Stones of Remembrance

 

And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ 

—Joshua 4:20-22

In this story from the Torah, Joshua had instructed the Israelites to carry stones out of the Jordan river and arrange them as a memorial of their crossing. Leaving memorials in stone is a uniquely human thing we do. From ancient cave drawings, to pyramids, obelisks, statues, or simple grave markers, we leave our mark on stones, so that future generations would know we existed.

On May 24, 2020, the New York Times published excerpts of the obituaries of some of the 100,000 lives lost to the COVID pandemic ravaging this country. People from all walks of life. Parents, children, wives, husbands, professionals, veterans, and laborers. The AFL-CIO had previously posted a scrolling list of their members who died in New York due to COVID. On that list were everyday people, teachers, communications workers, healthcare workers, transportation workers, and grocers. Just ordinary people, “essential” workers in our current parlance. Everyday heroes who carried out their duties despite the risk. While these were electronic, virtual publications, most of these lives will eventually have their names marked in stone by their loved ones. Stones of remembrance. 

May 24, 2020 falls on a Memorial Day weekend. It is a time when we pause to remember the people who gave their lives in our country’s conflicts. Whatever our judgments about the nature of these conflicts, we ought to remember people who fulfilled their responsibilities at the cost of their lives. Their gravestones cover the hills of our military cemeteries as far as the eye can see. Stones of remembrance.

Of all the creatures on Earth, we humans have the ability to build a “durable world” as Hannah Arendt called it. We leave our mark. We alone have a written language allowing us to leave a record, discoveries, and hopefully, lessons learned. We memorialize the people we leave behind. Ultimately, we will be memorialized and become the ancestors of future generations. What will they remember of us?

Will they remember this period as a time when we let our rancor take us into a needlessly lethal pandemic and then onto a second Great Depression? Will homelessness, illness, and hunger reach record levels? Or will we look back on this time and recognize it as a pivotal point in history when people of good will seized this moment to build a more just, a more sustainable society?

The fewest of words for posterity are marked on our grave stones. The name of the deceased. The date of birth and death, separated by a hyphen. In that hyphen is our entire lives. When people come upon our graves one day in the future, what will they remember? What will they tell their children?

All the Lonely People

Wikimedia Commons

"It is not good for the man to be alone." - Genesis 2:18

We like to think of the holidays as happy times when we gather to celebrate friends and family. Yet, for too many, the holidays are salt in the gaping wounds of loss and loneliness. This is borne out in a brief survey of today's headlines: "America's Loneliness Epidemic", "UK Appoints a Minister for Loneliness", "Public Health Relevance of Social Isolation and Loneliness". We have a problem. What we are intuiting and what our lived experience tells us is being acknowledged by governments, healthcare providers, and business leaders. We are lonely. And it's costing us.

There are so many factors that have contributed to this epidemic: our mobility (our lack of roots in a community), drastically shortened career life cycles, relationships based on utility or proximity (usually career) that end when we change jobs or move. Transitioning through life stages: student, career, single, married, parent, empty-nester, widowed/divorced, retired, and care-giver. All these stages are the realities of modern life. Transitioning between these stages disconnects us from others at the same stage. Establishing human connection at each successive transition is more difficult than the one preceding it.

In addition to transience, we have to recognize that modernity is mechanistic, i.e process oriented. Modernity rejects the spiritual, the metaphysical, the deus ex machina, i.e. it rejects any notion of non-material causality. Ironically though, modernity does have a deity: utility.

"Utility is the god of modernity"

― Esther Lightcap Meek  

Utility is the unseen medium through which we move. Every material thing, every occasion, every relationship is measured against it. Utility is the progenitor of work. We work to sustain ourselves and to give our lives a purpose. And certainly, our employer pays us for a purpose. But both employee and employer relate to one another out of utility. Once that utility ceases, so does our value to an employer. At that point, our employment relationship ends. In the 21st century world of work, our workflow can be so automated that we rarely interact with other humans. We report to a digital supervisor as automated systems call us to a shift or track our movements.

This bent toward utility extends beyond employment. It determines how much we will invest into maintaining friendships and family ties over over extended distances and through challenging circumstances. Marriage and significant-other relationships are no guarantee against loneliness, though our culture and technology pushes us to "pair up". Too often, we just end up being alone in pairs.

Whether we live by ourselves or with a significant-other, we will inevitably lose people in our lives. That being the case, we should always be open to establishing new connections. But, alas, we don't. There are many factors that may inhibit our ability to connect, but I will focus on this one:

"A national culture that promotes polite restraint, and which actively fends off and forestalls the forming of relationships between strangers, is one that might as well be inviting loneliness on its population." - Chris Bourn 

The author of this quote is speaking specifically about English culture, but I would suspect nearly all English-speaking countries have inherited this reserve as a cultural attribute. Because "utility is the god of modernity", we call on this god to justify (excuse) our breaking this boundary of reserve to establish a connection but only because something is needed or something must be done. We have forgotten how to connect with people for no other reason than they are people!

Another obvious but neglected connection is with our neighbors. Although I know my neighbors fairly well, I still have to resist the temptation to go buy a tool or contract a service when I could simply ask my neighbor to help me. "Sorry to bother you" is not simply a cliché or a movie title, but is too often our default to connecting with others. We need to view our need for help as an opportunity, not a liability.

Befriend your neighbors. When we truly know them, we are more willing to work for the common good. - Fr Richard Rohr

When we are friends with our neighbors and there is some degree of mutual reliance, it breaks the cycle of isolation. When my neighbor needs some staple item, she will knock on our door. It's happened a few times. One day, she stopped me to apologize for always asking for something. I replied, "No worries, what are neighbors for?" We have a long way to go to change our mindset.

To deal with the consequences of loneliness, many seek out the services of therapists. In this day and age, therapists provide an invaluable service to help us deal with loneliness. However, not everyone can afford therapy. Not to criticize therapy, but have we not commodified what used to be simple friendship? Have we not redefined a basic human need into into a pathology requiring a clinical solution? Yet:

"Healing and well-being are fundamentally political not clinical."
- Dr Shawn Ginwright

What Dr Ginwright is saying is that healing and well-being take place in the presence of others. But it's not enough to be in the presence of others. We have all experienced that feeling of being alone in a crowd. We must be seen and recognized by other people and we must recognize them. We must be open to it. It must be mutual. For that to happen, a mutually safe space must exist. Someone has to take the initiative by asking the other person about themselves. If there is one universal truth, it's that everyone loves to talk about themselves.  That opens up a space. That space has a name: hospitality. To be hospitable is to have a spirit that welcomes others into one's presence. A hospitable spirit is also open to the invitation of others.

In a hospitable space, we may be able to go deeper in sharing and connecting to that which makes us most deeply human:

"I have found that the very feeling which has seemed to me most private, most personal and hence most incomprehensible by others, has turned out to be an expression for which there is a resonance in many other people. It has led me to believe that what is most personal and unique in each one of us is probably the very element which would, if it were shared or expressed, speak most deeply to others. " - Carl Rogers

If we are able to connect at that deepest level, it would heal our deepest wound, loneliness, the scab of which is alienation. Alienation, that sense of disconnection and distrust of others, is the dry tinder that fuels the wildfires of divisive politics. Alienation is the root of what ails us in the West. It makes us good consumers, compliant laborers, fearful citizens, and an apathetic electorate.

In the end, we must choose to reach out. That requires courage, sparked by the hope of connection, the hope that we are not alone, and faith in a better future. Our willingness to enter the world  of others, to connect with people, is an echo of the Nativity, where God entered our world to connect with us.

The Church of St Elsewhere

Mont Saint Michel in Normandy is about as other-worldly as a church can get. It is an island in the sea, one kilometer from shore.  Mont Saint Michel is a monument to wars between kings, kingdoms, and religions. It is a crumbling fortress against the outside world that must constantly be shored up against rising tides (and sea levels).

Mont Saint Michel is among the great church buildings of the world I hope to see: Notre Dame in Paris (though now all that remains are the stone walls), Westminster Abbey in London, and St. Peter's in Rome. For some reason I have a fascination with centuries old church buildings. It would seem to be an odd fascination since I rarely attend a church service these days.

Maintaining these physical structures of the church is a never-ending battle against time, nature, and changing human sensibilities. Hundreds of years ago, wealthy noblemen and kings commissioned the building of these structures to the "Glory of God". Artisans and laborers devoted their energies to buildings that would inspire wonder and awe from both  inside and out. Perhaps this is the all too human response to our mortality. We want to build something that will outlive us, though Jesus warned us, "Not one stone will be left upon another."

We humans are not satisfied with physical structures. We want organizational structure. Jesus exhorted us to gather for fellowship at the table, but we want to know which end of the table is the head. In the Gospel of Mark, James and John decided they want to be in charge. Not only did they want to form a hierarchy, they wanted to be the head of it!

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.” When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Mark 10:35-43

Although Jesus told his disciples that  to "lord over" and to "exercise authority over" others was not to be the pattern for his followers, they began to adopt the world's structures of hierarchy. Most of the centuries of church conflict and turmoil was not so much about what the belief was as who was in charge.

A few centuries after Jesus had left this earth, the Roman model of diocese and archdiocese had been fully integrated into church governance, with bishops and archbishops as the heads. In the centuries which followed, the line between government and church were indistinguishable. The combination grew increasingly powerful, leading to the Crusades in the eleventh century. Over time, as nation-states formed, the influence of the church waned, but never completely abated.

Whatever its degree of influence on temporal affairs, the church knew that it was operating against the explicit direction of its Master.  Allowing space for monastic orders was a tacit admission of this truth. Most of the saints designated by the church, were either from monastic orders, founded orders, or otherwise operated at the fringes of the church. It was necessary to put some distance from the structures of power for people to even attempt to follow Jesus.

Jesus never left explicit directions on how to organize the nascent group of believers he was leaving behind, but he was very explicit about what structures and behaviors to avoid. Throughout history, Jesus' wisdom on these matters had to be rediscovered:

“the "small goodness" from one person to his fellowman is lost and deformed as soon as it seeks organization and universality and system, as soon as it opts for doctrine, a treatise of politics and theology, a party, a state, and even a church. Yet it remains the sole refuge of the good in being. ”― Emmanuel Levinas

This is why attempts to evangelize the world end up being an evangelization of the structures of power. The most notable example is the Roman Catholic church and its "Doctrine of Discovery." This gave European colonialists the moral cover to displace and enslave indigenous peoples. A number of non-denominational American churches have picked up on this as they setup satellite churches under the administration of one senior pastor. But truth is not found at the centers of power:

"If you really want truth, you need to escape the black hole of power and allow yourself to waste a lot of time wandering here and there on the periphery. Revolutionary knowledge rarely makes it to the center, because the center is based on existing knowledge. The guardians of the old order usually determine who gets to reach centers of power, and they tend to filter out carriers of disturbing, unconventional ideas." ―Yuval Noah Harari

Centralized power was always going to be a problem for the church. It's a place to hide all sorts of evil. It's why Jesus operated at the periphery. The margins are where he built his church. Father Oscar Romero realized this in the most trying of places, El Salvador in the late nineteen seventies.

Oscar Romero was appointed and installed as the Archbishop of El Salvador in 1977. He was placed as the head of the Catholic church in El Salvador. His position naturally overlapped with the centers of power at the time, the wealthy landowners and the government. A number of events, culminating with the assassination of his friend, Father Rutilio Grande, changed his perspective about the center of power and moved him to the periphery, the poor laborers of El Salvador. He began to voice the sufferings of the poor and painted a vision of what the Church could be:

"God wants to save us as a people. He does not want to save us in isolation. That is why the church today, more than ever before emphasizes what it means to be a 'people'. And that is why the church experiences conflicts: the church does not want just crowds; she wants a people. A crowd is a bunch of individuals, and the more lethargic they are, the better; the more conformist they are, the better." - St. Oscar Romero 

The "church" Romero speaks of, the communion of life, the church which forms a people, is alien to the concept of "church" in middle America. I have read many of  Romero's words. As I did so, I was saddened by the vast gulf, a great chasm, between the Church Romero speaks of and the church we have today. Romero was martyred as he tried to live out this vision of what the church could be.

Yet I remain hopeful. I see stirrings among the people who want to follow Jesus, who see the truth of his life and teachings. They are tired of living a lie, of putting on a smiling face when inside they are grieving. I am one of those people. I know there are others. Perhaps you are one of them. We can all lament and grieve the state of the church and we probably need to do that. But we also need to realize that the baton has been dropped in front of us. At some point we are going to have to pick it up and "run the race set before us" (Heb 12:1). We cannot run this race alone. We must nurture a hopeful expectancy to find others on the same journey, those who are heading in the same direction. We must learn to recognize the presence of God in people and places where we did not expect to find him. Quite often those places are at the margins of society. We should try to be more spiritually aware, living with a Jesuit expectancy to look for "God in all things." Let us try to learn from those times when we look back, kick ourselves and say "God was in this place and I did not realize it!" (Gen 28:16).

The church we seek, the people that follow Jesus, is the fellowship of saints and the body of Christ. It does not necessarily meet in a building, although it sometimes does. It is a people who will live and speak the truth, however imperfectly. It is a people who have come to terms with their own mistakes, sufferings, denials, and sins. It is a place where people can rejoice, but also grieve together. It is a place where people will bear with one another in all their frail humanity.

It meets at the Church of St. Elsewhere. Service times to be announced.

A Journey of Faith into Politics

My first vague awareness of politics was November of 1963. I was sent home early from school. All I knew was that something bad had happened. When I got home, the news of the JFK assassination was playing on all the major networks. While I didn't understand the gravity of the event, the solemnity lingered.

I don't remember growing up in a particularly political household but it was a union household. I remember going to union picnics. I remember going to the plant where my dad worked when there was a strike. I didn't know why he was on strike. As I got older, I learned the issue was health care. I remember that my dad was frequently laid off. My other distinct memory of those times were the green painted walls of the Michigan Employment Security Commission. No mailed checks or electronic deposits back then. You went and you waited. All day. My mother worked, so I had to go. I don't recall how I passed the time. I might have brought a book. Or stared at the drab green walls. As a child, I did not understand the intersectional relationship of unions, economic justice, and politics.

I lived in Detroit in 1967 when the city exploded in violence and flame. The air was filled with the smell of burning wood. National Guard personnel carriers drove down my street while helicopters flew overhead. When the riots were over, for-sale signs sprouted up and down our street. We moved to an adjacent suburb. Meanwhile, images of Vietnam flashed across the evening news. I had a growing awareness of politics and how it might affect me directly. In 1968 I had a hope, an idealism that men like MLK and RFK would lead to a better, more hopeful future. Their assassinations were a gut punch to me. I was totally undone.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household either. My maternal grandparents made sure I was raised Catholic. I grew up going to Mass, Catechism, and Confession. I learned the creeds, the Commandments, and the Stations of the Cross. I was confirmed when I was 10 years old. As I grew into my teen years, I drifted away from the Catholic Church. Just before I turned 20, I had an Evangelical conversion experience. I met my wife in church and for the next 30 years we attended various Evangelical churches together. For most of those years, I focused on trying to balance work, family life, and church. The church we married in went though periods of turmoil with two pastors leaving in quick succession. That sent us on our spiritual road trip through a number of churches. Each change was made in the hope of finding a church where there was true grace and acceptance. Each expectation was met by disappointment.

The last church we attended was the smaller plant of a larger church. We were attracted because of the small church's outreach into the community and its acceptance of people who did not traditionally attend the denomination: homeless, alcoholics, addicts, single moms, and people of color. We threw ourselves into the work. For a time all was good, but trouble was brewing. A number of people were uncomfortable with the new direction the church was taking and with the associate minister who was leading the charge. Ultimately he was driven out. The church went back to its old ways. In the end, we left.

This led me to deconstruct my faith. I did not lose my faith, but I had to understand how faith, if it was valid at all, would lead me to live in the world. Specifically, what did the words of Jesus mean for me today and how was I to follow his teachings? While groping in the darkness I chanced to start reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer. Mother Teresa. and Dorothy Day. Each of these people brought me back to the Gospels, the "red letters", the words of Jesus. This was my pivot into a different understanding of faith, a faith lived out. Along the way I found and joined a team of believers who formed a non-profit providing semi-independent housing to young people transitioning out of foster care. I became a mentor, tutor, and driving instructor to young men in the program.

I began to understand that the lot of the poor was not because they were not "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps." I learned that some people don't even have "boot straps" to pull themselves up by. I learned what generational poverty does to people and how hard it is to break out of the cycle.  I also learned that poverty is entrenched by systemic factors: red-lining, inadequate schooling, poisoned water, a dearth of financial services, and lack of transportation. On top of all this, predatory capitalism swoops in like a vulture into poor neighborhoods and entraps people.  Payday loans, exorbitant auto financing, and overpriced insurance to extract the last drop of life out of people for profit. I learned that a lot of this was the product of public policy and that could only be changed through the political process.

Engaging politics would force me to take sides. Up to this point, I could remain publicly apolitical. Church life did not encourage open political advocacy, except to always vote for the "pro-life" candidate. Nearly all the sermons had to do with personal piety and "getting right with God", but only personally and spiritually. Rarely, if ever, did I hear systemic injustices addressed. At most, I might be encouraged to give and participate in a charity, to, in MLK's words, "fling a coin at a beggar" but not critically examine the system that produced beggars. Moreover I was living a relatively comfortable life, so why take sides? Then 2016 happened.

A man was nominated by his party and ultimately elected as President who was an anathema to my growing awareness of systemic injustice. He based his campaign on oppressing the marginalized even more than they were oppressed already. I was stunned. How could the political process allow a man like this to become President? Then it occurred to me: I wasn't participating in the process! I had allowed my relatively comfortable life to lull me into apathy. I barely knew what congressional district I lived in, much less my state house and senate districts.

In early 2017 we knew we needed to do something, but were unsure what was to be done. We walked in our first MLK Day march, our first political rally ever, in the bitter January cold. We met some nice, like-minded people in the church we gathered in to warm up, but were unsure what good our action did. We didn't see any press. Besides ourselves, who knew what statement we were making?

Meanwhile we learned about a new organization that was forming in response to the new political reality: Indivisible. We read their brochure. A chapter formed in a nearby town and we joined it. We were encouraged to see that, contrary to what we believed, this very red district had other like-minded people. We learned how politics leads to policy, how to take meaningful action, and how action changes political realities.

In 2017, the GOP controlled congress was trying to kill the Affordable Care Act. Our congressman, who we later learned had cashed in on foreclosures in private life, opposed the ACA, despite the wishes of his constituents. We started calling and writing letters, the first time we ever tried to communicate with our representative. Indivisible and other organizations made themselves heard at his office. Ultimately he decided to retire. In time, a number of candidates threw their hat in the ring to run for the newly vacated seat. We attended our Congressional district's candidate forum. We threw our support behind a promising candidate who helped save the industry I worked in. I signed up to run as a Democratic Precinct Delegate. In the primary election, I won my first elected office! Shortly after that, I attended my first state-wide political convention. We hosted canvassing drives out of our home and knocked on doors. Our congressional candidate won! Not all the candidates down-ballot won, but we moved the needle. We began to see the effect of involvement.

My faith journey took me into politics because I came to understand the primacy of Jesus teaching:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 Matthew 25:35-40

In this passage, Jesus taught that any good I would do for another human being, I have done for Him. I also learned that any good I could accomplish on an individual basis was limited. To do any real good for many people, a change in policy and governance was required. I must advocate for people who will advocate for others. A failure to do so leaves people at the mercy of evil men: 

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” 

Plato

So I have become a card-carrying member of the Democratic party. I admit that I am a contingent Democrat. I am not a natural-born politician or loyalist. Nevertheless, as long as Democrats remain an advocate for working people, the sick, the poor, the aged, people of color, LGBTQ, and refugees, I will remain a member. Some who know me from conservative church circles will see this as a denial of my faith. I see it as a living out of my faith. I used to be blind, color-blind that is, and now I see....the "red letters" of Jesus' words.

The Kingdom of God is People

Those of us who are old enough will remember Charleston Heston's role in the dystopian sci-fi classic "Soylent Green". The movie was titled after a fictional nutritional substance that humanity depended on for survival. In the movie he plays an detective who investigates a murder. He follows the evidence to its end. When he realizes the truth, he belts out that iconic line, "Soylent Green is people!"

In many ways this movie was a product of its time. The era produced an entire genre of post-apocalyptic movies. Certainly they were all a  commentary on our fears and self-destructive tendencies. Perhaps even on consumerism's endpoint where we consume ourselves. Those would all be a topic for another blog. For now I want to focus on "people".

Throughout His ministry, Jesus tried to convey truths about the Kingdom of God to people. Think of all the metaphors Jesus used to describe "Kingdom of God". A treasure  hidden in a field. A pearl of great price. A mustard seed.

When he sent his disciples out, he instructed them to say "The Kingdom of God is Near". He never told them how to describe or define this kingdom. They were simply to announce it's nearness.

So what is the Kingdom of God? What was it that Jesus alluded to, told parables about, announced the presence of, but never directly defined? It was hidden in plain sight, right in front of everyone. The Kingdom of God is people! People following Jesus. It's that simple.

The Kingdom of God is people following Jesus. They adhere to his teachings. They follow his example. If Jesus said "love your neighbor", then they love their neighbors. If Jesus said be kind and hospitable to marginalized people ("the least of these"), then his followers are kind and hospitable. If Jesus said forgive enemies, then they forgive their enemies. If Jesus said "love one another as I have loved you", then his people, kingdom people, love one another.

The Kingdom of God is built with rejected and marginalized people,  the people no one else wants. Jesus' followers love them,  re-humanize them, and build a family out of them. That is how the Kingdom grows.

The only evidence of this Kingdom is the lives of its people. Their disposition and actions towards others. When people are re-humanized by Jesus,  have their dignity restored, when people feel like people in the presence of Jesus' followers, the Kingdom is near. Because The Kingdom of God is people!

A Full Life

Michael P Zissimos

October 18, 1984 - December 30, 2014

October 18th is my nephew's birthday. He would have been 32 years old. I do miss him. Not just because the empty chair at family gatherings, but because of who he was.

Mike had a heart for special needs individuals. He had worked with the special needs ministry at his church. He also helped brain-injured adults relearn computer skills at his prior position in a rehabilitation facility. In reading posts on his memorial page, I came to realize how many people he helped. He didn't talk about helping people, he just did it. Mike loved God and he showed it by loving people.

Mostly I spent time with Mike as we gathered formally for birthdays and holidays. We saw a lot of each other informally as well. His childhood home was only half a mile from our first home. In the summer we often walked to his house.

Our get-togethers continued after he grew up. We had each other over for dinner. We went to the Detroit Auto Show. We traveled to Chicago together to visit his cousins. We enjoyed the attractions of downtown Chicago, especially Shedd's Aquarium.

Mike was a Detroit sports fan through and through. Like all Detroit sports fans, we complained about the Lions. We enjoyed ballgames at Comerica Park and that one last Wings game together at Joe Louis Arena.

Mike was also an avid motorcyclist. He used every opportunity to ride. He was a member of a riders' group at his church.

Mike liked superhero movies and parties.  Though I'm a "wet-blanket" when it comes to parties, I dressed up as Clark Kent for his 30th.

Mike had a Greek heritage,  but was fond of only only one Greek dish...lamb chops. So from time to time, Uncle Alex barbecued lamb chops for Mike.

I learned about many of the good things in Mike's life after he was gone. The qualities that made him special. His heart of gold. The small and largely unknown acts of kindness. It seems that we only hear and appreciate the good qualities of a person when they are gone.

"Strange isn't it? Each man's life touches so many others."
- Clarence (It's a Wonderful Life)

Mike's life had meaning and value. He gave meaning and value to those who may have had no value to society or who may have felt they lost their value. He added meaning and value to my life. So how do we, how do I,  honor his memory?

Forgive now...we don't know if we will have another opportunity
Love now...we don't know how long we have with others
Live now... Don't wait until the future...we don't know if we have it.

Mike's life was short, shorter than it should have been, but it was a full life, because he loved.

Why am I Here? Perhaps as a Warning

I am the son of a refugee. My father fled Poland in 1939 just days after it was invaded by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Horse-drawn artillery and wooden biplanes had no chance against the mechanized forces of two world powers. He decided to flee to Romania. As fighter planes approached to strafe those fleeing, he dove into a ditch for cover. He felt the repeated thump of machine gun bullets impacting the ground. After the planes left and he felt it was safe to get up,  he arose to discover every other person in the ditch was dead. He just happened to be in the place that was between rounds.

I can't help but be a student of history, since my life is the product of it. It seems so ironic that I owe my existence to the rise of demagogue. Eighty-three years ago in Europe a man rose to power on the promise of restored national glory, renewed economic prosperity, and the defeat of foreign and domestic foes. He knew how to channel the public angst into wild-eyed devotion. Crowds were spell-bound before him. There was only one catch....enemies had to be named and destroyed. The rest is history, so to speak.

So pardon me when I sense a darkening cloud casting its shadow over our country. A demagogue has arisen who knows how to work a crowd. He has said he will "Make America Great Again".  He has blown by all boundaries of civility, all the lines that his opponents and predecessors would not dare cross. The truth of what he says does not matter. His character does not matter. That he has stiffed countless people that have worked for him does not matter. That he says outrageous things about minorities, women, and even veterans is excused as forthrightness. He has named our enemies which somehow all happen to be people of color. He has talked about mass-roundups, internment, and deportations. He has talked about the exclusion and public marking of religious groups. He has talked about legitimizing racial profiling and searches. He has talked about muzzling the press because "they say bad things" about him.

Some of us are going to vote for him because we believe in him. Some of us are going to vote for him because we despise "her". Some of us will vote for him because we are afraid. Some of us are going to vote for him because he has thrown us a bone about some issue dear to our hearts. Some of us are going to stay home because our candidate lost the primaries. Some of us will stand on principle and vote third party. We will say to ourselves, "so what if he gets elected, we will only have to put up with him for four or eight years. What have we got to lose?" Everything!

Let's not delude ourselves about constitutional limits and protections or that we are a nation of laws. Constitutions, amendments, and protections of the law operate under the assumption of  a collective good will. That if things don't go my (our) way, we will live to fight another day through the legal process and perhaps through a change of national conscience. In our past, universal suffrage and the Civil Rights struggle were able to advance in this way. In our past however, there have also been reversals:  the Japaneses internment, Communist witch-hunts, and the Kent State massacre, to name a few. It doesn't take much to throw constitutional protections out the window when it suits a collective national will. Just a little fear will do it.

So why then am I here? I very nearly was not. Perhaps I'm here as a warning. History does repeat itself.

Reflections in the Desert

It's been over a year since I left the institutional church, so I have had time to look back and reflect on the journey. The road has been one of both disappointments and unexpected joys.

Like being in a desert, being outside the institutional church can be a "dry" experience in terms of meeting a large number of people every week. For a time I missed the small talk and coffee. So to keep the tradition of Sunday coffee, my wife and I decided to meet in a coffee shop every Sunday to do a Christian book study and.... drink coffee! Ironically, we've gotten to know the proprietors quite well. The expectation of our presence is at the point where we tell them of our vacations so they won't worry about us.  Other than serving us a confection and a good cup of coffee they don't seem to have any agenda. That's more refreshing than the coffee!

We have discovered that joy comes from encountering Jesus in unexpected places. My wife volunteers and substitute teaches at an at-risk school. I spend time with young men transitioning out of foster care. Over time I have discovered that my heart has become more open in ways that would have never happened in the institution. The change we both notice is that we can be fully present with who ever God places in our path. We can be fully present because we are not physically, emotionally, and financially spent from the demands and controversies of the institution.

We learned that Jesus was where He said he would be all along, among the "least of these". We don't have to look for a weekly religious experience. We can experience God by encountering and engaging people who are made in God's image. We let our light shine by making "invisible" people visible.

It turns out that the "desert" is not devoid of life after all.  It used to look that way as we whizzed by on the highway of packed agendas on the way to the next church meeting. I am so thankful that we have slowed down, gotten out of the car, and found the oasis in the desert!