my heart........
but what about the others, the ones equally embedded in my heart... the look in kerry's eyes when i asked him if he wanted to keep me warm, a slow running creek in the snow, the feel of shosha's warm and wet body on my belly, the look in her bright new eyes that announced her as completely OTHER and bound me to her forever, maura's toddling footsteps and obvious inner struggle to get the words right as she told me for the first time "I love you.", the embrace of my curly long haired 13 year old son with his creaky voice tittering on manhood, the memory of rocking him in my arms. these are memories i don't want to lose...
but they are all part of who i am and what peace i know includes everything. we cannot pick and choose.
whatever "sins" my mother committed in her life, whatever mistakes she made, were real. they came from fear or anger or remorse, but they didn't come from pretense. and that part of her is what i hope remains until the end. that and her love of others. terry's mom mentioned my mother as someone who jeanne listened to and appreciated. jeanne used to beg me for my opinion. i didn't want to influence her decisions. nobody ever plans to do the wrong thing. and nobody knows until after a choice is made whether another choice might have been better.
and along with all these personal issues is the sorry state of gloom and doom in my world. our self proclaimed, born again christian president has wreaked more sorrow and destruction than any other in my lifetime... and not just in his wars, although we will certainly feel the repercussions of his bad choices into the lifetimes of our grandchildren, but in the $490 billion trade deficit that isn't even newsworthy, the raping of the earth for the profits of his supporters, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the will to use them that will be his personal legacy, one rejected by even his father; the spread of terrorism and hate that has been his gift to osama bin laden and all the other satanically religious doers of god's will, and more to the point, the absence of the good that could have been done in the name of jesus... healthcare for the poor and elderly, safety and education for children, rendering of peace in a hate-filled, violent world. what has anything this so-called christian leader done to bring god's kingdom to earth.
but religion has always been used thus, here and in the east.

a good rule of thumb: if it takes courage and costs you something personally, the message probably is from god. if it makes life easier or better for you personally and rich people support it, it's probably not.

I had to post this article from Sojourners to make a point. I believe in the existence of an entity of evil, be it called Satan or the devil or what, and this article reveals the subtlety and wares of this entity as well as anything I've read. Yes, it's evil to see physical cruelty. No one argues that. But how can you convince people who claim to be Christians that what Jesus said is not relevant to this life. How distorted can you get!!! Which is why, I think, I continue to run into people who are adamantly non-Christian, who nevertheless are convinced that the teachings of Jesus provide the best moral principles by which to live their life, and who are so much more "Christlike" than most of the professing Christians that I know. Which is why, I guess, that Jesus (and David in the Old Testament... you know, the one who was said to have the heart of God) used the metaphor of sheep so often to describe humans. We can be dumber than dirt about spiritual matters. And I include myself in that.
But to save Jesus for heaven is to miss the whole point and to join those who spit upon him at Golgotha.

Are liberal Christians phony?
by David Batstone


The query came into my in-box this week, with the obvious inference that SojoMail is both liberal and phony. The accuser identified himself by name, adding that he had his Ph.D. and hailed from the state of Texas.


Without getting caught up in political labels - my self-proclaimed "liberal" friends stumble over some of my faith-informed views - I found his theology intriguing. Without a doubt, he clearly drew borders that zoned Christians into different political territories.


He opened his note as follows:

Liberal Christians have no understanding of the God-given role of Government. Liberal Christians are Peter-Pan Christians who demand that Governments, before the return of Jesus, foolhardily beat their God-given swords into plowshares and live according to the Sermon on the Mount. Liberal Christians do NOT realize that the plow-share things happens during the 2nd Coming of Jesus, when Jesus takes back the swords from Human Governments as He establishes God's Kingdom on Earth. This is why our Hero taught us to pray: "Please hurry Thy Kingdom to come, so Thy will is done on Earth as it is in Heaven."

If you have never had exposure to a "dispensational" view of history, my accuser's stream of thought may make no sense to you. I grew up in an evangelical Christian church that espoused a dispensational theology, so let me explain. God, it is assumed, has divided up history into different eras, or dispensations, and each will run its course. In our present era, the forces of good (God's chosen) battle against the forces of evil (under Satan's spell). God looks to government to practice order and suppress evil with the sword. This current dispensation will end with the second coming of Jesus, who will establish God's kingdom on earth.


I often hear non-Christians ask: How can a person who identifies with Jesus Christ espouse actions that run so counter to peace and justice? This theological device enables many Christians to discount the teachings of Jesus as a guide for living their lives. Forgive your enemies? Feed the hungry? Clothe the naked and care for the prisoner? Not a chance; you'd be foolish to adopt these practices in the dispensation in which we live. Governments must take whatever measures are necessary to defeat evil, and we are commanded to be its loyal subjects.


I guess that's what makes me a fool. I take my faith journey as a challenge to embody the teachings of Jesus in an era that cheapens the dignity of life.


In his condemnation of SojoMail, my accuser indicates yet another key theological marker that is worth sharing:


Liberal Christians live in a world of make-believe because they focus almost exclusively on the New Testament, to the exclusion of the Old Testament. Unfortunately for them, the Bible describes the role of Government in detail in the Old Testament, NOT in the New Testament! It is the Mosaic Law & the Mosaic Government that is ordered by God to put to death any person who commits a heinous crime, and goes on to list about 30 crimes as heinous crimes. In the New Testament Jesus is just a private citizen, NOT a member of Government (Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, etc., were Government Officials). Moreover, Jesus directed His Sermon on the Mount exclusively to private citizens like Himself, and NOT to the Roman Government or the Sanhedrin. Note that Jesus did NOT criticize the Roman Government for not having any Social Welfare Programs. This is because the Romans were doing what was called for in the Old Testament: the Roman Government was using the Sword to maintain Law and Order!


If this viewpoint merely represented a crackpot hiding out on a survivalist ranch in rural Texas, I wouldn't bother to publish it. But it unfortunately has significant credibility among a swath of American evangelicals. With my colleague, Mark Wexler, I have just completed an investigative study of the Religious Right (which will come out in the July edition of Sojourners magazine). It was jarring to realize that many American Christians reject the notion of a separation of church and state as a "humanistic secular plot" to obstruct God's proper ordering of U.S. society. They want to see the establishment of a theocracy that puts into place many of the Mosaic laws as established in the Old Testament. At the moment, they are mobilizing a strong cadre of religious leaders and members of the U.S. Congress to rewrite the legal system.


How ironic that my erstwhile critic praises the Roman Empire for fulfilling the divine mandate for right governance. I fear today that is exactly how the United States is acting in the world - as an empire bent on the expansion of its own interests. If my calling as a Christian is to deliver my full support to that empire, than I indeed must confess that I am a phony.

the first
careless lovers in the exuberance of the present
the second
divine intervention in an unguarded moment of more sober lovers
cognizant of the implications, and more fearful
the last
a gift asked for
with unexpected yearning
a holy trinity of blessing that defines our lives
metamorphosis of love and giving
sacred transformation of family