When Decisions Are Made But Not Made

If the decision were so easily one way or another, I would make it.  That I am asking people's opinion about it may mean it is already made.  What I want now is to be talked into or out of it.  So, it is made.  It is just not agreed to.

If We Trust People

If we really trust people, we should not insist on approving or disapproving their decisions.

After Cancer

Even after all this time I expect one day to resume the life we left off when the cancer started, that we will realize that part is over, or that it really never was.  It should be that way, since it is what ought to be; but it cannot happen.  Neither can I let it go.

Dying or Living Jesus

Jesus became one with us and did so as completely as he could, even to the point of death.  While we can appreciate and even celebrate an aspect of dying, it is only a part, and given the length of his life and content of his teaching it is maybe a lesser part of the story.  An element of salvation is in the dying, but it is made valid in his rising.  Because Jesus went beyond death, life becomes new and different, to be lived and celebrated out loud.  The anticipation gives way to realization and what was wondered about is.  Jesus is not simply the person who hung on the cross.  Before that event he was the one who preached, who wandered among the people, who developed a sense of himself and of his own faith.  He was the one who shared himself and received what others offered, and beyond the dying he is the one who came up out of death into glory.

We are united with him in the dying.  We are joined also to resurrection into new life and power -- the life of God and the power of his Spirit.  Death seems to be present only so the resurrection may follow.

Too often, however, we take refuge in the suffering.  We are stalled in the dying, overwhelmed by meditation on pain.  The late Jesus is the unfortunate model rather than the risen one.  Without the crucifixion faith would be diminished, but without resurrection it would be nothing at all.  We have to let him come down from the cross.  He is not dead anymore.  To stay united only to his death is to be tied only to the past, to an incomplete event.  Joined to his resurrection, we enter our own present and future, as well as his.

It may have seemed easier when he was hanging there on the cross and perhaps a Jesus who will not stay dead may seem more demanding.  Demand may not be the right word, but if it were he would be so because he would have become more real, more invested in who we are together.  If he is alive he also becomes more easily found, more readily celebrated, in other things and people, in all who share life.

Nothing Can Change

As long as we are saying nothing can change, nothing can change.

"I Am Holy"

God, in Leviticus, has Moses tell the people, "I am holy."  It is an expression of his essence, rather than his activity.  Of all the things he might have said, this was most important -- both for him to say and for them to hear.

The Police and The Clergy

There was a meeting between the Police Department and the clergy.  It was not a bad idea.  People are dying and killing themselves, or they are killing someone else.  There is poverty and pain, no shortage of suffering.  There are places where the work of Police and clergy overlap, and at other junctures they conflict.  Talking seemed a good idea, except their ministers wanted to say they had no places to park their cars and the Police wondered how the clergy could endorse what the Department wanted to do.  There is still every sort of crime and ill.  There was, however, no real endorsement and parking is going to remain a concern.  It was a meeting where just talking had to be seen as a favorable outcome.  To expect more would have been inviting disappointment, anger, or increased depression.

Even If Needs Cannot Be Met

A need is no less real if it cannot be met or fulfilled.

Fault and Blame

Other people may actually be at fault, but after a time is blaming them so very helpful?

Decision Point

In the process of therapy people hopefully come to a point at which choices have to be made, where the insights have to translate into action.  Some do.  For others, the change is maybe too hard or it is not yet time.  What makes the difference?

The Costs of "But..."

They acknowledge the truths, then say, "but..."  They say:

   we should consider peace, but what about them;
   we should be willing to forgive, but what if they think us weak;
   we should be willing to talk, but why won't they offer first;
   we should have fair and consistent policies, but what would it cost;
   we would like to help, but some other time.

The "but" undoes the "should," freeing us from the growth that might be risked.  Too bad.

No System to Explain It All

Is there a system to explain it all, a rule encompassing the whole of life?  Is there a standard, a principle applicable to every situation?  We may wish there were.  It would simplify the process, but life may be too complex.

There are some situations that are fairly clear, where choices are straightforward, with a yes/no option and the consequence of either is clear.  The selection of a response is more automatic, but such situations are increasingly rare, and become more so as additional factors are included.  Instead of being "yes-no," it has become "if this, then that, unless something else intrudes."

Simple answers are too simple, not inclusive enough of even available data or ready choices.  There is still, however, a need to choose, to decide and not only about less significant issues.  Better to say the choices we make are subject to reconsideration should the need arise, or should new information become available, or if we should change in ways that alter our perspective on the question.  An issue's importance is not diminished by a reassessing of its significance; and if we permit an impermanence to choices, making them "just for now," it implies the "just for now" may last indefinitely.

Are You He?

They asked:  Are you he who is to come?  So he told them what he was doing.  He couldn't say either yes or no.  He hadn't answered the question, perhaps because he did not know.

After All This Time

You would think after all this time people would realize there is a better use for time and resources than conflict.

Justifying Life's Rules

If we have no rules, life becomes chaotic.  Having too many, or having ones providing too great a penalty, is to be constricted.  Not having certainty that there are rules at all, or concern they might change, makes life too tentative.  There need to be rules, but they need to justify themselves so there will be less likelihood of their changing.  A proposition may become a rule if it is universal, or almost so -- if it always applies; if it provides a basis for prediction; if it is the same across conditions; and if it applies to most people or most can agree on its reasonableness.

The Image of Galaxies and Ourselves

The image of galaxies long since destroyed is now reaching us.  They no longer are in themselves, but are now becoming real for us.  When they were actual, we were not yet.  So relative is their reality -- real to us, but not to them, and it may be our fate, too:  present as an image of what was.  Even if not actual the image is real, even if its reality belongs now only to the observer.

I can ask that you listen. I cannot insist that you hear.

An Approach to Passive Aggressive People

It does not seem an especially helpful practice investing time in passively aggressive people.  Better perhaps to let them know they are free to deal with life, and whose life it is we are considering.  To try to engage beyond that point is not productive, at least for me.  The door is open on my side, but I don't think I want to pursue any more angry people saying nothing is wrong.

Any Wonder

He thought the Grand Canyon a hole in the ground and thought the ocean just so much water.  He looked at a tree and saw wood, touched the earth and felt dirt.  Is it any wonder he thought God was just an idea, and people only things?

Belief Most Times

Belief may sometimes mean suffering and pain, but most of the time it is things like joy and peace, love and happiness; and those are the characteristics by which it can be identified.  The good things are real. The rest will pass away.

God's Patience

It is a bit silly to become indignant about someone else's failings, especially when God doesn't.

Talking in Absolutes

We talked in such absolutes.  Things either glowed or they were dismal.  Around the corner was either the cataclysm we would welcome and hope others would dread.  Or else there was that new creation, the one that would make others wish they had listened.  We tended to write in archaic and apocalyptic phrases with a lot of exhortation and no little condemnation.  There were only two sides unless we were extolling diversity.  It was all so clear.  It was, of course, true in many ways but it is hard to stay on the ramparts when no one will change them.  When they instead want to walk around, not recognizing them for what we wanted them to be.  We talk no less in absolutes, or do so without the fervor.  I am not sure it is progress.  Maybe it is less without the anger, but it seems to be more.

Beyond Pain

She thought there was a point in pain where the worst had happened and nothing new could make it worse.  There was a liberation in this, a freedom from fear.  It seems true that after some losses there is no more to be lost, and new pain, though real, is at most a revisiting of old pain.  There can be no surpassing it.

Incomplete Conclusions

Since everyone sees the same thing from a different perspective and because all bring to it their expectation and understanding, no conclusion is complete.  Each sees the same thing differently and each time it is seen there will be something new, more to share in the ongoing observation and seeking; and sharing it, while making it even less clear, gives each more to choose from, more to look for when we look again.

Letting Jesus Be Mysterious

Who was Jesus of Nazareth?  What did he mean or want to do?  Sure, he was God's son, saved us and made us holy in his joining of us, and us to him.  He lived, died, and preached a beautiful doctrine.  Is that all there is to know?  These and other things are true, but say so little about the man.  They speak only of facts.  They are historic data and theological judgment, both of which have value, but people are more than what they say or do, even people who are God's sons.

The writers of the Gospels tell us what they think.  Theologians and some mystics are ready with opinions.  Is that enough?  Is it enough to know less about Jesus than about so many lesser people?  Maybe it is, and maybe there is no answer.

Maybe no one can tell us what we might want to know.  Maybe it is that way because he wished it were so.  Or perhaps he did not think we would, or should, be interested in him as he was -- but only in what was said and done.  Maybe he wanted to stand aside from the message lest he obscure it.

Maybe it is unimportant what he was like, or what he looked like.  It may suffice to know that he was, and in some way was all that we wished him to be.  He was prophet, revolutionary, teacher.  A man of prayer, of vision, of dreams and ideas.  He wanted there to be a difference, a newness, and tried to name this new creation.  The specifics of this in each life are not always clear, and might only be further obscured were we to know more about the man.

Were we to know more we might want to model ourselves on him, and that cannot be done.  We are not him, but ourselves.  We cannot become him, only more completely us.  If there is a model available it is found in the message, and once found it can be fitted to the people we are -- a people living, preaching, and trying to understand what was said or done.  But the man is something else.

I doubt we should hope to be or to act as he did, squeezing out lives into what his might have been.  Trying to act as Jesus did is as impossible as trying to talk or look as he did.  We are not Jesus, except in an analogous or spiritual sense.  Any person -- be in you or me or Jesus -- fulfills himself, sanctifies his being -- by being himself.  Better to let Jesus be the mystery he came to be.

Criticism and Solutions

I don't want to hear how wrong the Church has been, or even how wrong it may be now.  Why must we think and act as though criticism were a solution to the Church's problems?

Love That May Not Be Love

Love that remains intellectual may not be love at all.

What Lent Is and Isn't

I doubt God is impressed by denial or penance.  But even if he were, I doubt he would look forward to a Lenten season that is fasting and self-imposed sadness.  It is not a time to see how much we can beat, starve, or humiliate ourselves -- if for no other reason than it would leave us too weak to celebrate Easter.  And maybe Lent is not even some of the positive practices we suggest, especially when they have about them an air of self-defeat.  We are not bad people who needed to feel our lack of worth.  Better to make the celebration of Lent the practice of what Isaiah suggested:  releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke, setting free those oppressed, breaking every yoke, sharing our bread with the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked when you see them and not turning your back on your own.

These are not sad and oppressive things denying our Godness, but are instead the love and faith and sharing that should better characterize who we have become through God's sharing with us, his freeing of us to see and value who we have always been.  Such a celebration of Lent, and perhaps of each day, is the furthering of Easter rather than a dreading of our unworthiness of it.

Facts, but Not Belief

There are things tolerable as fact, but which cannot be allowed into belief.

Wishes and Choices

We can have wishes and wants, but not all of them are choices.  Those that are not are not ours to bring about, and to pretend they are, to expend ourselves on anything that is only a wish, is a poor use of us.  The wanting may be fine, but know the limit, investing your time or energy in something more substantive.  If it happens because of what someone else does, or just in a fortuitous way, that is fine and we can be glad even if we cannot take credit for it.  Better to realize we have our choices, even though we might rather have someone else's, and give ourselves to making those choices come true.

Being Rather Than Doing

If doing or accomplishing is the goal there is movement without arrival since each accomplishment is the attainment of an interim objective, the starting point for a new, or continued, accomplishing.  This leaves little room for satisfaction.  If instead, being -- rather than doing -- is the focus, we can allow completeness at every stage of the process.

Time Spent Waiting

For so many life is ended before it is over.  There is time left but no inclination to use it, and so they wait.