The Cross and Your True Colors

It’s a little eerie to hear my son read a harsh Bible passage (Matthew 10; 33) about sons being divided against their fathers. It makes me wonder if I should have come better prepared, maybe with protective armor. Now that I look eye to eye with my son, I can’t take any chances. You know the saying, “never raise a hand to your children. It leaves your groin exposed.”

In all seriousness, it was a proud moment among many proud moments to see my oldest son reading this morning. It made me think about what I most want for him. Do I want him to call himself a Christian? That’s not at all important to me. I want him to think for himself, to live with integrity, to be all that he can be and to care deeply about people. If Christian stories and symbols help him to live more fully, then I want him to have Christianity as a resource. But being a Christian is not an end in itself. It is a means to another end; that is peaceful awakening.

What do you most want for your kids? What are your religious or spiritual hopes for your kids? Maybe more to the point, what’s your relationship to Christian stories and symbols?

The Cross and Clergy Abuse

I have to say that when I read articles like the piece in this week’s Time magazine about a new wave of clergy pedophilia that has swept Europe, I don’t know that I want to be associated with Christianity. As is the case in all churches and in all countries, the tragedy is made worse by the silent disregard of victims and the cover up. The church simply moves its known pedophiles to a new parish and hopes for the best. To the extent that the church and the cross are symbols of power without accountability, I want nothing to do with them. To the extent that the cross is understood as God the Father sending his son to be sacrificed on the cross for the sins of the world, then I want nothing to do with this cosmic child abuse.

The issue of your relationship to Christian stories and symbols is not just a matter of personal preference. It’s a matter of justice. This community must be a place of healing for people who have suffered at the hands of Christianity. And we must see this as a matter of justice. No less.

Some years ago I was at a conference looking at the question of pastoring victims of abuse. It was a moving conference and the most significant moment for me was when a woman shared some of her awful memories of being raped by her uncle over the course of 5 years, beginning when she was 13. He was an elder in his church. The room in his house where he abused the young girl had a picture of Jesus on the cross. Next to it was another picture of Jesus sitting with children on his knee. The caption read, “Jesus blesses little children.”

The woman said at the conference, “I can’t enter a church, or even see a cross without dying inside all over again.”

This may be the most passionate plea you ever hear me make. The holocaust irrevocably changed Christianity. Christianity can no longer speak of a loving, interventionist God who has a special relationship with one group of people over another with any integrity. To do so would be to rub salt into the wounds of an injustice so deep that my mind can’t even comprehend the pain.

Clergy sexual abuse and pedophilia are in the same category. They have irrevocably changed Christianity. We cannot blindly continue as if the many abuses at the hands of this religion have not taken place. If there is even a hint of a connection between celibacy and pedophilia, and there is, then rules on celibacy should be changed immediately. If there is even one person who was abused in the shadow of a cross and its power hungry defenders, then crosses should be removed. To ignore the pain of the victims of abuse at the hands of the church, sexual and otherwise, and to rub salt into the wounds of their injustice is unthinkable.

A 13 year old girl’s uncle has made it impossible to speak of the death of Jesus and the love of God in the same breath. It is unthinkable to speak of God having a plan for anyone to endure innocent suffering. The God who needs blood to be shed to appease his anger and in order to offer forgiveness is a God who must be abandoned along with celibacy. However we attempt to save the cross from its own history, it cannot be a symbol of innocent suffering. This is a matter of justice.

What do you think? Can the cross be saved?

Putting a New Spin on an Old Theme

Many have attempted to put a different spin on the cross. Just yesterday there was a report in the Grand Rapids Press of a local artist who portrayed Jesus’ crucifixion from the perspective of Jesus’ hands. A Cathedral in France attempted to bring the crucifixion into a modern context and portrayed Jesus slumped unconscious in an electric chair. The sculpture is called Pieta, bringing to mind Michelangelo’s famous masterpiece.

It makes me think of the Lenny Bruce saying, “If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”


Before dismissing this as the ranting of a comedian looking for a laugh, consider the sharp edge to the comment. Modern attempts to reinterpret Jesus’ death simple place the same conundrum into a modern image. Whether it’s a cross or an electric chair, what was achieved in Jesus’ death and what do we gain by keeping the symbol alive?

Then there is the awful news coming out of China that many American crucifixes are made in Chinese sweat shops under appalling, unjust conditions. Crosses used in American churches may have been made by under age, female employees working from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. seven days a week and being paid 26 cents an hour with no sick days or vacation. Now there is the ultimate irony.

Relating this to the Jesus story, the cross was not a symbol of what he stood for. It was the consequence of what he stood for. The cross is not the symbol of Jesus’ cause. It’s the symbol of his detractors. It makes no more sense to keep the symbol of the cross alive as a memorial to Jesus life than it does to hang a bullet as a symbol of Martin Luther King’s life. Many warriors for justice have met premature endings at the hands of their detractors. It’s a well known but carefully avoided fact that standing up for your passion leads to great costs. But this doesn’t mean that we should glorify the cost. We should honor the courage and conviction, and not glorify the actions of their detractors.

jailLegend has it that Henry David Thoreau, the author of “Walden Pond”, sat in jail, imprisoned for protesting against an income tax, newly-enacted to finance a war. His friend Ralph Waldo Emerson came to visit him. Looking through the bars into Thoreau’s cell, Emerson asked, “What are you doing in there, Henry?” Thoreau replied, “The better question is what are you doing out there?” Take it from Rosa Parks and Jack Kevorkian and many others who have paid the price for their convictions.

If you follow your passion and fight for what you believe, there will be blood. But is it really the blood we want to focus on to motivate our most passionate and intelligent activism?

Jesus and Justice

Which Jesus do you honor? There are many to choose from. Towering about the city of Rio is one of the world’s largest Jesus statues, the 30 meter tall figure of Jesus the Redeemer. Rio is home to over 10 million people, a place of extremes where wealth and poverty reside awkwardly alongside each other. Jesus stands with his arms outstretched, as if welcoming the people of the city. Unfortunately, he stands facing the wealthy part of the city with his back to the poor neighborhoods. Isn’t that the wrong way around? Didn’t Jesus live for those who had the greatest need for liberation? Isn’t part of the problem for Christianity that Jesus has been hijacked by wealthy and powerful people who use him to justify their self serving agendas?

Some of you might remember that in 2002 Greenpeace hung a banner over the Statue of Jesus the Redeemer. The banner was hung to protest the blocking of Brazil’s sustainable energy program by large and powerful oil exporters and consumers. We inherit a Christian tradition where Jesus lived for the powerless, and yet our tradition has been hijacked to justify the actions of the powerful. Unfortunately, the cross has come to symbolize protection of the powerful rather than service of the powerless.

Some say that the empty cross is a symbol of hope in the midst of despair. I don’t see it that way. The cross was among the most painful and humiliating forms of execution. The concept was to hang a person in public view and allow vultures to eat the body. The empty cross for me is simply a sign of a successful execution. It neither comforts nor inspires me. What does inspire me? Oscar Romero was an activist and Roman Catholic Archbishop in El Salvador. His life was in constant peril because of his vocal opposition to injustice. He said often in his life, “If they kill me, I will rise again in the Salvadoran people.”

Thirty years ago on the day before Good Friday, Oscar Romero was murdered in his homeland. Jon Sobrino and many others ensured that his prophecy rang true as they continued his work in El Salvador. Not surprisingly the Catholic Church has attempted to censure Sobrino for his teachings on Jesus as a social radical.

I could outline a more positive interpretation of the cross as a symbol of passionate activism. However it seems far better to live by the words of Romero and allow the activism of Jesus to rise again in our own best efforts to live for justice.

The Cross and Manipulation

In the year 312 CE as he prepared for battle, the Emperor Constantine looked up to the sky and saw a vision of a cross of light in the sky, a vision which he interpreted as a divine sign. Up until that point a skeptic, Constantine began stating that he had the Christian God on his side. He emblazoned the Christian symbol on his soldier’s shields and led them to victory. Christianity soon became the state religion and the cross became institutionalized as a symbol for victorious crusades. Up until the time of Constantine, Christians had deemphasized the use of the cross because it was a pagan nature symbol.

When modern day leaders invoke the name crusade to describe their God ordained wars, they are laboring under the same false illusion that Constantine had used to justify his wars. There may be justification for some war. But make no mistake. This justification is never because God is on your side. This too is a matter of justice.

feetSo let me end with a comment about right wing commentator Glenn Beck. He recently encouraged people to leave their church if there is any reference to justice on the website. He suggested that this showed the true colors of the church, in this case pink. Glenn Beck had it bass ackwards. The ONLY way a church can follow in the footsteps of Jesus is to strive for justice.

Jesus felt so strongly about the priority of justice that he put activism before family loyalty, and even before religious practice. The activism that Jesus encouraged had nothing to do with communism, and everything to do with compassion. He came with a sword to cut through the corrupt power structures and self serving ideologies of his day, even if it was unpopular.

What does the cross inspire in you? The only cross I am interested in is crossing the lines that divide people with arbitrary markers of religious difference. I am interested in crossing aisles to work together and crossing the street to greet diversity and crossing the powers that be when they set up systems to serve the powerful and marginalize the powerless. I want to cross off religious wars from the list of world problems, and I get cross when religions claim exclusive truth.

So there you have it. I have revealed my true colors. That is why you don’t see crosses in this space. That is why we need to talk about the large cross hanging outside our building. What can we do to turn a symbol that has come to be associated with power abuse and injustice into a symbol of unity and healing?

The artist Marc Chagall painted Yellow Crucifixion in 1943. In it, the crucified Jesus was wearing Jewish prayer garments and holding a torah scroll. The cross was surrounded by horrific images of the holocaust. It’s a stark and controversial image. If the cross has any future as a symbol, it must transcend its exclusive Christian meaning and speak instead to the suffering of all people, especially suffering brought about my religious leaders.

What are your true colors? Are you prepared to show them? How does Christianity empower you to reach out beyond your own comfort zone to heal a hurting world? Do you think the cross can be saved from itself, or is it time to abandon this symbol and move on to more life affirming, inspiring symbols?

For Further Reflection-
Why do you think sexual abuse is such a problem for church leaders?
Do you see a connection between celibacy and clergy abuse?
Do you think the cross can be saved as a symbol?

How would you describe your relationship to the Christian tradition?


Compassion From the Inside Out

Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Sometimes it’s better to address your own despair before addressing the despair in the world. By doing this you will change the world from the inside out. Start by asking the question, “Where is love?” Photographer Rick Ruggles has snapped thousands of love hearts that he found in natural settings, whether in a puddle, a cloud or a piece of rusty metal. In our home, we have a beautiful Ruggles poster above our kitchen table with the words “Love is where you find it.” It’s a constant reminder to find love wherever we are. Of course it’s not always easy to find love. One day my seven year old daughter was feeling very hard done by. She was having a mini tantrum and blurted out, “Love is NOT where you find it.” I had to hold back my giggles. This was no laughing matter to her. It was a raw expression of being misunderstood. She had reminded me that just as love hearts can be found in the most basic materials, so love is manifest in the most fundamental of human experiences including despair.

This is what happened when I came face to face with poverty. I was raised in a very stable middle-class family, but my parents encouraged me to mix widely. So in my childhood I was friends with a lot of poor people. I grew up in Sydney, went to an inner urban school, and mixed in some very poor and unstable families. It was not uncommon for me to be in homes where 15 year olds raised younger siblings because one parent was in prison and the other parent worked 3 jobs. Poverty was a reality for me, but it was only when I was 19 that I came close enough to poverty that I saw myself as part of the solution. It was a relationship that turned my world upside down and inside out. It gave me a new sense of what it meant to truly engage poverty rather than just feel bad about it.

My first two church positions were with young people. The first was as a youth worker in a middle-class suburban parish, and the second was as a youth worker on inner city streets in Sydney. So for two years I ran youth groups in the suburbs, and mixed with middle class families. I spent time in their homes, getting to know what appeared to be some very stable middle-class families. Little did I know what lay beneath the surface in some of these homes. Then I moved into street work, and it was not uncommon for me to be walking down the main drag of King's Cross in Sydney and see a line of young kids, hands outstretched, each of them asking for money.

On one particular morning I was walking quickly and except for a slight glance to the left I would not have noticed one particular boy with his hands outstretched. Along this line of 12 and 13 year-old kids, I looked over and saw one of the same kids who had been in my suburban youth group. It had only been three months since I had been in his home talking to his parents and it was only months since we were ten pin bowling and playing chubby bunnies in the youth group. And yet, here was this young kid begging on the street. When our eyes met there was a brief moment of recognition, and I saw on his face all the poverty and sadness in the world. He looked so innocent and lost. I saw every teenage boy that I’d ever met. I saw myself as a teenager. I saw into the future to my own children. I saw every teenage boy in the world.

I saw him from time to time over the next few months and like so many who live that way, he aged several years for every week he lived on the street. He spiraled from broken to desperate within months. When I glanced into his eyes that first time, I learned something very profound about myself and about life. I learned that as long as he was suffering, I was suffering. As long as there's one person in poverty, we’re all in poverty, and that situation is unacceptable. It is a profound spiritual truth that Jesus pointed to when he said that showing compassion to the most desperate was a way of showing compassion to him. Jesus was urging those who followed his path to see their engagement with poverty as a spiritual activity from the inside out.

Compassion begins within. It begins as self awareness and inner acceptance. Sometimes that involves facing up to the difficult parts of who you are. In C. S. Lewis’s retelling of the story of Cupid and Psyche, the dying Queen comes to the profound realization that she had to see her own face clearly in the mirror before she could look at her sister Psyche with compassion. She realized that her envy of her sister’s beauty was not the real problem. She had to grow to love her own face first. Then she could see her sister’s face without bitterness. She also no longer needed the gods in the temples to have faces. Where before she needed the gods to have faces to prove to her that love was present, now seeing her own face and seeing her sister’s face was sufficient reminder that love IS where you find it.

Seed of Compassion

A person full of compassion dwells in a world full of compassion. Everyone you meet is a mirror, reflecting your inner world. You are a mirror for everyone you meet, reflecting light and love. Choose compassion today, and be part of the healing of the world.

Say to yourself: I radiate love and light to all.

The Best Laid Plans

Just call me Steve Martin, aka Neale Page in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Last Saturday a standard 2 hour direct flight from Newark to Grand Rapids turned into a hilarious 17 hour adventure. I was traveling with my ten year old son, after taking him to see his Aunt in the city. A journey that should have been plane sailing turned into plane flailing, as we ricocheted around the country, improvising as we bounced. The flight was delayed and diverted, first to Cleveland and then to Chicago. At Chicago, I was told that we were all out of options. The next available air tickets were on Tuesday. Rental cars were as scarce as hen’s teeth. It was 10pm on Saturday and the last remaining airline representative washed her hands of us.

We assessed our options for the 200 mile hike to Grand Rapids Airport where our car lay in wait. A cabbie quoted us $400. I filed the information in my mind as a last resort. Instead we climbed on a bus that was bound for Michigan City, about 60 miles from O’Hare. We claimed the last remaining seats and soon discovered they were like the last kids chosen for a soccer team. They sucked. The seat in front was in permanent recline, which was awesome for the guy sitting in it, but meant we were nursing him in our lap. We slept in his intimate embrace for an hour or so, before being woken with the announcement that we were in Michigan City.

I’m sure that Michigan City, Indiana is a lovely place. However at midnight it held little attraction so we decided to push on. We found a group of Notre Dame footballers in a huddle, plotting their return to campus in South Bend, Indiana. We agreed to split a cab to South Bend. Split a cab seems an apt description for a car that was groaning under the weight of a driver who resembled John Candy in more ways than one, the two of us and 3 linebackers. My son was submerged somewhere in the line of scrimmage, buried under his own luggage. We laughed and laughed about this surreal scene as we crept along the 40 mile trip to Notre Dame. The driver was so excited to have some football heroes held captive in his car that he clean forgot to notice the fuel gauge plummeting along with the cab’s suspension. We sputtered into a gas station just in the nick of time. Oh and by the way, at a certain point on this drive the time jumped from 1am to 3am, a combination of daylight savings and Eastern Standard Time changes.

At 3am, we received a darkened tour of one of the most beautiful campuses in the world, as assorted college kids staggered around the grounds. The cabbie asked where he could drop us, explaining that he couldn’t drive across Michigan state lines without risking going to jail. I decided not to ask any more about that matter. He dropped us at a sleepy South Bend Airport. We joined a handful of vagabonds and security staff, none of whom had any clues about travel to Grand Rapids. The greyhound bus was not due until late in the day and the rental cars would not be available until 8am. We could wait three hours to pay $120 to drive ourselves the remaining two hours, or we could pay $200 for a cab to drive us. Tiredness won the day. We took the cab, snored liked babies in the back seat, and arrived at Grand Rapids Airport at 8am, 17 hours after we had left New York City. As I paid the Airport parking ticket, I realized that we had spent over $300 to crawl from Chicago to Grand Rapids. $400 for a direct cab ride didn’t look so absurd any more.

Apart from being exhausted, the adventure was enormous fun. I had awesome company, and we laughed about every twist and turn. It reminded me of the value in holding loosely to plans and expectations.

Steve Martin once said, “Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.” It’s all about perspective. The road trip was funny because we had expected plane sailing. Chaos surprised us at every turn, and we had a choice; become frustrated or see it as an adventure. We chose to see the whole thing as a comedy of errors that we could laugh about for years to come.

We were reminded that the journey is full of surprises, and it’s all part of the process. A car gets you to the airport. A plane gets you to the city. A bus gets you to the cab that gets you back to the car that gets you to the destination. Each is an important step of an ever evolving journey. Life is wonderfully connected and there are few rules about right or wrong ways to travel.

One of the most famous scenes from Planes, Trains and Automobiles has John Candy driving on the wrong side of the highway. An approaching car screams to them. Steven Martin says, “He says we’re going the wrong way.” John Candy says, “Oh, he’s drunk. How would he know where we’re going?”

Arriving home was nice, but on the way we had some important bonding to do. People have made various suggestions about how we could have managed the trip differently. I think we did just fine. Who could say if we had gone the wrong way or not? What I know for sure is that I would walk over hot coals just to spend time with that kid. He teaches me so much about being alive to the adventure of being alive. If it takes stormy weather to create quality time with the people I love, I will do it again next week.

Seed of Serendipity

You have to smile when your best laid plans are rerouted by new developments. You are looking for one thing, find something else, and then realize that what you’ve found is what you needed in the first place. Eureka. Who would have thought it? Don’t let your plans get in the way of the life that is unfolding.

Say to yourself: My life is a fortunate accident. I celebrate each and every surprising moment.


Seed of Flexibility

Do your best in each moment. Change or stay the same. Either way, life will continue to move forward. If you need to miss a step, just pick up with the next beat. Get in tune with your past, but don’t be held captive to the past. Plan your future, but don’t be held prisoner by your plans.

Say to yourself: I am flexible. I flow with the movement of life.

Who Are You When the Music Stops?

I love my IPOD. It’s a pocket sized miracle. It carries a lot of music, and it also carries a lot of me in it. I have a workout play list; Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Sick Puppies, Bush…it’s all there. The first time I worked out with my IPOD, I was lifting heavier weights, doing more reps and feeling stronger after the workout. The difference was amazing. I call this play list “Testosterian.”

Then there’s my meditation play list. It has Sheila Chandra, Gregorian Chants, and various other sounds on it. It takes me into a deep peace and I especially like to listen to this one while hanging upside down on my inversion table. I call this play list “Euphorian.”

I’ve also got a compassion play list. It has James Blunt and other tear jerking music on it. I listen to it when I feel weary or overwhelmed. I call this play list “Melancholian.”

Me, myself and IPOD. It was kind of Apple to include the “I” in IPOD for Ian. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I discovered the shuffle command. Merging all these different play lists creates a smorgasbord of musical surprises.

So one day my various play lists had a battle of the selves. I was on an airplane and hit the shuffle key. First, one of my testosterian songs played. I didn’t know what to do with all the energy. I started edging my arm across the armrest. No one messes with testosterian. Then just as suddenly, that song ended and James Blunt began. My arms melted to my sides and I began quietly weeping in my seat. “Goodbye my lover!” Melancholian took over. Before I could wipe the tears from my face, Sheila Chandra started crooning in my ear and I could have sworn I had died and gone to bliss heaven. Euphorian took over.

This musical ego shuffle went on for some time before I even realized how insane I had become.
I had so identified with each persona that I had forgotten how fickle and changing they are. I felt like Tara battling with Buck and T in The United States of Tara television series about multiple personalities.(Awesome show!) Luckily no one was hurt on my little flight with Air Ian.

There is nothing wrong with play lists, personas are important and it’s even healthy to shuffle them up from time to time and keep things interesting. But the truth is that people do get hurt when we fixate mindlessly on personas and identities. The need to defend these separate selves becomes a life and death struggle, and is behind so much relationship conflict, world wars and religious rivalry. Maybe next time I should fly United.

Enough! Life is too short for petty rivalries, whether internal or external. Sit back, enjoy the music, and relish the peace of knowing at your essence that you are intimately related to all others.

Here are two affirmations to remind yourself who you are, and the peace that transcends all play lists.

www.soulseedz.com

Seed of Essence

Who are you? I didn’t ask you what you do for a living, or whether you are a parent, or even whether you consider yourself a good person. Who are you beyond all of the time bound roles and personas? Who are you when the lights of society’s expectations are dimmed and you can be authentic and natural in your own skin? Take time today to leave it all behind and be still with your Self.

Say to yourself:
I am becoming more of who I essentially am.
I am becoming more of who I am.
I am becoming.
I am.

Seed of Peace

Don't depend on a particular persona for security. Your "self" is a moving target. The self who stopped traffic with youthful good looks is fading. The self who beguiled the world with middle aged charm may soon be gone. The self who dazzles the world with senior wisdom is a fleeting visitor. These versions of the self, important as they are, change constantly and are not a reliable measure of who you are. Your essence is a peace-full heart.

Say to yourself: I am what I am for now. My peace comes from within, even while all else changes around me

Mindful Activism; When Spirit Meets Action

Do you come here for your own spiritual growth, or do you come here to find your place in a world that is crying out for some healing love? Do you feel that life is hard and it’s enough to just survive, let alone thrive and help others to thrive? Do you want to make a difference in the world, but feel overwhelmed by the size of the problems and don’t know where to begin? Maybe these alternatives aren’t mutually exclusive. Sometimes service is the best path to spiritual growth. Sometimes the best way to get unstuck from survival mode is to step out and serve others, and enjoy the personal liberation that comes from action.

Sometimes the best way to free yourself from overwhelming feelings is to take action in one area of your life, and let momentum carry you forward in many areas of life.

There is a great scene in the 1970s Woody Allen film, Play It Again Sam. Woody Allen is desperate to hook up with a woman. So he walks up to a woman in a museum who is looking forlornly at a Jackson Pollock painting.

Woody Allen: That’s quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn’t it?
Women in Museum: Yes it is.
Woody Allen: What does it say to you?
Woman in Museum: It restates the negativeness of the universe, the hideous lonely emptiness of existence, nothingness, the predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless bleak straightjacket in a black absurd cosmos.
Woody Allen: What are you doing Saturday night?
Woman in Museum: Committing suicide.
Woody Allen: What about Friday night?
Woman in Museum: [she turns, frowns at him and leaves in silence]

You’ve got to admire Allen’s character’s plucky determination. It didn’t work mind you, but you have to appreciate his courage. Now think about activism from the same perspective. If you see the world as a hopeless and meaningless mess, what are you doing about it on Saturday? If you found out the world was going to end on Saturday, what would you do about it on Friday? Flirt with darkness and despair. Ask meaninglessness out on a date with your deepest compassion. Engage it meaningfully and you will make the world a kinder and more decent place. If it says no, find another place and time to engage suffering.

What is spiritual activism? On the one hand, it’s a very simple question. When you dig a little deeper, it becomes more complex. Let’s begin with the simplest definition. Spiritual activism seeks to lessen the suffering in the world. It’s spiritual in the sense that when one person is suffering, we are all suffering, because we are related. Listen to this awesome example of compassion in action.

Vedran Smailovic was a cellist in the Sarajevo Symphony. He lived through the hell of the Sarajevo Siege that lasted from 1992 to 1996. Like hundreds of thousands of other residents he suffered the bitter cold, the food and water shortages, the deadly bombings and sniper fire in the streets. Smailovic decided to use his art to ease the suffering of the people. He played his cello for free at many funerals during the siege. He once played while sitting amidst the rubble of the historic National Library. His heart broke for all the suffering, but instead of giving in to despair, he chose to do what he could to ease the suffering. One day in 1992, twenty-two people were killed by Serbian mortar fire while standing in line outside a bakery. For the next twenty-two days, one day for each victim, Smailovic brought his chair and cello to that same deserted street at 4:00 p.m, the exact time of the attack. With Serbian shells crashing around him, he played in full tuxedo to honor each person who had died. That is a wonderful example of spiritual activism. He did what he could, using the skills he had, to ease the suffering of his brothers and sisters in mourning.

His compassionate actions became the inspiration for folk songs, classical compositions, a novel and a children’s book called Echoes from the Square. What do his actions inspire in you? What gift, what song, what time, what talent, what action are you giving to our suffering world? The people in the world who are suffering and dying aren’t just people. They are your kin. Their suffering is your suffering,

God and Morality

One of the questions I am often asked is about morality in a progressive context. Some people think that God is the foundation of a moral absolute. The argument often runs something like this. If there is no God, then there can be no moral absolutes. To say that something is absolutely right or wrong implies that there is some standard that is beyond human authority, and beyond cultural consensus. All human and cultural standards are flawed and self interested. God, on the other hand, provides the basis for a fundamental standard of morality. How do humans know about God’s absolute standard of morality? The Bible reveals God’s words and thoughts. Or so the argument goes.

Morality in a progressive context doesn’t claim a divine authority, but at the same time an evolving understanding of God guides progressive morality. How’s that for a loaded sentence? Let me unpack it, beginning with an explanation of why progressives don’t claim divine authority.

For many of us, the divine imperative doesn’t work neatly any more. The divine imperative is best summarized by the car bumper sticker that says “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” There are a number of problems with this idea. It’s impossible for anyone to say for sure what God says or thinks. People who say they know God’s thoughts are usually just trying to get a little divine backing for their own views. It adds a certain weight to an argument to claim God is on your side.

Take for example the ancient Hebrew people. The tongue in cheek story suggests that Moses dragged his feet down the mountain to let the people know about God’s commandments, and said to them hesitantly, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I got him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery is still in.” While I’m no advocate of adultery, the joke does point to the human factor in transmitting laws and morality from one culture to another. Take for example the number of commandments. Comedian Mel Brooks satirized the number of commandments. Just as Moses was juggling three large tablets, he began to say to the people, “I have 15 commandments….” Then he dropped one of the tablets and amended his speech, “I have 10 commandments……….”

In all seriousness, there is much debate about both the number and intent of the commandments. They seem to be culturally bound, implying that women are property, and that even slaves need a day off. The most glaring problem with the Ten Commandments is what to do when one commandment compromises another commandment. Many Europeans had to come to terms with this dilemma during the Holocaust. Should they hide their Jewish neighbors, thereby breaking the ninth commandment not to bear false witness, or be implicated in the murder of Jews, thereby breaking the sixth commandment?

While there is much that is positive in the Ten Commandments about living with integrity, they are clearly devised by humans and have little moral imperative for today.

So if there is no divine mandate for morality, does God have a role in morality at all? Most certainly. The prophetic tradition in the Bible offers quite a different approach to morality. The prophets were more interested in compassion for the most vulnerable in society than keeping the letter of the law or strictly observing ritual. They were especially critical of people who believe “correctly” but don’t live their values.

Maybe this is best illustrated by a story about Islamic pilgrimage. Muslims are expected to make pilgrimage at least once in their life time.

Abd Mubarak was on his pilgrimage to Mecca when one night he dreamed that he was in heaven and heard two angels having a conversation.



“How many pilgrims came to the holy city this year?” one of them asked.


”Six hundred thousand”, answered the other.


”And how many of them had their pilgrimage accepted?”


”None of them. However, in Baghdad there is a shoemaker called Ali Mufiq who did not make the pilgrimage, but did have his pilgrimage accepted, and his acceptance benefited the 600,000 pilgrims”.



When he woke up, Abd Mubarak went to Mufiq’s shoe shop and told him his dream.



”At great cost and much sacrifice, I finally managed to get 350 coins together”, the shoemaker said in tears. “But then, when I was ready to go to Mecca I discovered that my neighbors were hungry, so I distributed the money among them and gave up my pilgrimage”.

The prophets would approve of this action. They said that it was more important to treat people right than to be right. Compassion comes before correctness. In a progressive context, God is present in suffering, and in those who are suffering. So to turn your back on the suffering is to turn your back on God. From an evolutionary perspective, we include more and more people and species in our consciousness over time which means that God is present in those far away from us who suffer and even in the suffering earth.

What is the role of God in progressive morality? Not so much external standard, as internal motivation. God is not watching to judge how you perform. God is the compassion you feel, the neighbor you love and the evolutionary pull to love more and more people and things.

Matthew 25 and Spiritual Activism

Matthew chapter 25 tells the parable of the sheep and the goats, and being kind to people as if you are being kind to Jesus. It’s an interesting story. It’s set up like a double blind study of human compassion. The usual interpretation of this parable is that the sheep did the right thing because they were kind. So they went to heaven. The goats did the wrong thing because they ignored suffering so they went to hell. Let me suggest an alternate interpretation. Neither the sheep nor the goats did the best thing. The sheep just performed the lesser of two evils. It’s better to do something than nothing. It’s even better to know why you are doing good, and to whom you are doing good.

This takes spiritual activism to a new level of self awareness. Even though the sheep acted with great compassion, neither group had enough self awareness to truly see the people in need. It seems that while the goats were completely mindless, the sheep were offering handouts with their eyes shut rather than getting to the heart of radical activism by seeing the essential humanity and potential of others. This parable offers an interesting insight into spiritual activism. Do you know why you are doing what you are doing?

Imagine the scenario with a group of activists marching on the street with various placards. “No more bail outs for Wall Street,” says one. “Stop the War,” demands another. “Down with corporations,” shouts a third. And finally the guy at the end proclaims, “I hate my father”! Say what! The point is that we so easily project our own unresolved issues onto social structures; large corporations, government or whatever becomes the symbol for the over bearing parent figure.

Spiritual activism is mindful and self aware. You grow to understand why you feel passionate about issues, and who it is you are trying to help. See yourself in the corporation, and recognize that your mindless consumption is just as much to blame for social ills as large business. See yourself in the government and recognize your part in the election process. See yourself in the Middle East wars and recognize that every time you fill your gas tank up, you participate in the muddle of oil related conflicts.

According to today’s New York Times (March 7,2010), both the current and previous US administrations have awarded more than $15 billion to companies that defied American sanction laws by investing in Iran’s vast oil and gas reserves. Whether its national foreign policies or personal acts of consumption, we tend to be mindlessly duplicitous. The beginning of spiritual activism is mindfulness.

Jewish theologian Zalman Schachter offers a wonderful spiritual practice that gets to the heart of both the parable in Matthew 25 and mindful activism.

Once a year, he convenes an imaginary dinner party in his mind and invites everyone with whom he has had a run-in during the past year, everyone who has been cruel to him or his family.


In the course of this mental banquet, he goes around the table and explains to his guests that he has invited them to thank them for the various gifts they have given him during the past year. They have taught him to understand others a little better.

He has learned to adjust his expectations as most people are doing the best they can in their circumstances. He also thanks his guests at the imaginary banquet for helping him understand himself a little better.

Because of each of them, he has looked deep into his own soul and traveled back to his childhood in an effort to understand what there was in him that made him react so strongly to their actions. In the process, he has learned a lot about others and a lot about himself. For all these gifts he is grateful.

Maybe this is why there is such a strong emphasis in religious traditions on loving your enemies. It’s not because they are any more deserving of your love. They may be enemies for good reason. It’s because there is more light involved in helping your enemy; more self awareness, less ego, and greater compassion. Is it possible that God is present, even in your enemy or in the corporation? Who would you invite to your imaginary dinner party, and why? If you can’t invite all your enemies, invite some of them. If you cant love and accept them fully, love and accept them part of the way. Create a pattern of forgiveness in your life and create the habit of healing.

You Can Make a Difference

No matter how large the problems of the world appear to be, you can make a difference. Come back to the story of the Cellist of Sarajevo. The piece that he chose to play each day for 22 days during the Siege of Sarajevo in 1992 was Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor. It’s a powerful piece of music with a powerful story. It was put together from manuscripts that were found amidst the ruins of Dresden after the Second World War. This music had itself survived the firebombing and destruction of WW2. Miraculously it had risen out of the rubble and ruins of one city and echoed in the despair of another. It offered the sound of hope and fresh starts, and its message was brought by one man who was doing what he knew how to do best.

You too can bring a message of hope and fresh starts to a world that often seems to be trying to find meaning under the rubble of its own despair. You don’t have to solve all the problems of the world. Just love the world, do it mindfully and do it in your own unique way, and that will make all the difference. Together we are even more powerful. Together we will love the world, in an ever widening circle of kindness, until the day when love conquers all hatred and no one and no thing is excluded from love’s tender embrace. Namaste.

For Further Reflection-

What are the big issues you care about, and why?

Do you think there is morality without a divine standard?
In what ways are you growing in mindful activism?

What are you doing right now to love the world more deeply?

Ten Aussie Words I Miss

Diversity as a Path to Fuller Life

As an Aussie living in America, it’s a lot of fun learning about different cultures, even the minor differences between American and Australian culture. Diversity is beautiful, but I still miss Australia. Here are ten Aussie words that I miss hearing regularly.

1. Yabber- as in to talk (a lot). In good Aussie style most group of friends will include one person with the nickname “Yabbers”.
2. Wobbly- as in to chuck a wobbly or get very excited or agitated.
3. Not the full quid- as in, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, or a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock.
4. Give a gobfull- as in to tell someone what you really think. The person getting a gobfull might be gobsmacked, as in surprised.
5. Ankle biter- as in a small child not a deadly snake.
6. Cactus- as in dead or not working. As in what happens if a deadly snake bites your ankle.
7. Daks- as in pants. If there is a way to shorten a word, Aussies will find it.
8. In the nuddy- as in your birthday suit.
9. Spit the dummy- as in give up.
10. Ear bashing- an alternative to a gobfull.

Diversity is beautiful. Every country has its own language and phrases, and many parts of each country have completely different accents and phrases. When I first moved to America, I was mistaken for a Floridian, Bostonian and even a Middle Easterner. Then of course there were people who thought Australia and Austria were the same place, but that’s another article that involves questions like “Do you have electricity in Australia?”

Every person, place and culture has its own unique experience. Our senses deepen our experience of life, and we barely even touch the depth of our senses. Each of us has a unique blend of sensory experience. One in every thousand people even experiences a phenomenon called “synaesthesia” which is the pairing of senses. They automatically link one sensory experience with a different sense; for example they smell sounds, see smells or hear colors. The most incredible thing is that many of these people don’t even know they have synaesthesia. The way they perceive the world is normal to them.

The way you perceive the world is a unique part of your divine expression. Hebrew religion says that all of life is made in the image of God, therefore everything is an expression of divine diversity. All the diverse parts of yourself are beautiful. You have your own accent on life. You have a spiritual dialect that is your unique gift in the world.

Life is so much fuller when diversity is celebrated rather than feared.Affirm diversity, your own and others. There is nothing to be feared and so much to be gained. Spread the seed of love and healing by celebrating diversity.

www.soulseedz.com

Seed of Diversity

Celebrate your contradictions. Be an extroverted introvert or a task oriented romantic. Be an at-home Mom who likes pole dancing or a meditator who likes heavy metal music. Don’t resign yourself to your quirks. Don’t even tolerate your idiosyncrasies. Celebrate your contradictions today and build them into your own unique style

Say to yourself: I am one of a kind. I am large and have space to hold diversity.

Seed of Sensation

Your senses are alive and connected. Do you see colors when you think of certain people or places? You may have moments when you smell sounds, see smells or hear colors. Certain words or music may evoke flavors or colors. Maybe you see music. Allow your senses to tease your imagination, and enjoy a sensual smorgasbord.

Say to yourself: My senses are finely tuned. My life is sensational.

Trinity- Loving Many Things

Why do you come to this progressive spiritual community on a Sunday morning? Some of you have traveled distances, past many mainstream churches, to be here. So what is the draw? You have a denominational smorgasbord to choose from, not to mention the Episcopal church have just installed vibrating pews. So why are you here?

I imagine among other things it’s because you want to feel that you are part of something larger than yourself, that you are not alone in your spiritual journey and that this is a place you can contribute to a movement of love and healing. I imagine you like the freedom to explore the real issues of life, and to question the aspects of the religious traditions that no longer make sense to you. One of those religious ideas that many of us find mostly irrelevant is the doctrine of the trinity. Today I want to offer a reinterpretation of the ancient doctrine of the trinity in the context of intimacy and relationships. Just because we are looking at a hoary old chestnut like trinity doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun. Does it?

The Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit were planning a holiday. As is true in many families, they were having trouble agreeing on what to do and where to go. The Spirit, being the artsy member of the divine threesome, suggested, “Let’s go to San Francisco. We can eat vegan food, go clothes shopping and get some new body piercings.”



”No, no, no,” said the Father, “They’re all so liberated in San Francisco, they’ll spend the whole time calling me ‘Earth Mother’ and it will just drive me crazy.”



So the Spirit sat back and thought. “I know, what about Jerusalem?” She said. “It’s beautiful and there’s so much history and culture.”



”No way!” the Son declared. “After what happened there last time, I’m never going back!”



At this point, the Spirit got annoyed and went off in a huff. Sometime later she returned and found that the Father and Son had had an idea they both thought was excellent:



”Why don’t we go to New York? We can go to Central Park and visit Wall Street” said the Son.



“Perfect!” cried the Holy Spirit. “I’ve never been to Wall Street before!”

I mention Wall Street intentionally. Obviously I could have substituted many places and the joke would have the same meaning. I mention Wall Street because it has come to symbolize what is so sadly lacking in our world. Wall Street is a stark reminder of days gone by, when life was extravagant. People got ahead relatively easily and we existed in a bubble of affluence. Recently, many people have come to realize that the extravagance was an illusion; here one minute and gone the next in a puff of smoke. We realized we wanted more out of life than the rat race of 1000 point stock market exhilaration followed by 800 point corrections.

It seems that many people around the world have simultaneously awakened to the realization that life is short, and this is the time to cherish essential things. Our desires ran ahead of our ability to know why we wanted things. Our ability to create wealth outstretched our will to use wealth in meaningful ways. Wall Street has become the symbol of the illusion.

I heard an interview with the actor Michael Douglas in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis. Douglas played the character of Gordon Gecko in the 1980s movie Wall Street. He made famous the line, “greed is good.” Douglas was being interviewed about one of his latest projects, unrelated to the economic crisis. The interviewer called him, “Gordon” and asked for his comments on the economy. Douglas replied, “My name is not Gordon. He is a character I played in a movie 20 years ago.” Gordon Gecko was a mask that Michael Douglas wore for the purpose of making a movie. In fact part of the point of the movie is how hard it is to retain a sense of reality in the ever changing world of Wall Street finance.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with masks. Masks are important. They’re the faces you put on to fit the need of the moment. You have lots of faces that you put on; a brave face even when you feel like crumbling, a subdued face even when you feel elated. You can play the clown to lighten a situation and you can play the quiet listener to let a friend know they are not alone. You face whatever life brings to you and respond accordingly. If you can remind yourself that it’s just a face you are putting on, and its not the unchanging essence of who you are, you can save a whole lot of pain and suffering,

There’s also nothing wrong with Wall Street per say. My sister lives literally on Wall Street and I’ve spent a lot of time there and experienced the many faces of Wall Street. On Wall Street you can visit Trinity church with its Gothic face, and Federal Hall with its ancient Greek façade. Not far from Wall Street is Ground Zero where you are reminded of how fragile this life is. When you look at The Stock Exchange building from my sister’s apartment, you are greeted by a 20 foot statue called Integrity. Now there’s an irony. I have an uncle who works on Wall Street. He used to have a corner on the market. Now he has a market on the corner.

There’s nothing wrong with the stock market. It serves a valuable function. The problem is when we forget that it’s constantly changing and not nearly as dependable as we want to believe.

Now here’s the connection with the traditional doctrine of the trinity.

Trinity- From Wall Street to Ancient Greece

Maybe you grew up in a church that sang, “God in three persons, blessed trinity.” Not three people mind you, but three persons. What a painful hymn! It always made me smile listening to adults singing this melodic hymn. I don’t know how they kept a straight face.

The way I was taught about the trinity didn’t make sense to me as a child and it didn’t make any more sense as an adult. I was told that there was Jesus, the man. Then Jesus was also fully God. Then there was the Holy Spirit as well. It was like me, myself and Irene on Steroids. It all seemed pretty absurd to me. Brazilian eco-feminist Ivone Gebara described the usual understanding of the trinity with tongue firmly in check, as “an older man, a younger man and a bird.”

People have puzzled over the trinity. When I was in Seminary, I was even taught that there is a hierarchy of authority within the trinity. That seems strange and quite dysfunctional. It reminds me of the awesome new television series The United States of Tara, about a woman with multiple personalities. One of Tara’s alter egos “Buck”, a Vietnam vet and the only male in the group, rules the other alters with an iron fist.

Most recently, people have attempted to understand the trinity without the hierarchy and without the unchanging sense of a male father, a male son and a bird like spirit. In his book “The Shack”, William Young has all three aspects of the trinity in one location at one time. He portrays God as a large African-American woman named “Papa.” Jesus is pictured as being a Middle Eastern carpenter. And the Holy Spirit, named Sarayu, is a woman of Asian decent dressed in blue jeans and a brightly colored blouse. This is a liberating possibility; that you can understand the trinity without the male focus.

There is another way to think of the trinity that doesn’t even involve separate beings. The word “persons” seems to be a mistranslation of the ancient Greek word for “masks”. So the trinity is really about the idea that God wore different masks. As Marcus Borg wrote, “To speak of one God and three persons is to say that God is known to us wearing three different ‘masks’… in three different roles”. Like many ancient cultures, the Greeks and Romans of Jesus day wore masks and danced to celebrate the ever changing mystery of life in their theatres and celebrations. The masks were also a way of connecting with the gods, by reflecting the image of the gods.

We tend to think of a person as an individual, a separate being. It wasn’t like this for the ancient Greeks. When they said “person” they intended something far more relational. Another word that is often associated with the doctrine of the trinity is perichoresis. It’s a technical word that basically means to dance together. We get our words “choreography” and “chorus” from this word. So God wears different masks, and they aren’t all separate. They dance with each other, never completely separate but also never the same.

What do you think of when you think of masks? I think of Halloween, and Mardi Gras, when we dress up as people and things that seem far away, but we bring them close with masks, take the fear out of them. I think of 9/11, people running helter skelter through the streets of lower Manhattan with their masks protecting them from the dust and ash. I think of people at airports, protecting themselves from the swine and bird flues. Masks are useful for so many purposes. They protect you. Just remember that masks are useful for a time, and not real in any permanent sense.

Trinity- Dancing with Masks in Relationship

So the trinity really seems to be about God holding out a lover’s hand to the world, uttering the words that you long to hear, “May I have this dance.” The grumpy German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.”

Even if you are all elbows and left feet, you hold your breath, reach out your hand and follow the lead of the Holy.

Now apply the same thought to your relationships; whether it’s a romantic relationship, a dear friend or a colleague. When you are at your best, it’s like a dance where you match each other, step for step, pulsing and swaying with grace and style.

Wear your masks boldly and know that it’s important, but they don’t define you. You can be the strong one for now, knowing that it won’t always be this way. You can be the extrovert who opens doors to new friendships, but being an extrovert doesn’t fully define you. It’s just a mask you wear for a time and purpose. You can be the naughty nurse or the sultry pool boy to spice up your love life, but you know that when the lights come on, it’s just you.

When you think about the trinity, don’t be distracted by the number three. Three represents any number higher than two. Any quality or persona that you wear has its opposite. You may be an extrovert, but you have a hidden introvert in you as well. Its not that you are one or the other. You wear the mask you need to wear at the time. And you find third and fourth manifestations of extrovert and introvert. Twenty years ago, I took a personality test and the results came back that I was on the border between an introvert and extrovert. The facilitator said that if I did the test again a few years later, it could come back with quite different results. These things change over time. You can be an introverted extrovert in one situation and an extroverted introvert in another. You are a delightful contradiction, and an ever changing spiritual being on a human journey. You dance with your various traits until you find the necessary mask to match the occasion.

You do the same thing in your relationships, and rightly so. Do you ever find yourself stuck in a relationship? One person needs space. The other person needs connection. It feels like you’re at cross purposes, in a stale mate. So you dance in the relationship, until you find the third and fourth options, creatively combining space and connection as your choreograph your relationship.

Letting the Masks Slip

You dance in relationship most gracefully when you know how to dance between the various aspects of who you are. The more familiar you are with your own masks and personas, the more you realize how temporary and changeable they are. Every now and again, you remove the masks covering your essence and allow yourself just to be. The peace is transcendent.

Maybe you have moments when you bring that to your relationships. You let the masks slip and let someone see the real you behind all the personas. Whether in love making, or friendship, these are the precious moments of life, when you are stripped naked before each other and completely safe. In that moment you become one.

Maybe that’s why we speak of one God. It’s not because there is a single being out there in the way we think of beings. It’s because there are moments beyond masks where there is just the pure and radiant mystery of being. In those moments, God is the merging of two people as one.

Kahlil Gibran tells a beautiful parable about life without masks-

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,—the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives,—I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”

Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”

You know what he’s describing, because you have had moments like this. You drop your egoic attachment to your cherished ideas of what make you unique and separate and dance in the oneness of life. What initially feels like a loss proves to be a blessing. You are in love with life.

Loving Many Things

One last thought about the trinity. Vincent van Gogh said, “The best way to know God is to love many things”. Maybe the trinity is a metaphor for loving many different things.

Maybe you have special love for one person, but you also love many things. Listen to the way the poet Mary Oliver describes it-

I have been in love more times than one, thank the Lord.
Sometimes it was lasting whether active or not.
Sometimes it was all but ephemeral, maybe only an afternoon, but not less real for that.

They stay in my mind, these beautiful people, or anyway people beautiful to me, of which

there are so many. You, and you, and you, whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe

missed. Love, love, love, it was the core of my life, from which, of course, comes

the word for the heart.
And, oh, have I mentioned that some of them were men and some were women

and some– now carry my revelation with you– were trees.
Or places. Or music flying above the names of their makers.
Or clouds, or the sun which was the first, and the best, the most loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into my eyes, every morning.
So I imagine such love of the world– its fervency, its shining, its innocence and hunger to give of itself–
I imagine this is how it began.

– Mary Oliver, On Love

walkThis is how it works for me. I love my wife, Meg, with a tender love that I feel for no other person. I love my kids with a fierce love that I feel for no other children. I have another love and it includes many people and things. It includes groups, small and large, even stretching to include facebook friends I have never physically met. Yet I can honestly say that I love you, and we have magical moments when we are dancing together as one. I’m not teaching you, and you aren’t learning from me.

We are dancing together in the mystery of human relationship.

This I know is real, and essential. I offer it to you now. Namaste.

For Further Reflection-



What does the trinity mean to you?

What other ways do you experience God that you would include in your trinity? (eg lover, friend)

In what ways do you manifest different masks?
How have you experienced moments where you let the masks slip?