Mysteries of Christmas

Did you ever wonder why angels always have to tell people not to be afraid of therm? Those people who have written about angels describe them as fearsome, with eyes that blaze like fire, or even that they are too fearsome to behold. So on that night when the birth we celebrate today happened, however it happened, the announcement was made to a bunch of hapless shepherds in the field by a bunch of fearsome creatures, whose first words are "fear not!"

Now help me out here: there are so many things we get wrong about the birth of Jesus, the date notwithstanding, and here is another one medieval painters (or whoever) got wrong. No "angels we have heard on high" and no "hark, the herald angels singing," what might have occurred was more like fright night in the back forty acres! These shepherds seem to have been scared out of their gourds! And for shepherds - who were the tough guys of the day (note that they had to stay awake all night to guard against rustlers) - that must have been pretty scary.

And if we can get past the riveting sight of the messenger to actually believe the alleged message that unto them a savior was being born, we have to deal with the shock of the rest of the scenario. In those days, when Caesar Augustus was supreme lord of most of the Mediterranean world and the Romans could play games with human lives for sport, the hoped for savior would have had to come in with some power and authority or it would never stand a chance. But all they got was a baby born to a homeless unmarried couple is some barn.

No. The story does not make sense that way! So the editors and writers had to make it better. After all, this is supposed to be god incarnate and that has to be special, different, and earth-shaking. And this, this unlikely story just isn't going to make it.  We humans need power, we need bombs and guns, and might - yea, real might! So we add layer and layer on to the most unlikely story ever told.

But the truth is that's what it was, and what it is - the most unlikely story ever told. Why would the power that created the universe reveal itself in the form of a frail baby? Why would the Almighty chose to come on behalf of an unmarried (read that as scandalous) displaced couple who don't even have a house or a room or a bed on which to lay their heads? Why? Because for thousands and thousands of years that is how the almighty reveals itself to us - not in power and might but in small frail, instances. We always wanted a god of war (read your Hebrew bible, a.k.a. the Old Testament) who could vanquish other gods and peoples. But we always got someone who was the unlikely hero.  We wanted thunder and lightning that would split boulders, but all we get is a small whispering voice.

So in the midst of all of the bling and pizzazz of modern Christmas celebrated on an arbitrary day in December may we all have the peace of mind required to put it all down and step away from the table long enough to notice the unlikely places, the unlikely people and the littlest things that show us how present our Creator really is. And may the overwhelming and mysterious power of that tiniest spec of godliness fill your hearts with warmth and joy tonight and in the days to come.

A Light in the Darkness

I have a wonderful friend who is a magnificent stand for light and laughter in this world, but recently was compelled to write to her in the wake of the murders in Newtown, CT.

My Dear Sweet Friend

How I love you – and how I adore and embrace your message of light and laughter as a service to this world.  But I have been watching your posts over the last two days since the most recent horrific event in our world has unfolded. And there is something that just doesn’t sit right with me. In many of your posts you say that we ought to turn off the media and delete those stories in an effort to send our message to that same set of sources that they should stop the hype and backward glorification of these killers and perpetrators. And for me that is too passive.

To any act of violence there are three courses of action: retaliatory violence (attacking back in some form of revenge), passivity and non-violent resistance (taking away the power of their status seeking), and a third way that is active, positive action.  I am of the third way. I cannot simply turn it off least they (the media or some future on-looking perpetrator-to-be) think I don’t care or can’t be bothered. Well I am bothered – I am bothered beyond my ability to contain myself in non-action.

But let me say a bit about how I perceive your message of hope.  It is not wrong – not in the least.  In fact it is the only message we should preach.  It is the context of that hope with which I have issue.  Just as you cannot see in total darkness, you cannot see in total light.  If we look only for the positive in our world, accent only the good that exists, and turn our backs on the darkness, the hatred and the violence of our chaotic world, we run the risk of being blinded by the light.

Life is painful and chaotic, and that pain is exacerbated by hoping for or wishing that is would somehow be different than it is.  Suffering, says the Buddha, is caused by trying to deny the reality of the now and wishing for something better. We first have to accept that there are people in this world who are so alienated and lost that their only thought is to inflict that pain on others.  Whether we call that evil or the devil or mental illness does not matter. Whether that manifests in genocide or warring or the slaughter of innocent children (close to home or on the other side of the planet) is irrelevant.  It exists; and my first calling is to recognize that it does exist.

It is against that pain and suffering that you and I have been called to stand as a beacon. It is in those dark places that we have to shine even more brightly. But I must first acknowledge the pain and suffering and then with the greatest compassion light a candle of hope. And that hope that we bring is the hope for and in human connection. Our greatest darkness happens when we are alone and unconnected to others.  Our greatest lightness is when we are embraced in the loving arms of another. Murder, genocide and war are places where the human fabric has been torn apart, where lost and alone people can somehow ignore the brotherhood or sisterhood of the human on the other end of their weapon. Killing cannot happen any other way.

Love is the antidote, caring and compassion are its vehicles. Every sage who ever walked on this planet has instructed us to love our enemies, not just our friends. Anyone can love those who love. Anyone can shine brightly when surrounded by others of the light.  That is the easy part. But to stand up with tears of grief streaming down your cheeks and shine a ray of hope, is the really hard part of this work. To name the darkness and embrace another, to become a contagious infection of caring and compassion and spread love where there is none, that is the real work.

So I will not turn it off – not because I get some twisted horror-movie thrill out of human carnage – but because I am called to stand up to evil and darkness and not back down, and not dampen my light. The hope I peddle is that if and when we love each other, there can be no more of this pain. (And I just want to say that I am as crushed by the death reports coming from Afghanistan or the Gaza strip as I am from Newtown CT.  Every soldier was once a baby rocked by his or her mother; every one of us had a beautiful future in front of us and brought a sparkle to our parent’s eyes.) We need to spread the message that the best action to prevent violence is the bonds we forge between each of us when we love and embrace each other.  In a message to the parents of the children that attend our school, I said that now is the time to start talking to the other parents, get to know them, make them part of your family – love each other as your own.

Now is a time of action, and the battlefront is where the darkness is the deepest.  Your message is right on but my request is that we wage radical love in those darkest places of the human experience. I can love more powerfully than anyone can hate, and when you and I join together, that becomes exponentially greater. And that is how we will win, one at a time; one more at a time; every time we say “we” and we mean one more person that the last time we said it. And we will overcome the darkness.

Spiritual Practices

Today I had a great conversation with a spiritual companion for my class on spiritual practices.  Our basic question was what constitutes a spiritual practice? We each use a different one; she using labyrinth walking and I practice lectio divina. We were noticing that when not followed with regularity neither held nearly the power as when engaged in on a regular (daily) basis. It's like conditioning, I said, if I don't exercise on a daily basis, the fitness factor is reduced and the pain quotient is immensely higher.

So the question to ponder is, can any discipline be a spiritual practice? We considered the following: herbalism, wildcrafting herbs, sweat lodge (building and using), and then drifted into hunting - like deer hunting, tending animals, talking to wild animals, well a lot of different ideas.  And the bottom line was it was more the way in which one engages in the discipline more than the actual discipline.

So what actually makes for a spiritual practice we concluded was:
1. It must be done with consistency and regularity
2.  It must be entered into prayerfully, meaning taking the time to center your mind and being and becoming open to the lesson or awareness to be presented.
3.  It must be an activity that requires or calls up mindfulness (weight lifting or walking or doing the dishes can all be done with a high degree of mindfulness whereas sleeping can't).
4.  The activity and the associated mindfulness must be reflected on to look for the lesson of the day/moment.
5.  One must then capture, write about or reflect on that lesson.
6.  Finally, the lesson needs to be brought into the world whether by living that lesson or by engaging with another person on the lesson and its meaning.

I recently watched the new Jackie Chan version of The Karate Kid where Jackie tells a young Jadaen Smith that "Kung fu is in everything." Well in much the same way, spiritual practice is in everything. Try it out with anything you do and let me know if it works.