Apologies for the interruption to the Justice and Mercy series. I’d made it part way through the third installment when I got sidetracked by the last three posts. We’ve enjoyed the blessings of Carol, Jack and Mary staying with us and celebrating Easter at the Steussy house, after a terrific service at church. I had some quiet time set aside today and had intended to get back to writing but couldn’t resist diving into the book Val Steussy lent me last night. She had no way of knowing that it had been on my list. I’d run across mention of it several weeks ago as it received some play in the national press and it piqued my interest. I have to say that I rarely get my interest piqued by the national press. (OK, that was probably an uncalled for remark but I’ll let it stand.)

Anyway, the book is by the now-deceased Stanford neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi, and is entitled When Breath Becomes Air. It chronicles his development as one the most thoughtful of physicians and scientists and his battle with a terrible cancer that took him far too young. It resonated to me on many levels. His extensive search for meaning. His attempt to understand the nature of mortality, even long before the disease developed. His focus on relationships as a primary life force. His bravery, faith and honesty. His portrayal of what it means to face the possibility of imminent death.  I’d say there is plenty there for everyone to take away something important. OK, Val said I’d probably read it in one day and I did. It’s only a couple of hundred pages long. Stock up on Kleenex.

I’ll say this. I know I’ve written about joy and wonder and beauty. Thank God for them. But, it just seems right now that so many people we know are suffering. I definitely have a problem with patience at times. And one of those problems is when people go blithely about life and are ill tuned to the plight of others. As in, things are particularly good for me so life is good! Now, I don’t mean to be a downer or to diminish our ability to celebrate goodness around us. On the contrary, I’m a big fan of celebrating. Of feasting upon blessings and bounty. But not to the point that we erect barriers to the deep struggles of others.

In fact, just as Dr. Kalanithi explores the world of meaningful relationships, we need to cultivate habits of truly sharing lives together. And, this means we can’t escape the fragility of life even though we get marvelous respites be they short or long. Living transparently and inviting others into our interior selves is liberating and positively transformational. I’m sometimes called to testify what is different about my life from a dozen years ago. And, I’d say freedom. True freedom. The freedom that comes from moving out of protective and defensive postures into a lightness that only results from transparency. And, transparency means we recognize that all is not good, just as all is not bad. Unfortunately, I know people who choose defending edifices with the result of comparative isolation. If only they could have seen some of the folks last Wednesday evening and Friday morning, bless their hearts. They would have seen many who choose surrender and, as difficult as that is, they would say there is no alternative and we are all the better for it.

Lord, thank you for the life and witness of Dr. Paul Kalanithi. Please continue to comfort his dear wife, young daughter and extended family. Thank you for your voice that pulls us towards meaning and away from the randomness so popular in our times. Help those of us who are struggling with disease, grief, lost sense of purpose or the daily anxieties that threaten to overwhelm. Also help others of us who have the strength and full hearts to come alongside and support those in need. Help us to admit frailty and to seek help. And, help us to listen carefully and connect with others in ways that have permanency. Finally, we pray that, should we find ourselves in mortal predicament, we can identify that which is ultimately true. Amen.

 

http://www.amazon.com/When-Breath-Becomes-Paul-Kalanithi/dp/081298840X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459208231&sr=1-1&keywords=when+breath+becomes+air

Eleven years ago this Saturday night, at 6:40pm, I heard God’s voice. While I’ve “heard” God many, many times since, I’ve only heard his voice speaking clearly to me one time. As in, it came in through the upper left side of my head. It was not some disembodied thought that just entered my mind. There was no mistaking who it was or what he said. Some of you have heard this account a number of times. It’s not something one keeps quiet about in certain circles.

So, this kind of thing raises all sorts of questions and issues. Two main ones are probably: How did I know it was God? Or, if one hearing this story does not believe in God, what are the other possible explanations? These are good and valid questions. Others could be, why did he choose that time and those words? Or, why doesn’t he do this all of the time? And, why me?

Actually, it was more than hearing his voice. We had a conversation. OK, it was a very brief conversation, as in he spoke clearly and I responded quickly by sending an inaudible reply, to which he clearly spoke again. These were not muddled words.

If there is no such thing as God, then there are only two possibilities and they are not unreasonable. One is that I’m making this whole thing up. I’m pulling a fast one for some reason. Maybe notoriety. Attention. People who claim to have heard from God or who have conversations with God are nothing new and some are certainly sharing this for some kind of gain. We get inured to this kind of thing. Jaded. I accept this doubt but given my immediate and visceral reaction that was pretty shocking to those around me, I’d have had to be quite the actor, even plotting it ahead of time. I don’t believe anyone who knows me considers this at all possible. The more plausible explanation of my account, if there is no God, is that I was deluded. I thought I heard his voice but, in fact, my subconscious projected a false conversation into my consciousness. As in, some aspect of me really wanted to hear God and so, unbeknownst to me, I made it up. In other words, I was just a tad crazy. Certainly, there are all sorts of examples of crazy people exclaiming God stuff all of the time. Yes, I can see why some would explain that I was simply momentarily deluded. We’ll get back to that. But, we’re going to take a detour, because this post is about something more than what happened to me on March 26, 2005.

As I’ve said many times, I did not grow up with any faith and had no familiarity with religion, other than the twice yearly celebrations of Passover and Hanukah with my paternal Jewish grandparents and what I gleaned from reading or associating with friends. I was as about as secular a kid as you could get. Never stepped inside a church (other than our fourth grade trip to Mission San Juan Batista) until college. The only time I think I prayed was when my tenth grade geometry teacher asked me to go to the board and demonstrate an equation, probably knowing I had not done my homework. She was not particularly nice. I stood there silently as everyone waited, my back to the class. I remember praying for relief. And I remember the fire alarm going off right then. We never made it back to class. It’s a wonder it took me another 35 years to trust God.

Without going into all of the details (and some of you know this stuff), I felt “spiritual” tugs in my later teens, diving into Eastern practices in college. I remember being trained for $65 in Transcendental Meditation, along with a friend. The point of TM was self-actualization or the achievement of a higher (even highest) state of consciousness. I was very intrigued. I was given a secret mantra by a guru. I was taught to repeat it over and over again for twenty minutes, twice a day. I was told it would be very bad if I shared my particular mantra with anyone else. I did not. I faithfully practiced TM in my college dorm room for a long time. And, I continued to practice meditation in some form or other for several years. By the way, my mantra would be spelled Aye-Ying. I repeated that thousands and thousands of times. I have friends who meditate regularly and employ traditional eastern spiritual practices. I was not a good student at this. I probably benefited from the quiet time and learned the spiritual discipline of quiet meditation, but I never increased my consciousness nor did I perceive any significant impact on my life. I was told that one way of knowing if I was advancing spiritually would be if I could hear the sound of the universe … Om. I listened a lot but did not hear it. I have a relative who listened for many, many years but did not hear it. She spent hours a day in this pursuit. I have to say,though, that a side benefit for me was advancing in the art of listening.

During this time and for another thirty years, I was also drawn to Jesus. He raised my curiosity. Being very active in left wing politics of the day, I liked what little I really knew about him … some popular stuff that said he was a prophet or holy man. A man who knew God, whoever or whatever God was. I also liked that he liked poor people and was quite the thorn in the side of authority. I was not big on authority. He also was big on peace which sat very well with me. And, he was quoted extensively by some of the century’s giants: Gandhi and King. And, I liked those guys.

So, for those several decades, I basically lived in a no-man’s land of searching agnosticism. I managed to get a masters in Theology at the Catholic University of San Diego, quite the odd thing for a public school administrator. To be honest, it was an odd Masters. Pretty unconventional as my advisor/mentor was a pretty unconventional Religious Studies professor. By the end, I was moderately literate in most of the world’s religions, had a fair understanding of the nature of faith (for an agnostic) and could speak somewhat intelligently in the field of epistemology (philosophical theory of knowledge). I was a child of the European Enlightenment and a believer in Humanism. Neither of those predilections are particularly compatible with Theology.

Certainly, I did not know God. If I prayed, I can’t remember it. And, I absolutely hadn’t heard God.

I won’t recount here the events that led up to March 26, 2005, except to say that God proved his existence to me several months before with the miraculous gift of grace and love. It was so torrential in its delivery that I had no alternative other than to believe that it and he was for real. As real as anything I had ever known. But, I still didn’t get exactly who he was or where Jesus fit in.

So, I began to pray and to listen. I mean, I really prayed and I really listened. I asked a lot of questions. I was pretty direct. I kept asking, “show me who you are!” This was not a quiet time for me. I’d been wrestling with this stuff since I was about 17 and I was now turning 51. This was an amazing several months. I lay myself wide open. I had no idea where it all would lead. I had no expectations other than I wanted to know the truth. Stop all the wandering which had not only led nowhere but it had led me to the point of despair.

In those months, there was no denying the tug. Things started happening. Doors started opening. As I was surrendering, clues began popping up. Little things but they added up. Clearly there was a direction but I was not willing to totally surrender. The direction, while compelling, just could not be true. This was a tug of war. I was willing to engage in the tug but I was not willing to be beaten.

In the week leading up to the 26th, I could not escape the fact that I had probably been wrong my whole life. I looked at truth from all the different angles. I analyzed the bits and pieces. I recalled experience and related it to all of my observations of human behavior. I realized an important thing in those months. I could no longer support the supposition that all roads lead to the same place. They don’t. I could no longer support the supposition that all truths are equal or relative. They are not. I realized that atheism was not possible and, for me, agnosticism was a cop out. A current was pulling me and I felt I did not have to resist any more. Still, I doubted. I was your basic really hard sell.

At 6:40 pm I was standing next to Diane. And, God spoke.

It was not a loud voice. The best I could describe it was just a clear and resonate voice. It came in unexpected.

Now, if was not God and I am not a liar, then I was hallucinating.

But, a spontaneous hallucination would probably not have generated these words:

“It’s time to come Home.”

This took me by surprise. As I said, it was unexpected. Three things happened instantaneously. The first was that the voice was clear, unambiguous and came in the upper left side of my head. I think I may have even cocked my head slightly in that direction. The second was that the voice said, “it’s time.” What was equally clear to me in that pinprick instant was that I’d had more than enough time to figure it all out. Time to make a decision. This instant was the only instant. Enough is enough. The voice was not threatening or demanding. It was simply stating the obvious. The third thing that happened is that it said, “come Home.” I capitalize Home for a reason that will be clear in a moment.

However, in that first instant, I’m not sure I knew what “Home” was.

I’m also not sure that this is easily translatable. It happened so fast and was such a surprise. The voice came out of nowhere.

But, for whatever reason, I didn’t hesitate. I sent back this answer. Granted, it was not an audible answer but it was a prompt response. In reflection afterwards, I’m sure I didn’t hesitate. The voice did not give that option.

I said, “Do you mean right now?”

This is almost comedic in an afterthought. If this really was God, … I mean the God of all that is, then here I was kind of debating with him.

What I was actually doing, was holding out. I’ll say that again, I was holding out. I think I had this one last ounce of reservoir in my protective casing that I just did not want to give up. After all, by giving up, the house of cards would fall. And, that’s a very tough thing to allow.

God didn’t hesitate. With the same clear and resonate voice … but, this time with a bit more softness and compassion, he said,

“What are you waiting for?”

Please remember, that this exchange probably lasted five, six seconds, max.

Curious.

Of course, the earth changed on its axis. I was completely boxed in with only one way out. My life and eternity changed in a heartbeat.

Back to the explanation that I somehow conjured this up in my subconscious. For starters, I will swear that I’d never hear the concept of Home before. I’ve heard it since but I’d never heard it prior. I didn’t run in Christian circles. It was simply not in my conceptual library.

And, let’s get to the fact that I argued with the voice. I resisted. I was unwilling. Yes, I’d felt tugged but it was clear that I was not quite ready to really, really believe.

The challenge was laid out, lovingly and simply. Although in that instant I did not know what Home was, I did know it was coming from God and I held back. To which, he calmly sliced away my last defense. He knew. It was over. He did not tell me it was over. He simply gave me a final choice.

And, that’s what God does. He gives us a choice. He didn’t say, “Brad, don’t you know I’m real?” He didn’t say, “Please follow me.” He gave me a choice.

Of course, he knew the answer. I had nothing left. I had no argument, not explanation, no intellectualization that could hold up to scrutiny. More than thirty years of wrestling and searching were left naked and exposed.

Sure, the doubter will say this was all some kind of psycho mumbo jumbo. But, they’d be wrong. I know. I was one of them.

I had no answer. And, in that moment, I let go. And, in that moment, he took me.

There are no words to describe what happened. I can only say this: I instantly saw my entire life and I knew what and where Home is. I had never heard that word in that context before but I instantly knew what it was. It was awaking from a deep sleep to the most vibrant reality. I was shocked. Stunned. How can you write that you see your entire life in a flash? But, it was true. I experienced my life from birth to that moment in a flash, except I saw it through God’s eyes. And, I knew that he was the Alpha and Omega and that I was loved from the very beginning and would be for eternity. This was no impersonal spirit. This was the one God and I belonged to him and it was the most glorious thing imaginable.

A moment before, I did not know what Home was. And, then I knew. I am a visitor in this world and God gave me the gift of seeing Home. Actually, he invited me to come home. I knew that this is where I was designed to be. Home is a place we belong. It is not a new place but is familiar. Home is where we always return. It’s not just a destination or waypoint. It’s the end of the journey. And it’s really, really good.

In a flash, the scales fell away. All of my searching had finally paid off but not of my own accord. Through the infinite grace of God.

So much has happened since then. But, as some of you know, in the immediate aftermath, there were tremendous changes. For starters, for weeks, I would stare at trees and the sky and all of my surroundings and they were vastly different. The colors shimmered and glowed. I was given a glimpse of how God views this created world. I saw his work in my life from the earliest time. I saw his patience. His love. His forgiveness. And, I knew that Jesus was who he said he was.

I have heard God many times since then. Perhaps I’ll write about what hearing God is like when his voice does not come through quite like it did that night. Some of you reading this know that easily as well as I.

The doubter or skeptic is free to question. That is not something I can change. But, to return to the issue: If there is no God, I am either a liar or crazy. Most people who know me now would say that there is no evidence of either. I have not changed course for eleven years. I have not wavered. God is the air I breathe. The atheistic psychologist or philosopher might say that I’m just deluded. Please examine my life in the last decade and argue that this delusion is destructive and not good.

To the other questions of why me and why then? I’ll leave those to another time. I also leave all of the other things that have happened in the last eleven years. Things that Diane has witnessed. Things that others have witnessed that are undeniable in the fact that they point to our loving God.

I heard God’s voice speak and I’m no longer the person I was before. Period. And, that’s the most beautiful blessing imaginable.

Lord, thank you for your trust and patience in me. I know it took a really long time but you know the truth … the shepherd will go quite aways to bring back that one sheep. 🙂  Thank you for the gifts of love and grace. Thank you for bringing me to my knees eleven years ago Saturday and every day, for that matter. I now know what Home is. In many ways, it’s all around me and I am grateful that you open my eyes to that each day. In other ways, this is barely a glimmer. While I have seen glimpses of what is in store, I await the arrival of the full picture. Please help me to greet each day like it is my last in this life. I’m sorry I fall short but that’s why I need help. I hope and pray that I am available to do the work that needs to be done as we anticipate what you have in store for us. Amen.

I’m going to run the risk of this appearing to be a somewhat callous posting. I don’t think of myself as a callous person and hope that those of you who know me would agree. However, in some time of quiet reflection yesterday, I felt called to a theme. And, then, with this morning’s news about another terrorist attack in Europe, I just needed to take it on.

For the longest time, I was very worried about the human race. I mean I thought about it (us) a whole lot. Back in junior high school, I worried about the human race. That didn’t let up in high school, nor in college, nor for decades afterwards. I think when many of my fellow teenagers were going to parties and more than a few were getting high, I was worried about the human race. Part of my problem was that I read constantly. I mean, I read almost more than constantly. Yes, I played sports, had jobs, did volunteer work, and hung out with friends. But, I just plain read all of the time. Once in awhile I read from Friday evening until Sunday night. And a lot of it was not your basic light reading. I’m not looking for brownie points here. It’s just that the stuff I read sort of cut to the heart of problems that plague the human race. You know, you can’t read history or philosophy or the great literary works without wondering what the heck is going on.

To make it worse, I just happened to hit adolescence in the mid 60s in the San Francisco Bay Area. Not your basic backwater of activity. No, aside from reading voraciously about deep topics, I arrived out of childhood in the midst of one of the most tumultuous times in our nation’s history. Marches. Sit-ins. Demonstrations. Civil Rights. War. And, remember, this was only fifty years after the War To End All Wars. Just twenty years after World War II. Just a decade after Korea. Smack in the middle of Vietnam.

In the second grade, we became very adept at doing duck and cover drills as we looked up at the skies and wondered what atomic bombs would look like as they arrived. I could write a book about growing into adulthood in this era but those books have already been written and I’m not interested in writing a biography here … however I am interested in making a point. Or two.

To continue: It wasn’t just that stuff. In the 1960s, eminent scientists told us about the Population Bomb. In a mere couple of decades, the world’s population would explode so much, we would run out of food and natural resources. Eminent scientists predicted Environmental Armageddon as our rivers, skies, and forests would soon be irretrievable. Mass extinctions of species in the immediate future. By the 1970s and 80s, eminent scientists were warning of the impending ice age that would bury much of the northern hemisphere under glaciers. In that same era, we were told that we were running out of oil at the fastest rate and would face tremendous fuel shortages with disastrous consequences. By the 1990s and early 2000s, eminent scientists told us that, no, we were not entering an ice age, we were facing imminent catastrophe from global warming. A Nobel was awarded to some folks who predicted that by 2014, most of the polar ice cap would have fully melted. In the last five years or so, eminent scientists have stopped really talking about global warming and are now talking about climate change and the doom it will bring.

And, then, or course, there are asteroids with our name on it, thousands of thermonuclear weapons, the risks of new and unpredictable plagues to which we have no defenses, bioterrorism, regional wars and on and on.

Aren’t you glad you decided to read this today?? 😦

This drum beat of doom and gloom has to either be ever present in our consciousness or just below the surface, pressed down because it’s just too much.

Ah, but then there’s the flip side. And, this is a pretty big deal. A real antidote to this dark perspective is the belief that man is perfectible. I’ll say it again, a real antidote to this reality I’ve described is the belief that man is perfectible.

I’ll call it the Star Trek phenomenon. Star Trek (which I have been known to enjoy) is the natural progression from the European Enlightenment that held that the seeds to man’s salvation lies within man. Man is inherently good and we just have to progress into living out that inherent goodness. This was a very big deal in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was the prevailing philosophy right through the deaths of hundreds of millions who perished in the attempt by societies to achieve the perfectibility of man. I’d be happy to provide background on the thinking of leaders of Germany, China, Russia, England, France the U.S. and dozens of other countries if you doubt this.

Anyway, the Star Trek phenomenon is premised on the inherent goodness of the Federation, which had evolved into a noble enterprise (get that?) to maintain the peace and support mankind’s endless search. So, we boldly go where no man has gone before because we’ve already resolved the here and now. The real threat is from out there. Not from in here.

This utopian fantasy is the perfect antidote to the realities I presented earlier.

I was deeply affected by these realities and was intrigued by some variations of the utopian fantasies. I actually worried about the survivability of the human race. I mean, I really worried about it. To be honest, I still do but not in the same sense.

I have to tell you, I read the reflections of a top cosmologist the other day. A cosmologist is someone who is really smart and looks at really big stuff, like the nature and fabric of the universe, where it came from, what it’s made of and where it’s going. I read stuff like that because I like science and I enjoy finding challenging stuff because … well, it’s challenging.

Well, this top scientist is really worried. And, I thought I was worried. You see, he’s concluded that in about a trillion years (that’s about 70 times longer than the life of our 14 billion year old universe or about 250 times longer than our earth has been in existence and about 5,000,000 times longer than homo sapiens has been around) the universe is going to go dark. All the energy will have been burned up. No light. No life. No possibility of life. He’s really torn up about this. He says he’s struggling with despondency.

I get his pain. In other words, we’re doomed. Whatever WE is. We’re doomed. There’s no escaping it. We can try to push it out. We can hide in under the rug. It’s all going dark.

Unless it’s not.

Eleven years ago this Saturday, I was shaken to the core. I would have scoffed at this before. In fact, I did scoff at it. I had studied religious experience. For goodness sakes, I’d had religious experiences. But nothing close to the moment when I felt like I had the darkest glasses lifted away from my eyes and I could see color for the first time. I realized I belonged to another world and that I was visiting this one. My home is elsewhere.

This is what I was reflecting upon in my quiet time yesterday afternoon, while I was looking at the sky, with its wispy white clouds and some birds soaring high above. This is what I was reflecting upon when I saw some colorful blossoms in our new garden and a few bees and butterflies flitting about.

Yes, we should steward this beautiful earth. Take care of our resources. Protect its beauty and nurture its bounty. Yes, we should be aware of our footprints on both nature and man. We should battle against injustice, lift up those without, seek the good of others, learn to love deeply.

Let’s not be seduced by an endless search for perfection or from some utopian fantasy that man can develop the perfect civilization. Let’s instead allow our eyes and hearts to be open to what is right in front of us, both the beautiful and the ugly, and seek what is right and good and whole.

I may die tomorrow. Or next year. The universe doesn’t care. (I’m sorry. Some people say, “give it to the universe.” I really don’t know what they mean. I don’t mean to offend and perhaps I’ll learn some day.) Some great calamity may strike us next year or in ten years or in a thousand years. At times, I find myself being pulled back there momentarily. But, not for long. I don’t believe I am here to change civilization or to help mankind or to worry about it. I believe I’m here to love God, love the people I come into contact with, to realize that I am fully loved, warts and all, and to serve others where I may. I also believe I’m here to enjoy the bounty which unfolds each day and to be refreshed by the wonder of it all.

Please don’t tell me that mankind is improving. Yes, we are raising our collective standard of living and that’s really good. Unless that standard of living is in competition with what is really important. Don’t tell me that wealthy people love more deeply, are more compassionate and joyful than less wealthy people. Yes, it’s better to be healthy with full stomachs than sick and hungry. But I’ve known poor and ill people who live much more rewarding lives than those who do not know such want. Don’t tell me that highly educated people are more altruistic than less educated people. That they are less selfish and self-centered. In fact, I’d hazard the opposite is true.

We can retreat into our literal or figurative fortresses. Literally, we can try to wall ourselves off from all external threats. We can even choose to go cryogenic in the hope that we can become immortal by freezing our bodies for resuscitation at some point in the distant future when all is rosy. Figuratively, we can dream that some day mankind will fix itself. How nice that would be. Or we can retreat into despair like that represented in so much popular media that glorifies a dark and dystopian future. Or, like our friend the cosmologist, that in the end there is no hope for us.

Ahhh, but the human heart is a glorious thing. When released into its potential, it’s quite a thing of beauty. I know of no state-sponsored  curriculum in school that encourages this. I know of no government program that has the vision, intent or means to assist in this. I can see little effort by dominant media to help soften and transform human hearts. I see no evidence that political leaders understand and model what is truly good and fulfilling for each of us.

But, I do not despair. On the contrary, I’m filled with hope. I have one foot in each of two worlds. I live in that place. I am a visitor in one and at home in the other. It’s neither the one or the other. It’s both. And, they pull and tug and call and battle for allegiance.

So, each day I am left with choices. I am granted control over what I think about and what I choose to do. I can choose to feel deep sorrow for the victims in last night’s atrocities in Brussels. I can feel anger at the evil that is behind it and so many other atrocities and injustices. I can feel emptiness in the hole Shannon left behind. I can feel peace when gazing at clouds and flowers or when I’m in prayer or silence. I can feel contentment at the gratitude of that call center person on the phone this morning after I spoke with her so encouragingly. I can feel happiness in this moment that my lungs are working well, that my dermatologist discovered no new cancers yesterday and that my carotid artery is silent. I can feel hopeful that my prayerful request to be available today to bless someone else’s life will be answered. I can feel joy that I will be with many dear people this week. And, of course, as a follower of Jesus, I am eternally glad that the war was won between Friday and Sunday around two thousand years ago, leaving me to do some important clean up work.

My job is to live today as God intends. Period.

I’ll leave the human race and its future to the one at the higher pay grade.

Lord, sometimes it just seems like a whole big mess out there. Like maybe we can easily be lost in the constant threats to our peace and safety. Or that our hearts break from seeing so much suffering. Or that we are easily seduced by promises that we’ll eventually solve the big problems, not recognizing that the same hearts that can break are the very hearts that can destroy. Help us to do what we can to bring life and love into places we dwell and over which we have some influence. Help us to see colorful flowers peeking out of the earth and to rejoice in the many delights that surround us. I thank you for helping me to live as fully as is possible in both worlds. Amen.

Yesterday was the day we memorialized Shannon. Perhaps close to 300 people attended an 80 minute midmorning service at Maranatha Chapel, about two miles from our home. Then a smaller group gathered at the Barrow home in Poway later in the afternoon for an informal celebration and feast.

You may have come to know me as a wordy person. Possibly even descriptive. But, I don’t have the language to adequately convey the meaning of the day. However, I’m going to try. In many ways, I expected to hear what I heard, and there’s a reason for that. But, I was deeply moved by how every element of that “celebration of life” was interwoven so perfectly. And, every one of those elements pointed to and expressed exactly the same thing.

I have written about Shannon in the recent past. What is remarkable is that, having known her only just over two years, she touched me in exactly the same way she touched her husband, daughters, and countless friends who have known her for many decades.

One poignant moment came midway through when her best friend from childhood and all the way up to the present began her talk. She started by saying she was Shannon’s best friend. But, then she looked out over everyone else and said, “And, I know each of you would say, No, I was Shannon’s best friend!” And, she was right. How remarkable is that?! How is that possible? This is not some high school BFF talk, this was actually really true.

In the past month or so, I’ve heard story after story about how Shannon deeply touched the lives of so many people. About how she tirelessly gave of herself to everyone. And this giving was done not through duty, but through honest to goodness joy and love. I heard time and time again that whoever she was with at the moment, however briefly, was given her full attention and care. She was simply present to everyone.

In recent years, I have learned that I have many best friends. These are the men and women who know me deeply and love me fully. These are the men and women who, when I’m with them, I would rather be nowhere else. We can share and rely, be vulnerable and supportive, honest and transparent. These things are love.

When I got sick last January, Shannon let me know she would wake in the middle of the night to pray for me. I know she had many, many people she prayed for. She was a prayer warrior and I know she loved me. Magnify that by hundreds and over decades and decades. She not only prayed, she infused people with her laughter and full personality. She took charge, gathering everyone around her, to pull them into a loving embrace.

Her four beautiful daughters spoke individually, but formed as a group in front of the microphone. They were followed by her husband, Jim. All of them said the same thing. Actually, they shared many different remembrances and stories, amidst their laughter and tears, but they all said the same thing.

I will come back to that in a moment.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this thought in a prior post. I probably did but I don’t want to scroll around looking for it. If I didn’t, I certainly should have. Anyway, as it’s relevant here, I’ll say it again.

We have a limited time in this life. We get caught up in all sorts of stuff. Some of it good, some of it not so good. In the end, what is left? What has been the meaning of this brief life? What legacy do we leave? How would we wish to be remembered?

Probably, in our thirties and forties, we don’t think about this much. Then, maybe in our fifties as we look behind at youth and ahead to old age, we begin to wonder. Not everyone is the same. Maybe some have thought about this their whole lives and others don’t think about it until much later or not at all. But, I suspect, most eventually get there.

How would we like the script to read? What would be its themes?

Now, some lives barely had a chance. Some have been wrought with brokenness, tragedy, illness and so on at various stages. Some people would think about past behaviors and looking back say, “please do not play that part of the tape.” Those who have never felt guilt or shame are either dishonest or don’t have a heart in the first place. No life is perfect. No one is without broken places. To deny that is to not have lived, which requires suffering and failure.

Yes, none is perfect. But, with what we do have, how would we like the script to read?

I’m certain that Shannon and her family did not in the least bit expect her script to be read so soon. She was 56.  In great health and shape. Vibrant and alive. A force of nature. Then, the terrible disease struck and, hard as she battled in those three weeks or so, it overcame her body and took her away from all of us way too soon.

But, it never took her spirit and it never took the spirit of her family and friends.

And that is the central theme of Shannon’s script. She lived into the spirit of her calling. Her central calling. Not the secondary callings of wife, mother, dear friend, helpmate. She lived into the spirit of her central calling.

This is what everyone said. This is how they explained her life and gave shape to the stories. No one minced words. No one touched on the edges of the truth. Every single one went to the heart of who Shannon was and what her life meant.

Not a person in that audience was left with a doubt about the meaning of her life.

And, honestly, I cannot imagine something finer.

At the heart of her being, Shannon loved God. She loved God more than her husband and four daughters, whom, I suspect, she loved as completely as any of us is able. She loved God exhaustively. How does one do that? Well, just look at Shannon. She breathed God, whether she was speaking about him or not. Sure, she had some edges to her. She was self-deprecating and shared her struggles. She had her faith challenged by some pretty big stresses. But, she didn’t waver. She persisted in loving God. And, to be honest, this was not some abstract form of spirit god. This was God as personified in Jesus. She loved Jesus. If that offends or puts off others, I’m sorry but that’s the truth and it was beautiful. Shannon showed us all how to love Jesus by the way she lived her life. This is not a Sunday Jesus. This is not a moral teacher Jesus. This is not a wooden figure hanging in a sanctuary or church. This is not a soft, airbrushed Jesus or a Jesus who some believe is conjured up as some sort of wish fulfillment.

No, this is the creative and loving force of all of reality that, when fully embraced and surrendered into, gushes into every nook and cranny. It brings peace and joy and allows us to transit through sorrow with hearts full of hope.

I know because I’ve experienced it. It took me to my knees and continues to do so daily. It lifts me up in ways that are really impossible to describe.

This is where everything pointed in the celebrations yesterday. The script of Shannon’s life is centered on her relationship with Jesus and how that relationship infused every other relationship and it’s the reason hundreds gathered in love yesterday and heard the most beautiful words spoken about someone recently deceased.

Some may wonder if all of this stuff about Jesus is really true. Some may wonder if this stuff about life after death is really true. It’s only natural to wonder.

I wondered until I was 51. I no longer wonder. And, I’m a very rational and scientific guy.

Shannon Barrow AIJ. Alive in Joy. Alive in Jesus.  This is not RIP. This is no Rest in Peace. We do not lie down in death, merely released from any pain and suffering we’ve experienced. We do not enter into a passive state. We do not float around as some disembodied spirit. Yes, there is peace and rest but that’s just a part of the picture. More so, we get to be lifted up to the most wonderful eternity. It will be a feast. All we have to do is accept it as reality and it is ours. Is this what we want? Is this the script we are drawn to? I say time and again, I could not believe until I did. Then everything changed. The scales fell away. It was like all of the tumblers in the lock finally clicked fully and the door burst open. Colors deepened. Silence spoke. If I looked backward through that door that was slowly closing, I knew there was no going back and no wanting to go back.

I spoke with a man late yesterday. We had met a few times some years ago but had never really had a conversation. We found ourselves alone at a backyard table in the midst of the gathering at the Barrow home. Some two hours later, maybe more, our conversation wound down. It turns out we had had nearly identical experiences of God. His cathartic moment was thirty years ago. Mine was eleven. He’s about 6’7” and 260. A big guy. An accomplished civil engineer. I can’t count the times he had tears rolling down his face. From his experiences over the past thirty years. I’ve never met anyone who described the shower of grace exactly like I have. He said he was the Prodigal. I said, “no, I am.” We laughed. Fist bumped. He said he has a heart condition. I said I have a bad carotid. He said he’s not worried about tomorrow. I said neither am I. I observed that the love of God, through Shannon, brought us together.

Shannon’s husband, Jim, I’m told, has a lifelong faith referred to by many as deep and solid. Shannon called him her rock. He told a friend the other day, that this experience has only deepened his faith. He does not doubt, nor do her daughters and countless friends, including Diane and me, that we will be joined together again … in a blink of an eye.

As we were about to leave, after about ten hours of devoting our hearts to Shannon and all she meant, I heard that my name was displayed in the Barrow home. I heard that she had a blackboard that listed the people she was praying for and that my name was on it. I saw it and wept. Dear Shannon had me at the top. In her handwriting.  For now. As we are all at the top. As Jesus has each of us at the top.  Here it is.

Good-bye for now, dear Sister. Hold for us a place at the table. Can’t wait to see your smile and hear your laughter. Then, the real joy begins.

Dear Lord, thank you for Shannon and thank you for her family and friends who gathered yesterday to celebrate her life. Thank you for so much truth and love. We mourn and wonder, why now, as we wonder about so many things. It’s so hard sometimes to live with the unknown and it makes us not want to believe the truths that are right in front of us. So, we live in the tension of this life … a life of both joy and sorrow. Then, we look at your daughter, Shannon, who you love the most. As you love us the most. Thank you for the gift of her remarkable life and how she made us more like the persons you seek us to be. And we realize this resolves the tension. This helps erase the doubts. Then our spirits are lifted and hope blooms again. The kind of hope that is not possible without you. Love, Brad.

 

 

 

I’m guessing that the previous post might have been a turn-off. Things like wonder, love, grace, and grief can be very personal and they can seem within our control, so to speak. At the most, they involve our relationship with another person or thing. But justice opens the door to larger and some potentially threatening things like judgment and evil. Not your nice dinner table conversation. But, does that mean they aren’t real? As real as all of these other features of life we find so compelling or demanding of our attention?

We left off with me saying we have a choice between two things. Then, I modified that to three.

Let’s pick up there.

The first choice is whether we think it’s even important to think about this stuff or not. Of course, we can choose not to think about it. I spoke briefly about that option.

The second choice assumes we’ve determined that at least some of this stuff is worth thinking about. In that case, we need to ask questions about things like good, bad, right, and wrong. Most people at least accept this as reasonable.

The third choice, assuming we’ve decided to examine these things is whether we truly want to discover whether our lives have meaning or not. And, I believe, there is no middle ground here. We either move in the direction of ultimate meaning or in the direction of ultimate meaninglessness. I can’t honestly find a middle ground. I know. I tried for decades.

So where does this leave us with the concept of Justice? By the way, there is good news at the end of this! Wait until we get to Mercy! 🙂

But, it’s time to plow more ground and see what springs up. All is not fertile. Rocks and weeds abound. To carry the metaphor further, in many places proper nutrients are in very short supply.

Unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that this is what we have to work with. We can go about our business, blithely choosing to ignore suffering and injustice around us or we can open our eyes and our hearts to some stark realities of life. We can choose to build walls and fortresses to keep us out of the muck or we can engage with the realities of the human condition and choose to do something about it.

(As an aside, probably the hardest thing to do is to look inward to find the places inside our own life, psyche, and behavior while we point fingers at others. I intend to come back to this at some point.)

What do we see when we open our eyes to the realities of the human condition? Oh my. Enormous poverty and suffering. Brutal persecution on both small and large scales. Sickness. Desperation. Despair. Depravity. Need I go on? Love blossoms, then too frequently is snuffed out. Happiness is fleeting as we face burdens that bend us.

Once again, we can build walls and pursue our own lives, especially living in the west with our enormous wealth and privilege. We can watch the news and say “that just isn’t right!” We can demand that our government officials do a much better job of addressing these problems as sides square off to try to deal with their magnitude.

Or, we can take a breath and try to consider what justice really is all about and what control, if any, we have in this whole thing.

Bluntly, do we choose to stay on the sidelines as bystanders or do we choose to engage in this muck?

In all honesty, I can’t see any choice but to engage. Not if the concept of justice is real and that there are such things as good and bad, right and wrong.

One way to address this is to start at a personal level.

When we are wronged, there is a cost. It’s called suffering. We hurt. We naturally want payback. We want “redress for grievances.” This is the basis of our legal system and for western civilization. Why do we want redress? Because, as I mentioned in the previous post, we’re hardwired with a sense of justice.

We want criminal acts prosecuted and perpetrators “brought to justice!” We want people who take advantage of us financially in devious ways to pay us back and if they don’t, we take them in front of the system to “enforce justice.” We want billionaires who live their lives in palaces and on super yachts to at least give some of the wealth they’ll never spend to support those less fortunate. “It’s only right!” We want people who have wronged us to admit they’ve wronged us.

And, we want brutal dictators to stop the slaughter, the inhumane treatment of people under their power. “Can’t someone do something about this?”

We want money to go to causes that fight against the darker side of human life: Poverty, sickness, abuse. Most of us don’t actually like taxes but we understand that there are costs to be paid in order to have a society that functions … a society that mitigates suffering and offers the means for hope.

There are costs to be paid to bring balance.

Are we thinking of all the ways to pay those costs? Are we thinking about ways to cease to be bystanders? Are we willing to dig into that soil to remove the rocks and weeds and to find the nutrients the soil so desperately needs?

If my life actually has meaning, what is my part in all of this?

Lots of questions. I’ll try to take a shot at answering.

If you’re reading these things, I guess that you agree that life has meaning. (Unless you’re enjoying these writings as a kind of academic exercise to see where it leads.)

If life has meaning, then what is a “life well lived?”

I have to say that a life well lived is a life that seeks out injustice and tries to stamp it out. I believe this strongly.

Now, this is not easy and creates all sorts of problems and disagreements as to what that looks like. All sorts of directions that are destructive in their own right. But, that does not excuse us from taking this on. We want it for ourselves when it happens to us. We should want it equally for others when it happens to them.

One common method we westerners use is to throw money at situations. This is not bad, as money in the right places can do great good. But, money can also be used inappropriately and has its limits.

Diane and I give money and are happy to do so. I’m not saying that to boast or appear noble. We’re far from it! Some people give substantial portions of their income to support the victims of circumstances that just don’t seem right. Diane and I have our charities that we believe sincerely change lives for the better. Some are facilitated through our church and some are not. Churches get a bad rap for so many reasons, existing as they do in an increasingly secular world. But churches raise huge sums of money from people who already pay their taxes, in order to go into desperate places to relieve suffering.

Yes, says the cynic, but what about all of those scandals? Well, of course, there are scandals. There are scandals in churches, schools, and government. In businesses and organizations of all stripes. But, that does not dissuade us from choosing to spend a portion of our wealth in places where suffering is keen.

Yes, money can help even the scales. Turn bad into good. Help right the wrongs. But money is just one way and, unfortunately, can mask our hearts and dull our eyes.

Money can lead us down a path that says that we don’t have to get our hands dirty. Either the problems are too big for someone so small as I or I don’t have the skills or time to deal with them personally.

No, justice demands our personal attention. The cost must be paid and we need to be available to help pay it.

Just as justice is implanted into us, so too do we have the means for carrying it out. And, I’m not talking Dirty Harry. Well, maybe just a little. 🙂

Here’s where it gets interesting. We come to another crossroads. One particular direction can seem to overwhelm. Where do we even begin?

If we arrive at a point where we believe the only truly moral position is to engage in justice somehow, then we need to figure out the best way. Bluntly, there’s no way to do it without getting our hands dirty. After all, it’s metaphorical soil we’re talking about. Bemoaning injustice, absent action, doesn’t reflect the behavior of an honest person. And, arriving at this conviction, we are left with options. First, we can support causes, either by money or ballot box, that reflect our beliefs. Both of these are good, so long as we do our due diligence to ensure our participation is warranted.

The second option is to get involved. Actually do something to battle injustice that requires specific action. In other words, stop being a bystander or just delegating responsibility to some organization or government.

OK. Let’s say we accept that justice is a good thing and that we should participate in good and to try to stem or defeat bad. Then, we accept that we have a role to play and that supporting causes that fight injustice is something we should probably do. We have the means and it’s just a question of priorities. And, let’s say, we determine that it has a priority, wherever that may lie. Then, we hear a voice that says we may have some personal responsibility beyond money or voting. It might be a good idea if we paid enough attention to actually doing something. What would that look like?

I have two suggestions. One is to get involved in an effort that engages in the community in some way. And, by community, that can mean being very close to home or in the region. Some effort that focuses on brokenness and seeks to bring healing. The key is to consider our gifts and talents and to apply them in ways that help others. Remarkably, we are the ones blessed through this, although that is not our intention! The second way is for us to apply this perspective in all aspects of our daily lives. So, what does that look like?

This is an area where I feel I’ve been growing substantially in the last ten years. It’s also an area that is probably the most difficult for most of us. It’s one thing (a good thing) to give our money and votes, even occasional or regular participation in an effort to help a particular group. It’s another thing to wake up each morning and to be open to the brokenness, distress and injustice that just appears every day. And, it does. Every day. It can be big or it can be very subtle.

This is where I feel we really get down into that soil because now it’s personal and immediate. It requires changing the way we view others, the world around us and (most importantly) ourselves.

And, this brings us to our last set of options in this post.

The first is to be very aware of how people behave in our surroundings. Are we attune to places where the people we are in contact with on a daily basis are suffering or hurting? Where people treat others poorly? And, if aware, what do we do about it? Do we say, “not my problem?” Maybe it’s inappropriate to intervene. But, we need to ask ourselves is that the case? Do we see bullying? Do we see brokenness? Are we too busy?

The second is to be self-aware. Is my behavior designed to heal or to wound? Am I going out of my way to encourage the people who I meet? Who I work or live with? Do I know what pains them? What is causing them to be anxious? Do I pause in kindness during a conversation with a stranger?

Now, we are deep down in the soil.

Why, it might be asked, am I linking this to justice? Because it’s all tied to love. If love is willing the good of another … not just thinking about it, but willing it, then justice is weighting the scales to balance against broken places, hurt places, hollow places … places where darkness and even evil reside.

Justice is a matter of the heart as well as the mind. Is my heart soft and open? This does not mean passivity. On the contrary, it’s a battle and takes strength and determination.

To recap: This is all about how we respond to the knowledge that there are rights and wrongs in this world. How do we respond with awareness? How do we respond with conviction? How do we act as agents of justice? How do we participate in restoration? Are we willing to step out of comfort zones and prioritizing all of our own needs against the needs of others?

Evil dwells in the hearts and minds of people who are blinded to what is just and good. It serves its own master and sets us one against another. It divides us and tells us that we are the thing that truly matters, no matter the consequences for others. Our needs must triumph. They are supreme.

The great 18th century Irish philosopher Edmund Burke is attributed as saying, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”

If we accept this as true, as I do, then we must choose. And, if we choose to fight evil in both large and small places, we are called to action. That action can include sharing our wealth, our time, and talents. It must also include being open to our surroundings to notice the plight of others, to encourage others, to be an agent of love and healing. And, it must include an interior examination about our own behaviors. After all, judgment is a two-way street … something we will explore next time.

There are days I struggle with this and days I just feel blessed to be a part of the solution. It does me no good to wallow in self-incrimination, as in, “Am I really doing everything I can?” I have found that to lead into an unhealthy place. After all, this set of issues is just a piece of life. I have written widely on so many others.

None of this is easy. None of it is safe. But it is good.

Lord, thank you for opening our eyes to the realities of this world. Thank you for giving us the eyes to see, the hearts to feel and the hands to do the work that needs to be done. We understand that the soil is our lives … the lives of all of us. We understand that much of that soil is populated with weeds and rocks and even barrenness. On the other hand, we have a sense of what it’s like to methodically move those rocks, pull those weeds, open up space, and layer in the stuff of life. Help us to make this a priority. Help us to tip the scales. Help us to love. Amen.

For awhile now, I’ve put off writing about this subject and as I sit down, I’m not sure how it will turn out. Themes such as wonder, love and service or even grief and mortality are easier to tackle. Why is that? I suspect it’s because we recognize them fairly easily. On the other hand, to dive into justice and its somewhat distant cousin, mercy, makes us confront some things we don’t want to confront. The problem is not one of unfamiliarity. We have some innate sense of what justice and mercy mean. No, the problem is that we don’t want to give them some ultimate authority. We like them wrapped in neat boxes and on our terms.

Now, in a purely naturalist worldview, neither of these concepts makes any real sense. From the framework of natural selection, there is no justice and can be no mercy. These values are irrelevant in a survival of the fittest environment. Humans that try to impose these values from within this kind of worldview (because, after all, one thing humans do is to order our lives around values, unlike plants and other animals) do so as fabrications, like putting lipstick on a pig, so to speak.

For starters, let’s look at justice. This may take awhile, I’m guessing.

One way to begin is to think of justice as fairness. Who does not like fair? Everyone wants fair. Small children. Adults.  Pre-modern indigenous peoples. Adolf Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Husbands and wives. Some people want what’s fair for them, “My fair share of the pie!” Others want what’s fair for others. In other words, we all seek some kind of balance. “It’s only right!”

But, then, there’s the axiom: “Life’s not fair.” What’s up with that?

So, this is something we all want and need but it’s not available. This is one reason we don’t want to go deep. We hit a brick wall of frustration.

We resolve this frustration by trying to build all sorts of systems designed to balance the scales. The west has been particularly good at this with the development of protective laws and systems of morality and ethics by which we can enforce fairness … or justice.  There’s a reason for this, of course.

We create rules and the means to enforce them, all in order to bring order. We bridle at those who take more than we think they should or get away with doing things they shouldn’t do. Most of us have a very developed sense of what we think fairness and justice really are. Let’s explore that.

I’m not a philosopher and lack the clarity of some really wise people. I’m a bit more of the seat of my pants thinker and observer, although I’ve read a fair share on this subject and have had more than a few discussions about it over the years. There are some things I can’t escape.

The first is that there has to be a metric or objective truth by which we determine what is fair or just. From now on, I’ll stick to using “justice” as the term, rather than fairness. Without an objective starting point, justice has no meaning. No one has the right to argue that this thing or that thing is just or unjust. It becomes a simple statement of, “this is how I feel, so that’s that.”

This same logic (of no objective measure) can easily result in this declaration: “There’s really nothing wrong with adults physically abusing very small children because it happens to give me pleasure and I value pleasure.” Sorry to be graphic. It would be a rare person who would not cry out for the hands of justice to be employed. Nearly all of us would exclaim, “this is simply wrong and it does not matter what that abuser thinks.”

You see, there’s something inside of us that cries out for wrongs to be righted. Some things are just plain wrong.

Whoa there. How can that be? As many would say, right and wrong are in the eye of the beholder. “What’s right for someone else is not necessarily right for me. What is acceptable in one culture but not mine does not mean that the practice is absolutely wrong.”

Is that true? Is it true that there are no absolute truths?

Stop.

Is it true that there are no absolute truths?

Can we not all see the fallacy!

Of course, it cannot be true that there are no absolute truths. The statement is self-contradictory.

Simply, there are absolute truths, whether we like it or not.  I could go on and on about this but I want to move forward. (If someone wants me to write more about truth, I’ll be happy to try.)

If we are at a point where we can accept the concept of absolute truth (Remember, this is something akin to saying, “I’m sorry, it does not matter that you think it’s right, your actions are indefensible and are just plain wrong.”  Think Hitler throwing millions into ovens because he thought Jews were the scourge of humanity and actually not human. If your first instinct is to go to a place that says, “You know he has a right to think that and, given power, to act on those principles. Who am I to say he’s wrong?” then you live in a world of complete relativity and should have no recourse to seek help against those who you see as having wronged you.) then we have to wonder what that metric (yardstick) is.

Which bring us to the concepts of right and wrong.

Right and wrong are judgments made by rational beings. But they are based on something deeper.

And, this is were it gets interesting and it’s also where many people just do not want to go.

It brings us back to choices. Door A opens to a path that says there is no absolute right or wrong. Everything is relative to circumstance. Slaughtering people in a crowded movie theater is no more wrong than pulling a weed out of a garden.  We have a choice to go down that path. Make no mistake about it. There are many people who think there is no such thing as absolute right or wrong. They may like going part way down the path but don’t realize where it leads. Without going into too much detail, this is where Nietzsche and later Existentialist philosophers went. And they ended up in abject despair.

Then there’s Door B, which brings us along a path that says, “I guess there is such a thing as absolute right and wrong when you put it that way, but I don’t want to really think about where that comes from. It’s just too hard or uncomfortable.”  Door B people get nervous around the nature of absolute justice, by the way.

Door C brings us to the point of being open to what lies behind our belief or feeling that there has to be some absolute right and wrong and that I want to know what that is. Pause to consider that.

Personal Detour

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a deep and abiding sense in the concept of justice. It’s never fully left me, although I admit it’s become very cloudy at times, especially when I went through a phase more akin to moral relativism, which is the temptation of Door A people and, to some extent, Door B people.

I’ve always tended to feel things strongly and to look at things very carefully. Unfortunately, as a Door B person for a long time, I was unaware of the consequences of some decisions and behaviors as I did not see them for what they were, against a clearly objective measure.

As I’ve said openly for the past ten years, I lacked a moral compass that was set on True North.

And, then, Door B did not work anymore. At the risk of being dramatic, the world came crashing in. On the one hand, I was cursed with a mind that searched for meaning and that a passive life is not a good life. On the other hand, I was blessed because, at the moment of the crash, Door C opened.

It was there, that I came face to face with the basis for right and wrong.  I came fairly quickly to the conclusion that right and wrong has to spring from the conflict between good and evil.

Back on Track

I’ll say it again, a belief that there are such things as absolute right and wrong has to come from a basis in the conflict between good and evil.

Whoa. Stop the presses. Some people who are unsatisfied with the Door B path and retrace in order to go down the Door C path will stop right here. And, this is one reason I’ve waited to broach the subject. It’s because our modern sensibilities seem to be ok with “good,” “bad,” “right,” and “wrong,” but bridle at the concept of evil.

You see, evil is sinister and personal. It suggests a quality in reality that is so bad and so dark that no light issues forth. It sucks life and destroys that which we see as good.

Absolute good is born of the wellspring of love.

Absolute bad is born of the wellspring of evil.

The opposite of love is not hate. To me, evil is the opposite of love, not hate. This is a big deal, in my opinion.  We can love and hate at the same time. (I actually don’t like using the word hate because it’s so loaded. I’ll substitute “abhor.”) For instance, we can have hearts full of love and abhor terrible injustice. There is no conflict between those things. I’d posit that, if we truly love, we can also abhor or be disgusted at the opposite of love. And, the opposite of love is evil. The key here, without going way off track, is that love always triumphs over evil and that we do not let that part of us which hates or abhors diminish our love.

To understand justice is to understand the sources of good, bad, right, wrong, love and evil.

This is what happens when Door A or Door B people come up short. And, this is where the path forward through Door C leads.

I’ve seen evil. Up close and personal. Also, you can’t read history or watch the news with an open mind and not see evil. Terrible and atrocious acts carried out by humans and justified by all sorts of means. Calculated attempts to slaughter and destroy other people, not even for political or financial gain but because the acts gave pleasure.

Door C people seek the source of good, right and love. Many call that source God. Door C people must also confront the source of evil.

This is not easy, nor is it popular. Our culture drowns in the portrayal of evil acts and evil behavior and we are desensitized to it. Some see these acts and behaviors as fantasy and tempting. They and we can become inured. And, in that inurement, we lose our ground for justice, the very justice that is hardwired into us.

This is one of the great tragedies of our time and in our lives. We can become blind to evil and even twist it in our minds to either say it’s really not evil or that there is no such things as evil.

And, with that, justice erodes. Black become white and white becomes black. We doubt good and champion bad. We try to compartmentalize this to media … games, films, etc… But, it wears us down. Our hearts begin to close off to the light. We doubt the light. And, as we doubt the light, we lose track of love. Pleasure or its spiritual twin, self-realization, build a stronghold. Neither pleasure nor self-realization have room for justice. We are reduced to non-sentient animals. We are left with two new choices: Either I am my own God or God does not exist, only the void.

Either way, what happens does not really matter. There are no scales. No justice. No judgment. That is all illusion. If we do not accept the fact that evil is a thing that must be acknowledged and confronted, we are left on quicksand, although we desperately try to escape it. Or, we are ostriches with our heads in the sand … “see no evil.”

Wow. Now that’s depressing!!

Let’s just plain admit it. There are people who commit evil acts. Come on now. Can’t we do that? Of course. So, are there evil people?

I’ll dodge that question for the moment, but we can at least agree that there are people whose hearts and minds are driven by impulses that make them do evil things. Where do those come from?

And, what do we do with them? I don’t mean what happens to them in games or in movies and TV. I mean what do we want to happen to them in real life … as when they do something horrific to someone we love? Of course, we want justice!  We want justice because we recognize evil and we know that it is bad and wrong.

So, what is justice, really?

It’s righting a wrong. It’s paying the cost. It’s actually doing something to equalize the imbalance. Hence, the scales of justice.

We all want this. We just struggle at what it looks like in practice. How can every act of evil be brought to justice, which is only right? How can the debt created by evil and injustice be paid? Is there such a thing as a cosmic scale?

To the last question, Door A people would say that’s ridiculous. Wishful thinking. Since there are no such things as absolute good, bad, right, wrong, evil (and love for that matter!), then there is no cosmic justice. Dust to dust. Meaningless before, meaningless now, meaningless after.

If this is not confusing enough, let me say this:

Door A leads ultimately to no absolute truth, which means our lives have no absolute meaning. We are particles in a great cosmic mixture of coalescing atoms. Period. No soul. No hereafter. No supernatural reality. Most people bridle at this to the consternation of atheists who must grapple with the problem that their lives don’t really matter in any way other than to maybe procreate. So, those that bridle look at Door B and live in a kind of tension where there is a right and wrong but they can’t put their finger on it. So, some Door B people keep pushing and see Door C and decide to check it out. Well, Door C opens up a path that makes some sense until we come face to face with the problem of evil. We have a choice here. We can explore where this leads or retrace our steps. All the way back. All the way back to Door A. I honestly cannot find a satisfactory middle ground. I know. I tried for decades. C.S. Lewis tried. Many others have tried.

I ended up with two choices. Meaningless or Fully Meaningful. Again, there was no middle ground.

Actually, I ended up with three choices. (1) Either it is important to consider this stuff or not. (2) If I believe it’s important to think about and live out a life that looks at good, bad, right and wrong, then I have to choose a path that makes sense. Otherwise, I’m just a simply passive human being, wandering. Or, (3) I must choose between meaning and meaningless. There is no middle ground.

Heavy stuff. Maybe some of you reading this disagree and that’s fine. As I said before, I’m not a trained philosopher, nor am I exceedingly wise. However, this is the place I have arrived and I invite you to engage the topic.

I’ll pause for now and pick things up soon.

Lord, this is tough stuff. We want things to be neat and to make sense. It’s hard to pull up the rug and wait to see what crawls out. We live in an age where there is unbelievable deprivation and violence, yet there is bountiful good and where we are tugged by hope. Help us to go to difficult places in order to better understand our lives and how to live them out. Thank you for the gift of wisdom in order to discern things when there used to be fog. We ask for strength to follow through with the intentions that are placed on our hearts and minds, once we discern. Amen.

My friend and former student, Ashley, dropped by recently for a visit. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve seen her, although we’ve been in touch periodically. She is an accomplished writer and speaker and knows more than one or two things about blogging. While we covered a lot of ground in her visit, she made it a point to say I made a kind of tactical error early on with this blog. Always being open to criticism from my students, I inquired “how is that?” She commented that my blogs are particularly long. This was not the first time I’d heard someone reflect that my writings have length. Hopefully, breadth and depths as well, on occasion. 🙂 Anyway, she wasn’t admonishing me because they are tedious to read; instead, she said I set myself up early with having to produce just a whole lot of stuff, establishing some kind of precedent. Oh. She does have a point. Fortunately, this isn’t a competition and I’m not in the mold of Charles Dickens who, I seem to recall, was paid by the word.

Which brings me to today and another interlude. Hopefully, I’ll be in a place in the next few days to follow up on some themes that have been bubbling around. A couple that I’ve put off that will be a challenge.

For now, I’ll just share that I pretty much powered down on Thursday and Friday, attending to this and that without diving in headfirst. Yesterday promised to be extremely busy and it was. Up early. Down at Clairemont Methodist Church at 7:30am to set up for an all day Emmaus training that went extremely well. Just plain terrific people. Diane worked with the couple of dozen women (she is an assistant director) while I worked with the great men’s team. As this year’s director, it’s been a challenge due to my health situation but they’re willing and able to step in and do whatever needs to be done. It’s tough to find a group with deeper servant’s hearts than you find in Emmaus.

The day capped off in the evening with one of my favorite activities: High school sports. Most of you know that I still have strong allegiances to Mission Hills, where I served as founding principal and eight years in that position. Well, my two very good friends and colleagues, Ken (Athletic Director) and Billy (my former AP and now an HR Director), picked me up to see if the MH basketball girls could pull off the amazing feat of a third straight CIF Championship in the top Open Division. Ranked sixth in the state, we took on private school La Jolla Country Day, ranked seventh in the state and state champion last year. What a game! I’ve never seen girls basketball played at that level. Everyone said the same thing. Back and forth, remarkable talent as the girls continued to sink impossible threes as if they played in the NBA. In the end, of course, all is right with the world as our girls brought home another championship. Threepeat, as they say!  It was great being back with Ken and Billy, two of the main reasons I used to love my job.

This morning, off to church where we have the blessing of serving communion, which we do once a month. Not a perfunctory act but deeply meaningful on so many levels.

We received word of the time and place for dear Shannon’s memorial service. I’m sure some hundreds of people will attend. At prayer on Friday, we spent more time laughing and weeping as we grappled with our huge loss. There is nothing like loving community and sharing the joys and sorrows of life.

Sorry that I’m not called to really deep places today. Feel free to seek a refund from the site administrator. 🙂  Kidding aside, thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to check in!

Full disclosure: I sort of just hit the wall. Things caught up and I’m going to try to power down again. I know I want to write about balance. I’ve learned a lot about balance in the last ten years. Still struggle with it, however. Maybe many of you have it down. Balance comes and goes, I suppose. If we’re honest, we’re always searching for the sweet spot, which can be elusive.

Our friend, Pat, termed my specialist our Tier Four doctor. I like it. Not sure if he’s out of puberty yet but I’m happy to surrender into his care. I’m not stupid. When he said I could begin to be more active, I knew he didn’t mean try to break that stair master again. While the headaches have mostly disappeared (praise God), I have no knowledge that this problem just went poof. But, my body and mind have sort of gone, “Hey, let’s get back in the saddle. We have some catching up to do!”

No single thing. A few big things. A passel of smaller things. Physical and emotional. Toss in a dose of little sleep and enough is enough. I got the message at several times today. Thank you to the several of you who shared that with me in your own way. Also, it just became so plain obvious, to be honest.

I didn’t want what happened to me two years ago to do a repeat appearance. As I retired, I’d clearly heard God say (sorry to faithful readers who raise an eyebrow at that!), “take a year off when you retire and don’t commit to anything. You need to rest, get your health in order, learn to really listen to me. There will be plenty for you to do after that time.” Well, I made it six months til January, when I began to feel tugged to jump back in and serve in a few areas. Then one morning, I stood up, my right foot slipped out of my flip flop and I was sidelined from walking and driving for months. Not sayin’ God broke my foot, mind you. But I don’t want to test that process now. Not at all.

So, I’m going to try to back off on that accelerator pedal a bit. Down to idle for at least a couple of days. My priorities still don’t change. Every day is a gift. Appreciate the moments. Receive blessings with gratitude. Look kindly upon others and enrich their lives wherever possible. None of this is hard.

Lest I be misunderstood, some of the most physically frail people are the strongest people I know. Frailties in this life can never stand against trust, hope and love.

Thank you for listening. I know I checked the stats on this blog thing several weeks ago that shows how many people read it and I was surprised. I haven’t since. It doesn’t matter. If the words resonate with anyone and help frame feelings and thoughts, then I count that as a blessing, as so many have blessed me.

Don’t get rid of that stair master. I’ll be back. 🙂

Lord, sometimes we avoid the obvious and don’t rest when the signs are clear. We choose to forge ahead because that seems like the right thing to do. Well, we know that isn’t always good. It’s hard to admit frailty. It’s hard to surrender. Thank you for showing us how. Amen.

I said Sunday night that a light had gone out in the world. I mentioned yesterday that sometimes the beacon seems distant and dim. We are so used to the metaphors of light and darkness. As I woke up in the darkness of the way predawn, quietly listening, I thought again about light.

Light is life. Vibrant. Shimmering. Radiant. Light is full of possibilities. Light is energy. Physicists will say it is also matter, in a sense. That should give us pause.

Of course, life allows us to see. What is it we see? That may seem obvious but I think maybe it goes deeper. I think we can also choose what to see. Light, then, is a door to possibilities.

Shannon was light. Yes, we’re all flawed, something Shannon always laid out in front of us as she pointed the finger back at herself. She’d be the first to admit her shortcomings, her struggles and temptations, where she felt she fell short that week. We’d all nod our heads as our own mind’s eyes looked inward and we saw the same rough patterns. This was not beat-yourself-up kinds of recriminations. Shannon modeled how we can never be so full of ourselves that we lose touch with what is really important.

Which makes me think of black holes. Forgive the geek talk for a moment. A black hole can be seen as the opposite of light. A black hole is a collapsed star so dense, its gravitational pull so strong, that even light cannot escape. A black hole sucks in light. Do we know any people like that?  People who just know how to take and not give?

Then there is Shannon. Yesterday, as a few of us gathered in the morning just to be together, I learned even more about her capacity to give. I suspect in the days and weeks to come, those accounts will flow and flow. In the giving, Shannon spread light.

I know many, many people who spread light. They kind of just shed it. I’m sure you can think of someone or some people like that. I can’t even begin to mention all of the ones I know.  If I were to try to list them here, I’d get pretty far but run the risk of leaving someone out. How embarrassing that would be!

Ok. I’ll mention three.

One is my friend, Emily. She’s a single mom living up in Spokane. Mid 50s. Has not had an easy life. She has known all sorts of pain. Anguish. We’ve been in and out of touch over the nearly 40 years we’ve known one another. Her mother married my uncle later in life, the one who is reclusive. So, Emily is my uncle’s stepdaughter. They have not always had the easiest of relationships as my uncle is not particularly good with relationships. A month or so ago, Emily was down in San Diego and dropped by to see my uncle. I won’t go into details here but to say that what Emily found was simply awful. Being Emily, she didn’t flinch but mustered resources and single handedly rescued my uncle. Now, this may seem commonplace and many people pull together when faced with huge challenges. I can’t share all of the reasons why Emily’s actions are so noteworthy. They just are. Emily is shining light.

The second is my friend, Gary. Gary will be back in prison this weekend, Thursday through Sunday. He’s there every Monday late afternoon and for extended times, like this weekend, a couple of times a year. Gary’s light shines in many places but prison is another place altogether. Gary just retired as a world-renowned scientist, specializing in exploring the deepest intricacies of matter and energy. More than a decade ago, he heard a call to go into prison, as foreign to him as it is to most of us. He battled the call but finally surrendered. Thankfully. Gary is a beacon, bringing light to the lives of men who live in that darkest of places. Gary sacrifices a lot to go in there. The drive in traffic down to Donovan, resting as it does on the border, can be miserable. The destination is miserable. The choice is his. Gary’s actions help transform lives. They bring light.

 
The third is my Diane. I remember her walking through the door on the night of January 15, 1982. The beginning of a blind date, organized at the house of some mutual friends. All I saw was beauty and, as the evening developed, I realized that her beauty ran deep.

Most of you reading this know Diane. Some do not. Those of you who know her will understand completely why I choose to go here.

When I spoke at Diane’s mother’s memorial, I mentioned that her mom, June, seemingly had a pure and radiant heart. I shared that June had inherited that from her own mother, who was called Grandjoy by the grandkids and all others who knew her. Diane clearly inherited that heart from those women.

Diane will not like reading this. But, I need to say it. Diane lights up spaces. She blows in with smiles and laughter. It doesn’t matter where she is or seemingly who she talks to. She gives and she cares. Is there a one of you who knows her who doesn’t see that?

What do we learn from these three and the many others who they represent?

Part of me wants to go all theological here but I’ll try to refrain. 🙂  Well, maybe I’ll dip my toe in it.

We are children of the light. We are designed to shine. We are designed to pour out love and deeply bless those around us. Those who subscribe to an exclusively naturalist worldview would have to say that somehow survival of the fittest must explain why we sacrifice our own needs, at cost to ourselves, in order to give to others.  I’m not going to spend time here going down that rabbit trail. I’ll simply say that I’ve finally come to the conclusion that lives like theirs is no accident but reflective of the essence of humanity.

As I conclude this piece, it’s still dark but I can see out our picture window that the sky has the faintest tinge of deep blue. Dawn is coming. The day will begin. Life will bustle. What will all of this bring? What choices will we make today about what we see and do? At the end of the day as we slip into rest, how will our lives have mattered in the spaces between dark? Will any of the light remain?

Jesus tells his disciples in Luke 11:33-36, “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body is full of darkness. See to it, then that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”

Lord, thank you for the gift of Light. We recognize where it comes from. At least we try. Help us to find the dark places, in ourselves and in this world, so that light can shine and illuminate. And, by illumination, bring vibrancy, radiance and beauty. To bring life. Help us to have eyes to see, hearts to feel and the hands to carry out those things that need to be done. Thank you for bringing people like Shannon, Emily, Gary, Diane and all of the legions of others like them into our own lives. Yes, with Shannon’s passing a light has gone out in the world. Thankfully, this world still has plenty left. Amen.