Too Costly A Price

I joined in recently in an on-line discussion of the gun control diatribe (masquerading as dialogue). It wasn’t really a dialogue at all – just a bunch of angry, self-righteous people haranguing each other for the audacity to hold fast to a belief other than their own. So-called pacifists screaming (as best they can over internet type) at staunch defenders of their Second Amendment right to have a gun of their choice to defend their family and property; and the latter’s expletive-laden vitriol about how he will either kill or go to jail to defend that right.

That is not dialogue, and it is one of three main problems that lie at the source of this breakdown. The first problem is that there can no longer be dialogue.  We have lost the ability to discuss and dialogue with each other; unless of course you agree with absolutely everything I say, in which case, I contend, it is not dialogue. True dialogue is an exchange of ideals wherein listening occurs and through which both parties are changed. Dialogue is a creative resolution starting with opposing or differing points of view that results in a new, previously impossible (or improbable) thought. It cannot be reached when both parties start from the absolute point of view that I am right and you are dead wrong, and operate from a fundamental dualistic logic.  Right/wrong dualism renders anything the other person says automatically wrong and therefore not-listened-to. Where is the dialogue in that? So as a result, congress and my Facebook friends simply engage in angry positioning and demeaning name-calling.

But that is only one part of it.  The second source problem within the gun-control diatribe is that we have evolved into a state where we expect laws, legislation and other people to do the hard work or moral decision-making and critical thinking for us. It takes a ton of developmental work to build the capacity to think critically and in a fully mature way about such complex issues as justice, gun-control, global warming, sexual ethics, reproductive rights and human dignity (to name a few). These and other issues like them as immensely complex dilemmas that have no single or simple solutions. Yet as a society we want the simple solution; we want the silver bullet; we want washboard abs with only 15 seconds of exercise a day. 

Thirdly, we have de-evolved into a society who expects that if something is wrong, we can just take a pill to fix it, and that just is not the way things happen. And within that, we hold the expectation that someone else will do it for us. Dear friends, it is not up to someone else (be that chemistry and pharmaceuticals or law-makers and their polity) to solve our problems for us. These are ours and we need to take ownership and responsibility for the issues we have. Having a law that polices how guns are sold (we have one), or requiring background checks, or magazine sizes will not solve the problem of accountability and responsibility.

 

So the long and short of it is that there is a way out or through this fiasco, but it will take a huge amount of work. First and foremost, we need to take full responsibility not only for the creation of a solution but for the control and use of any firearms out there. In a way the platitude that “guns don’t kill; people do” is right. But until every person who owns or sells, or touches weapons of any sort (let’s throw crossbows and bows and other forms of weaponry in there) takes full accountability of how each weapon is responsibly used, we will continue to have the problem of weapons getting into “the wrong hands.” We need to develop the lost skill of critical thinking to begin to address complex problems and complex solutions in a more mature and rational way.  But above all, we need to re-learn the art of true dialogue.  That is a tall order, but the consequences of ignoring the source issues are too costly; innocent children’s lives being snuffed out before they have even begun to live; malls and theatres becoming unsafe places to go; and young men thinking that the resolution of an argument is drawing and firing some sexy weapon. When the statistics are frightening enough perhaps the work will be done.

Mystical Moments

When we talk about true mystical experience, it seems as though the general thought is that anyone who has a genuine connection with the divine floats about in some kind of mystical state 24/7. However none of the mystics ever seem to report it that way. What is more the case is that they (and we) have scattered mystical moments; small glimpses of what that connection looks and feels like. It is here one moment and slips away as soon as we try to latch on to it and hold it as our own.

Actually the term mysticism and mystical were not even part of our language until the 15th century, so the early "mystics" did not even refer to themselves or their experiences as mystical. They were simply trying to be present in the moment.  But as the church tried more and more to make god and spirituality more other-worldly, they pushed the experience of the divine into the realm of the non-human - and we have been trying to get it back ever since.

Truth is: mystical moments happen all the time but because we tend to be looking elsewhere for the big kahuna "aha" experience, we don't recognize them. You know what they are: a baby's smile, catching another person eye-to-eye, sunsets and sunrises, a rose blooming or a crocus poking its way through the last snow, and so many more. In fact every instant there is another moment that is mystical and transcendant. and when you start to see them, life itself becomes more beautiful and precious.

The trick in the whole mystical experience is to be awake and aware enough to notice what is happening in the now. And each time we forget that life is filled with these mystical moments, we slide back into our routines of worrying about the future or wishing away the past. Dan Millman wrote a book once called No Ordinary Moments which really captures this understanding.  But we don't need near death experiences to wake us up - we need only to wake up. Then you'll see why the so called "mystics" lived quite ordinary lives - but were filled by the abundance of mystical moments they allowed themselves to experience in every moment. So coming back to the beginning of this thought stream, if we are actually capable of being present I suppose we could enjoy a mystical life.  The problem, as Ram Dass said, is to Be Here Now!

Baptismal Inheritance

Last Sunday, my pastor asked “what did we inherit through baptism?” I think it is far more than we suspect, however.  For many of us, we think that the great inheritance of our faith is that we have the promise of God; the promise of heaven and salvation.  But I think that misses the mark.  And to understand what that is, we need to look at Jesus.  Jesus is our model. Jesus was not something other than we are, or separate from us.  Yes, Jesus was the incarnation – the word and spirit in human form – but he was here to show us that we are all the incarnation of God’s word.  His message was consistently that what he had and how he was connected to God is what we have as well.  Just as Jesus and the Father were one, so are we and the Father one.

So here is the big “aha” about baptism, as revealed though the actions of Jesus, our model.  What Jesus inherited (and by extension what have inherited) in baptism was not a promise but rather permission. Through baptism we are given permission to be audacious and call ourselves children of God.  Through baptism we have permission to live larger than life. Through baptism we have been given permission to heal the sick, and to mend the broken hearted – literally to work miracles.

So I ask you this, if you had permission to be anything and do anything that you felt called to do, what would that be? If you had permission to walk into the White House, what would you say?  If you had permission to stop any economic or ecological runaway train, what would you do? If you had permission to love fully anyone you choose, who and how would you love?

Through your baptism you have been given permission to be God’s presence in this world, in this state, in this parish, in this family. You are God’s child in whom God is well pleased, and with that baptismal proclamation, you have been granted full permission to go and serve.  How will you use that?