Live By Virtue

 A dark tide is insidiously swelling into the lives of everyone living in the United States.  Whether you watch the news or not, tens of thousands of us are being directly impacted by incarceration, job loss, character assassination, twisted uses of due process, escalating costs of living, rising mental health concerns, and political violence. This darkness is undermining our strongest attributes for which we have historically stood.  Attributes like truth, fairness, justice, mercy, generosity, compassion, and the promise of hope. A government-wide action against diversity, equality, and inclusion is in full swing-- trying to purge "DEI" from schools, universities, libraries, and all government offices. And, "Christianity" has parted company with itself, leaving the ones with the loudest microphones dictating what people think of Christianity. (PS: it is not white Nationalism.)

I listened to a short video today about preaching. In it, Carey Nieuwhof talked about one attribute of a good sermon is ensuring that the essential focus is always on Jesus (not the text or side stories). I believe virtuous living is grounded solidly in how we see Jesus living his life through the Gospels.  There are many virtues well worth wrapping your life around.  They aren't necessarily spelled out specifically in Jesus' sermons, parables, or actions, but they are there.  Importantly, they are NOT intended as whipping posts to judge "good" from "bad." 

All virtues together weave a beautiful tapestry of nurturing community life. If they're used to divide and conquer the people we don't like, they quickly slip into the realm of vices.  When they are abandoned for vices, society suffers.  We're suffering because rudeness is replacing kindness. Hate of fellow human beings is replacing love. Greed is replacing generosity. Bragadocia is replacing humility. Fear is replacing compassion. The list goes on. 

It is incumbent upon the Church and people claiming the faith of true "Jesus-hood" to incorporate virtues into our daily walks with Jesus.  Study the virtues and vices.  Incorporate them into your prayer and devotional life.  Practice them in public, at home, and on social media. Raise the question with yourself regularly, "How did I do with living by virtue today?" 

I strongly recommend Grace Hamman's book: Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues and Vices for a Whole and Holy Life

Mirth

Mirth - noun: "gaiety or jolity, especially when accompanied by laughter. Amusement or laughter."  From Middle English circa 900 CE mirthe

Mirth is a word not often heard in modern US English.  I'm claiming it and bringing it back. Having its rise in the medieval period, a time we don't often think of as happy, with Crusades, heresy trials, debt prisons, and lack of sanitation....  Yet sometimes, in the worst of times, a certain social counter-response evolves to aid in coping. This is my proposal: could we adopt mirth as a virtue to counteract the worst of our times?

This week, the sourpus man occupying the office of US President decided to cast his dour aspersions upon the late-night comedians. Steven Colbert had already been handed his termination notice by NBC a couple of weeks ago, and this week, through FCC arm-twisting, ABC/Disney has obediently silenced Jimmy Kimmel. The President suggested that Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers might be next.  Laughter, or mirth, is most definitely not feelings or responses that a would-be dictator, trying to look the part of a serious strongman, wants his subjects to be snickering at.  Overwrought seriousness is a vice that stifles creativity.  It is part of life-squashing domination and the sign of imposed respect expected from us as the power tools of cruelty, political violence, inexplicable arrests, and ripping up of the US Constitution take unmistakable shape and rip lives apart. 

However, we, the People, have a far different goal/perspective for our lives.  It is succinctly expressed in our Declaration of Independence (from another despot 250 years ago): "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  Additionally, those are words that I believe God wants for us, the Creator's vision and hope for us.  Let's face it.  Religion is frowned upon, disparaged, and tossed in the fire because certain power-hungry, attention-driven (mostly) men usurped God's place and put themselves in as the definers and arbiters of what they wanted God to say to aid their domination of their subjects.  And Christianity ever since has had the unglorious reputation of being a violent, dour, rule-dominated, threatening, sorry excuse for what is the Beauty of the Universe.  A Beauty that values mirth, as in the dancing sparkle on the surface of a mountain lake or stream.  The majestic palette of color in a sunset/sunrise, or on the trees in the Fall.  The first giggle from a beloved child, or that special way your beloved's face lights up. These are the gifts and delights God desperately wants us to feel and share with each other. For when mirth is present, love (another virtue) blossoms and spreads.

Love, and the mirth I very much expect God expresses to all angelic beings (human and supernatural), is what also magnifies the goodwill and embrace of our shared humanity.  We are not and never were created to be subjects to anyone. We were created as companions to the Most High in the very beginning.  We were granted free will, and in freedom we love with all our powers. Companions, partners, co-conspirators of mirth. So today smile/laugh!  Spread the joy of knowing your true place in a life created for mirth and love, and the dominators be damned.  

  

A Call For Non-Anxious Presence

 "And which of you, by worrying about your life, can add an hour to your lifetime?"  -- Luke 12:25

Though these words were said by Jesus a couple of millennia ago, they still ring true enough today, even though the nature of our stressors/anxieties is multiple times more ubiquitous than in the first century.  Being a non-anxious presence, or lowering the temperature of anxiety in a room or work situation, has become the topic of books and workshops for management and leaders.  Most of them highlight the value of reducing anxiety in tense situations.  The primary value is that everyone can think more clearly and assess alternative steps when reactivity is reduced. Pressure cookers aren't for solving problems; they're for canning your vegetables.  

Speaking of pressure cookers.  American civic society is falling into a pressure cooker with the kettle's temperature being increased substantially day by day.  (If you wish to stay in the bubble of news blackout you've built to avoid the news, you might want to quit reading here and try another of my posts.)  Charlie Kirk's untimely death solved nothing that his shooter may have been hoping to accomplish, unless the accomplishment was intended to inflame political passions and warring madness. America needs someone to call a time-out on the escalating rhetoric and retaliatory threatening stances being taken by the White House and Mr. Kirk's followers. They have obviously not read management materials about the debilitating effects stress and anxiety have on finding solutions going forward. 

My brief analysis of the escalating situation is, in a word, sin.  The sins of wrath, pride, and envy have hit a peak on this roller coaster ride and are very near the plummet down the other side, with uncertainty whether the car will stay on the tracks. Wrath is unrestrained anger without a rational goal.  Pride wounded stirs increasing actions to counter the perceived loss of face.  And envy is an unmatched craving for more of what you think others have (like the power other dictators have in other countries?) The danger in the over-reach of these sins in government is bad for everyone living here. 

The counter to these sins - barring a divine intervention of Biblical proportions- is to step inside the countering virtues: meekness, humility, and love. Living in pursuit of the virtues, because they hold a sacred life-giving quality, is the best route to finding the restorative power of non-anxious presence and healing.

Meekness is the power Jesus modeled to feel what he felt while remaining introspective, insightful, and discerning to act non-violently to address the problem.  Examples: the table-turning affair at the Temple, or the face-down of Pilate at his trial, or every time he went up against the Pharisees.

Humility is the ability to grasp, process, and gain insight into one's own internal emotional/spiritual/mental space and to quickly gain the cognitive upper hand to calm one's tendency to rush in "where angels fear to tread."  Humility helps us know of what we are capable, and what our limits are.

Love is having a firm grasp on "brotherly love."  We love because God first loved us -- loved me and thee. We hold tightly to the premise that all things and people have sacred worth, no matter how "smudged up" their behavior may be. 

I must be clear - nothing herein suggests that sin needs to be overlooked or excused.  Resistance is still permissible (even needed) when the sin is injuring or killing.  Consider Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and many others who have taken stands for justice throughout history. 

I am convinced that reclaiming the old teachings and power of the classic virtues practiced by the Church through the ages is our best way forward as individuals and as a country.  The fracture of "Christianity" where a large component of anti-Jesus, white supremacists, and Christo-nationalists have separated themselves down a dark path that raises the spectres of racism & misogyny and seeks the demise of immigration, diversity, equality, and inclusion. This is not in keeping with God's love.   The evil being visited on so many calls on each of us to remain non-anxiously enveloped in the Spirit, standing together with sure hope in Christ's Way being made straight and the soon-and-very soon victory of Love. 

We Learned It All In Kindergarten

 "Using knowledge in a sacred way leads to wisdom."  - Sun Bear, Chippewa Native American

Our times have gotten rough if anyone hasn't noticed.  An unavoidably strong movement has caught hold in the United States that aims to deny truth, rewrite history, castigate experts, and overwrite well-established norms in science, medicine, law, social contracts, education, economics, Christian faith, and politics. Democracy is being systematically dismantled in favor of an authoritarian who gives us the rules and only the information he decides we should follow or need. Wisdom is not mentioned or being sought in this radical shift, and knowledge is being replaced by the King's mostly unfounded, myopic beliefs.  Since the baby is being tossed with the bathwater, the sacred is not a consideration either.  Yet the sacred is what holds earthly existence together. Without the sacred, there is no measure to be used for morals, for understanding one another, or for any possibility of life-giving communal existence. 

So let's review what the Sacred Way is. The Sacred Way originated long ago, grounded in the history of human interactions with each other and with the land the people occupied. We gained wisdom and experience in what helps a band of people, or a tribe-- a community-- thrive. For much of Western European history, the Bible shaped a lot of their life together. With the New Testament, the ideals of Jesus came into focus, where we all could subscribe to caring for the neighbor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and loving acceptance became a value that humankind cherished. During medieval times, definitions of vices and virtues took on meaning and helped hold not just individuals to account for destructive social behavior, but also served as community stepping stones for the betterment of all. These became a basis for what "civilized" humans accepted as the Way forward, and they seeped into the legal tools used to enforce sacred basics.  Most people agreed with the wisdom expressed through this process.

Fast forward to today.  There has always been an element in the human race that has never accepted social norms and has preferred pursuing their own selfish, ego-centric ways.  Rules and social order were their nemesis. Destructive misbehavior usually resulted in consequences like imprisonment. Rarely have these kinds of individuals acquired too much of a following. When they have it has never been good for the population as a whole. Violence, murder, corruption, and injustices of all kinds  multiply to extreme levels, usually until the population-at-large unifies sufficiently to put a stop to it.

The Sacred Way is the way of the New Testament Jesus. Virtues like compassion, mercy, justice, humility, love, forbearance, peace... have comprised the wisdom of ages-- our great-great... grandparents helped shape them and lived them. These are the energies that make for healthy people and healthy communities.  We let them slip from us at our peril. While many of the vices: the opposites of the virtues-- are being extolled in our (USA) government: envy, anger, retribution, fear-mongering, violence, greed, lust for power -- the hope for a better world for ourselves and children dries up. We can't let it happen. Keep your focus on the knowledge you were once given.  As Robert Fulgham once said, "We learned it all in kindergarten."  Using knowledge in sacred ways leads to wisdom not just for ourselves, but for all.