The Wages of Fear

My son, Sean, has given me permission to post the following essay he recently wrote as an expression of his deep concern for our nation and our world in the wake of tragic events in places like Ferguson MO and New York City. I gave it a title I thought fitting.

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The Wages of Fear

There is an intense interest by more than a few to perpetuate the illusion of fear in our society. No matter your particular flavor on the matter of the Ferguson shooting, or any other police event in which an unarmed, innocent, or otherwise guiltless life is extinguished in the course of a confrontation that is both fearful and confusing, the bottom line is that fear drives us to certain hysteria when things like this happen. And that hysteria is avoidable.

As long as we fear each other, these things will continue to happen. Since 9/11, fear has become an even larger part of our infrastructure. We are, it seems, always preparing for something awful looming on the horizon. A terrorist attack, global warming, a wide spread disease, an economic plunge… our daily lives are shaped in some way by the looming fear of disaster.

I think it would be healthy for us to acknowledge that fear and realize the extent to which it influences the way we respond to everyday events. It’s not unlike acknowledging alcoholism or drug addiction. The first step is to admit that fear is a problem.

In Ferguson, two separate issues have become constructively connected for the purpose of muddling fact (we are a long way from solving injustice and inequality) and fiction (fear each other, fear the police, fear anything apart from your own experience). Issue one: Police in this country are too hasty in the application of lethal measures. Issue two: Racism is alive and well in our society.

Since the shooting, all manner of speculation, innuendo, and opinion on it found light in social media, radio, television, and printed news. The fact is that there was so much of it; anyone exposed could not reasonably set fact apart from fiction. Fairness and bias somehow became strangely, but predictably, distorted. The story was shaped by conjecture, hyperbole, and overt prejudice, to explode an already perilous powder keg of emotion and fear. Reason, rationale, and logic were entirely stripped from the narrative.

This brings me to our judicial system. When things like this happen, there is a process. It is not a perfect process, nor will it ever become perfect. But it is not a bad process. Our President asked that we respect the process, regardless of our feelings about the outcome. It’s all we have, really. Can it be better? Yes. And certainly the outcome of dialogue initiated by the illumination of these events can and should influence any change.

Disregarding race, gender, cultural features… sans it all, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed person. A grand jury is convened to view this occurrence on that evidence alone. Whether you are black, white, man, woman, Muslim, Christian, elder or child… there is no real way to remove the human conditions of empathy, bias, fear, and passion. My litmus test on an issue is to see a situation from multiple aspects… and if my opinion on that issue changes radically with any aspect, then I know I can’t offer an unbiased opinion. Acknowledging that truth is independent of feeling is tantamount to being fair and impartial.

Inequality, racial bias, poverty, greed, selfishness, and senseless acts of crime are, among many, significant problems in our society. But I don’t believe we are unable overcome them.

Love, Respect, and Tolerance. That’s the lesson here. Just as an officer, in a moment of fear and confusion, too quickly draws and fires a weapon, as such, we cannot be too quick to render judgment. In the absence of truth and understanding, fear must not be allowed to fill the void. The Sneetches got through it. And so we can as well.

Don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared.

The Bible Says What??

Many years ago, a friend and co-worker introduced me to a recording of the Peasal Tree Sermon, delivered by a preacher who, having been “so took up” in ministrations to the flock and not having had time to prepare a “real theologic sermon,” decided to take as his Sunday morning text whatever verse his eye fell upon, knowing that the Lord had led him there.  The scripture instructed him that the children of Israel worshipped the Lord with certain musical instruments and the psaltre.  The unfamiliar word translated for him to “peasal tree,” which in turn became a staff with miraculous powers for use by Moses in leading the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land.  I can easily imagine an enraptured audience, hanging on each and every word.  Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out:  http://www.jamaicajim.com/psaltre.htm.  At best, the story is a tribute to the human imagination.  At worst, a commentary on our tendency to engage scripture from the shallow end.  There may be some eternal truths imbedded in this entertaining recitation, but its practical truth for me is that I need to be very discerning in what I lift from Scripture lest I take it as gospel truth.

I learned early in life that regular Bible reading and study go with being a Christian, a standard that holds for other faith traditions as well.  We’re supposed to read our sacred texts in the expectation of discovering eternal truths that will guide, comfort, and inspire us.  Perhaps we hope they will lead us also to an encounter with our God, but one we’d prefer not cause us undue discomfort.  The words “reading” and “study” are wrongly used synonymously; serious study should take us well beyond a casual reading experience.  If not, our Bible study can look more like a book club conversation, where opinions and understandings are shared about what we read, hopefully in an atmosphere of friendly camaraderie, and perhaps under the guidance of one perceived as having requisite knowledge and understanding and in whom we vest authority to guide and instruct.  We depart, grateful for the fellowship and a good feeling about having once again engaged in our ritualistic “study.”  And, one might hope, also with a sense of inspiration and challenge for our continuing spiritual journey.

Among other things, context becomes a significant consideration in an authentic “study” experience.  As with “location, location, location,” often cited as the three most important factors in the real estate market, so “context, context, context” may be the three most important considerations in Bible study.  Who wrote the scripture passage being studied?  When and under what conditions was it written?  Why did he (no she’s as far as we know) write it?  Is it a product of redaction?  What did the redactor have in mind?  Who constituted the intended audience and what were their life circumstances?  What was the intended message?  Who published it, and why?  Why should it be important for us today?  What should it inspire us to be and to do?  What factors in our personal programming condition our response to it?  Who has authority to interpret it for us, and why would we grant them that authority?  What do we learn about ourselves in our responses to these questions?

As I respond to these questions in my own ventures into Bible study, I am led to believe that for the creative energy I call God to be invested and revealed in the "Book of Books,” I cannot see it as a static document containing unchanging theological concepts, subject to my prejudicial parsing, but as a narrative of personal and community God-encounters, not revelations once and for all time, but inspirations for my own continuing revelatory God-encounters.  Mine may differ from yours.  Their authenticity in my life is expressed in the quality of my human relationships which, for me, equates with my God relationship.  If I honor God, I also must honor my human brother and sister, whoever and wherever they may be. 

“If any one says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” 1 John 4:20 RSV 

For me, that honoring relationship provides the standard for my continuing venture through life – my journey toward wholeness, my promised land … a personal Peasal Tree staff having amazing properties to guide me through a world where polarization and alienation seem to be the norm, and where the challenge to be “in relationship” with all creation can seem well beyond my human capacity, but still meriting my greatest effort.  In moments of doubt and uncertainty, I lay aside my questions to find comfort and assurance in the words of a favorite passage; they can be enough for the moment.  The underlying message is constant: God is with me … within me, awaiting my affirmation and response.

Are you a Bible “student?”  I hope you will share your experience.

A Faith for Today ... and Tomorrow

Among my life’s greater blessings are young friends who remind me of what it’s like to be youthful, who inspire me with their intellect and creativity, and whose curiosity about all things arouses my own.  Some of these young friends are drawn to participate in my faith community by what they find and hope to find there, such things as a community that shares and promotes the values they learned as children, faith stories with which they can identify and in which they find wisdom for living, and an environment that encourages their search for meaningful faith.  Some express appreciation for elders who are open and responsive to their questions about life and faith and who allow them room to express themselves and pursue their searching free from fear of correction, censure, and rejection.  They look for those who, like them, are making their own faith path, one that best serves them and their human family.

What many encounter in their taste test of institutional religion are belief systems that seem to be set in stone by those who earnestly believe that religion must identify and hold on to what they embrace as timeless truths essential for moral living in an ordered society and which form a fabric of life that cannot be broken without devastating consequences.  Such truths, often held in the sanctity of differing tribal traditions, are credited to divine revelation and not subject to question or alteration.  This creates a conundrum for minds trained to be inquiring and critical of all assumptions.  What are such minds to make of “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29 KJV) in a world where “seeing is believing” is accepted norm and where finding answers and solving mysteries is both expected and rewarded performance?  Does not the ecclesiastical community, by and large, deal with this as a faith matter, or more precisely, a “lack of faith” matter, with the fault attributed to the questioner’s apparent inability or unwillingness to abandon intellect and accept as “mystery,” ideas that require an expression of faith beyond an assumed reasoning capacity of the human mind?  Trust and Obey, very spiritually meaningful words for my mother, can present difficult challenges for younger generations conditioned to view such words as idealistic and naïve. 

If I were once again a young adult, I would not want to associate with a church of “club mentality” whose existence relies heavily on conformity of thinking and where non-conformist  thinking is dismissed as impertinent and heretical.  The Church continues to founder wondering why it cannot increase its participation and membership.  The vitality and effectiveness of the Church are weakened by declining participation due to death of older members loyal with their participation and resources, disenchantment with “the way the church is going,” frustration with church politics, squabbling and division within the ranks, and a diminishing sense of direction and purpose.  What can the Church do to change this unwelcome reality?

Perhaps it is time, if not well past time, for institutional religion, i.e. “the Church” however named, to come of age, just as society expects its young to come of age in their acceptance of responsibility for who they are as world citizens functioning in an increasingly complex and interdependent world order.  Might failure to do so spell doom for an institution dependent for its survival in humanly recognizable form on the committed resources of people … many people?  How can a church established on ancient and unsophisticated understandings make timeless truths real to present and future  generations whose cultures promise to be the antitheses of “ancient” and “unsophisticated?”

What doctrines of the Church are problematic for Generation Xers and Millennials?  Why does the Church consider them essential for the believing Christian?  Is it time once again to rethink identity and purpose, to remake the Church into a Church for today rather than one fixated on ancient truths “good enough for Paul and Silas” (therefore good enough for all time and all people)?  What spiritual concepts would characterize such a church?  How might it reframe its belief system without losing its uniqueness of purpose and message?