The saying is that love is blind, and there’s some truth to that. Love blinds us to imperfections and red flags, and allows us to dismiss warning signs we would be wise to heed. But it’s nothing in comparison to the blindness that comes from lack of love. What we do not love, we do not cherish. What we do not cherish, we are willing to neglect or use for our own purposes.
It is with the heart’s eyes that we understand the intrinsic value of the life around us, in its many forms.
When I was a child, a neighbor I knew told me that she’d almost married a man who became a wealthy, prominent politician. Instead, she chose another man who didn’t achieve great wealth or fame. Although she never said it aloud, it was clear to me that she regretted her choice.
As I grew older, she spoke of this choice many times. It wasn’t until I was fifteen or so that I thought through the implications of such a choice: three children that would not be born, extended family that she would never know, decades of experiences she wouldn’t have, the love winding through all of it never to be. She would never have her life particulars had she not made the choice she did.
There’s a precious uniqueness to the life that comes from our choices. Had she made a different choice, she may have had more money and social standing, she may have had a happier marriage – she may even have had children she would love fiercely. But she wouldn’t have the ones that her life had brought. Would she really be willing to wish them out of existence, or did she take it for granted that they would somehow, impossibly, be given even if different life choices were made?
Would I be willing to lose the holy what is, with all its complexity, for an unknown what is not? Would you?
We pray for the victims of violence and war; for those wounded in body and for those wounded in mind.
John called his wife and the pastor of his church a couple of minutes beforehand because he didn’t want one of his twin sons to find his body in the garage – he didn’t leave enough time for Linda and David to prevent it.
John couldn’t find a way to talk about the war that left his heart, mind, and soul in a dark room with no way out but a bullet.
John left behind a family and circle of friends that loved him, and a bunch of us in the congregational church choir who loved his wife and eight year old sons.
At twenty-one years old, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could be so isolated and so grief-stricken that death seemed the best gift he could give himself and those he loved.
War and violence claimed him, caged him, and spilled into the lives of those he wouldn’t for the world want to hurt.
But hurt us he did.
I hope we learned enough from John’s death to find other ways out of dark places.
Every child deserves to be welcomed into the world with joy. Each baby should have the basics – safety, food, clothing, shelter, engagement – provided without fuss or resentment. No child should have to offer his or her body for the use and gain of others, and no one should have to choose between death and committing murder.
Violence or violation? No child should have to choose. No adult should, either.
We pray to the Great Spiritual Power in which we live and move and have our being. We pray that we may at all times keep our minds open to new ideas and shun dogma; that we may become ever more filled with generosity of spirit and true compassion and love for all life; that we may strive to heal the hurts that we have inflicted on nature and control our greed for material things, knowing that our actions are harming our natural world and the future of our children; that we may value each and every human being for who he is, for who she is, reaching to the spirit that is within, knowing the power of each individual to change the world.
I’ve been lucky enough to have mentors who provided guidance without insisting that I take up a particular profession or remain in their particular discipline. I had a grandfather who let me learn boy’s skills, and a father who didn’t value me less because I was a daughter. Math, languages, science, home economics – it was all encouraged if I wanted to pursue it.
Many of my friends weren’t so lucky; if they questioned the direction chosen for them, there were serious consequences. Perhaps they weren’t wished a lesser life, but they were encouraged to be who they were not rather than who they were.
In the here and now, here’s hoping we mean what we pray…
From Jane Goodall’s A Prayer For World Peace, Hong Kong: Minedition, 2015
What do I want to leave with my children when I die?
Something positive rather than a mess to clean up.
Something more than an account balance.
Fewer things and a smaller footprint.
The ability to tell wants and needs apart – and to be content with needs met if it means a healthy planet and a peaceful spirit.
The courage to be gentle with this creation.
Joy in the flight of a sparrow and the turtle’s measured gliding.
The World.
Please, God. Amen.
Jumping worms have invaded Vermont. They aren’t the helpful kind of worms that improve soil. Instead, they drive out native species and damage forests. They are causing enough damage that the state of Vermont has put out warning flyers. Because I’m installing a couple of raised beds, they may become my problem soon enough.
I’ll do my best to prevent an infestation – checking plants and soil for worms and eggs and keeping a watch on everything after planting. But if I find these jumping worms, I’ll have to make a choice: kill them or let them decimate the local environment. Loss of life will occur, by my direct action or my inaction. I hope I never get to the point that it becomes an easy choice.
[This is part of an ongoing series. Click ThreeP’s above for more in this series.]
Dogma: A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.
What can we say about our faith, our God, our world that is incontrovertibly true? Depending on when and where we were born, the dogmatic laundry list would be different. Even if the lists were identical, our own age and stage of life color our take on what we consider incontrovertibly true. Gender, age, experience, geography, current events, health – all these and more influence our lists and our understanding of what those lists mean.
So how do we make sense of it all when so much of what we think of as incontrovertibly true, given by an authority we honor, isn’t truly written in stone? What is the foundation that remains solid and reliable, a bedrock that can bear the weight of our lives and all the changes that come with them? Our perspectives are so limited, our life spans so short – how do we live holy lives?
From my own limited and biased point of view, with all its shortcomings and blind spots, I’m going with the perennial favorite that winds through every faith in every time: when in doubt, go with what honors God and offers love to self and neighbor. Dogma is just a list; God, self, and neighbor are life.
[From Jane Goodall’s A Prayer For World Peace (Feeroozeh Golmohammadi, illustrator); Hong Kong: Minedition, 2015
God is great, God is good, God is the creator – our prayers and theological tomes are full of these adjectives describing the one to whom we address our prayers. The technical term for addressing the nature of God: Cataphatic Theology.
God is not fully knowable, God is not contained in this creation, God is not limited to our understanding – our catechetical books and seminary libraries are full of adjectives stating what God is not. The technical term for addressing what God is not: Apophatic Theology.
Spending time seeking knowledge of God in either way can be very helpful: it can clear away some of our misconceptions and make us aware of our own limited perspectives. If pursued with honesty and as an expression of faith, these two different paths can keep us humble and increase our capacity for kindness and compassion.
If we remember the most basic truth of life, we can avoid mistaking or preferring our ideas of God with our relationship to God. We can remember that we are always held by God. Said poetically:
We pray to the Great Spiritual Power in which we live and move and have our being.
[A Prayer For World Peace; Jane Goodall and Feeroozeh Golmohammadi(illustrator); Hong Kong: Minedition]
If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change. Buddha
[July 20, Daily Peace; Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2016]
It’s been a rainy, flooding, smoky, humid July in Vermont. For the past few days, I’ve had the added pleasure of a summer cold. But the sun came out today, and today’s Daily Peace quote prompted me to step out onto the back deck. The dozens of Jerusalem artichoke flowers I could see each had at least one bee. My potted thyme is also covered in blooms.
These are not rare species. They are as common as can be. In a world that values what is rare and delicate, it’s easy to undervalue, underestimate, and overlook the beauty in the common and hardy. It’s a peculiar and pervasive blindness – and one I might have kept had the words of the Buddha not intervened.