Since the end of May, the beginning of the church season of Pentecost, I’ve been thinking about how our Words and our Stories (personal and corporate) impact our lives and interactions and belief systems. These in turn can define how we identify one another, and even the ways we may label someone who is different or has a different story as ‘wrong’ or even ‘evil’.
There is so much division over what may seem like small, obvious, or even petty things from one person’s viewpoint, but which are of valid and deep importance for someone else. Whether to wear a mask or not, getting or not getting a vaccine, how things have changed over the past year, due to COVID, and what will the ‘new norm’ look like, buying meds or groceries. The list goes on and on because we all have things that are important to us, that may not be important to others.
It is so easy to judge someone else's choices or decisions based on superficial things, and our own way of looking at the world. When we look with God's love and God's eyes, we can learn compassion and have greater understanding of each Story. And we can remember that each story is part of the total STORY of God's love and work in the world, even those we might initially categorize as wrong or strange.
How do we get past our initial reaction that is based in our
own Story? I think one way is to step outside our comfort zone, to meet and
interact with people we don’t know. Believe me, that is something I find very
difficult and extremely uncomfortable. I don’t like to be vulnerable or feel
that I am not in control of a situation. I don’t think we can force a meeting
like this, though.
I think it comes down to what Br. Nicholas Bartoli (SSJE) says in his July 11, 2020 post: “For Jesus, defeating your enemy had nothing to do with swords or armor. No, the only true way to defeat an enemy, even if the enemy is just an idea or way of thinking, is to accept the enemy, in love and compassion, until we stop seeing an enemy at all…After some prayer and consideration, and in keeping with Jesus’ core teachings, I came up with five gifts of the spirit which would prove helpful on the spiritual battleground: love, compassion, wisdom, courage, and grace. First of all, we have love, and by love, I mean God’s Love with a capital “L,” not just the pleasant emotion. God’s Love means accepting something, just as it is, with our whole heart. Second, we have compassion which means to suffer with. Assuming we’re gazing upon something, say an enemy, in Love, then compassion easily follows. In accepting someone fully as they are we not only see the story we create about their role in our pain and suffering, but we see their pain and suffering as well. Third, there’s wisdom…seeing God’s truth in the world whatever the source. With wisdom we see that we could be doing a lot better practicing the Love and compassion of Jesus. With wisdom we see clearly and humbly our need to fully accept ourselves, Love ourselves, and have compassion for ourselves. Fourth, we have courage. It takes courage to follow wisdom wherever it leads, because wisdom will bring to light unpleasant or painful shadows, within ourselves and others. It takes courage to Love our enemies when hate can be deceptively attractive. It takes courage to feel compassion for our neighbors, leaving our hearts open to their pain. And…grace. This one is cheating a little, really, since God’s grace isn’t a personal attribute. Still, it might be the most important stone, because it’s only by God’s grace that we can hope to see the fruit of those other four. All we can do is admit our reliance on grace, and thus let ourselves be open to God’s gift.” Defeating Enemies – Br. Nicholas Bartoli – SSJE
To start a journey of hearing and understanding one another,
we first need to meet and get to know each other using love, compassion,
courage, wisdom and grace. To really do that that we have to Listen. We’ll
think about that next time.
