A ride home on Christmas eve

It was dark. We were hungry. Mom decided we would eat without my dad.

I was around 6 years old that Christmas eve. The traditional Slovak dinner was prepared — mushroom soup and pierogi. My mom, my younger brother and I had been waiting for dad to get home so we could eat as a family.

The waiting part was no surprise.

My dad served as a paratrooper in the Korean war. He was wounded during a mission. The experience changed him. He brought home demons from the battlefield.

The demons emerged during the holidays. My dad would get off work at a marketplace in downtown Cleveland and head across the street to a tavern with co-workers. The co-workers would have a holiday drink and go home; my dad would stay and drink, trying to drown those demons.

Meanwhile, we were home waiting. It was dark. We were hungry. We ate without him. After supper, my brother and I got into our new pajamas. We got new PJs for Christmas every year, the kind with footies and cool designs like race cars or superheroes.

Snug in our sleepwear, we sat on the couch and waited. Mom was anxious, afraid that something bad had happened.

A light in the darkness

Finally, two headlights illuminated the darkness. We looked out the front window. We could see a car, but it wasn’t my dad’s car. There were two silhouettes in the front seat — a driver and a slumped-over passenger.

The slumped-over passenger? My dad. Someone had given him a ride home.

The driver helped my dad walk up the driveway. When my mom opened the door, we saw both figures in the light. The man who drove my father home? A black man.

I mention his race because it’s relevant. We lived in an ethnic neighborhood on Cleveland’s east side. There were no black people in my neighborhood. Many people in my neighborhood wouldn’t welcome a black person to their door. This was the 1960s. The civil rights movement was in full swing. There was much racial tension in cities like Cleveland.

This man had great courage coming to my house, not knowing how he would be received.

After they got my dad inside, my mom invited the man to stay and eat – her way of saying thanks. He had done enough already and could have just left, but instead he graciously accepted. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with him. I’m guessing it’s the only time in his life that he had pierogi and mushroom soup.

After he ate, the man wished us Merry Christmas and went off into the night.

Embodying the light

Years later, I asked my mom about that night. The man told her that he knew my dad, saw him at the bar, realized he was in no condition to drive, and decided to get him home safely.

The man could have found any number of legitimate reasons to avoid getting involved. It was Christmas eve. He’d be putting someone drunk into his car, risking a mess. He didn’t know my family and whether we would welcome his gesture or even appreciate it. Besides, my dad would probably just get drunk again and be in the same predicament, so what’s the point?

Why bother with him?

Instead of walking away, the man thought about how my dad could get behind the wheel and kill himself, and maybe someone else, too. The man could do something about it, so he did.

He changed everything about my life, more than any of us can ever know.

Months later, my dad recognized that his drinking was a problem. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and courageously transformed his life, dealing with those demons in a healthier way. My family had many good times together over the years, times we might not have received if not for that courageous man on Christmas eve.

And who knows how many other families were affected that night? Many people were on the road. How many other lives and other families did the man save?

Plus, my dad later became an AA sponsor, helping others get the second chance he got because of a ride home.

One choice changed everything

At Christmas, we hear readings about light shining in darkness and God with us in our messiest and darkest moments, never giving up on us. The Christmas message both comforts us and challenges us to be the light and embody that Love more fully into the world, just as the man did for our family on a very messy and dark Christmas eve so long ago.

I never saw the man again. I’m thankful for what he did and for what he taught me. He showed me how race and other differences need not divide us. Love knows no boundaries. And light is there for us in the darkness, trying to shine through us.

He could be alive today, totally unaware of how his kindness that long-ago night is still remembered and treasured. Every Christmas eve, I pray for him and for the courage to be a little more like him.

Maybe you could, too.

Emerging from our trenches

The world was at war during Christmas 1914. All sides were dug in, within sight and smell of each other from the trenches where they lived and died.

Religious leaders called for a holiday truce: For God’s sake, stop this insanity! Act like children of God!

Many did. Thousands of British, French, and German troops left their trenches, met in no-man’s-land, shook hands, and decided to stop killing each other.

They sang Christmas carols. Shared chocolates and cigarettes. Played soccer with makeshift balls. Lovingly retrieved worn, precious photos of family from their inside pockets and shared them with each other.

This is my family! Aren’t they wonderful? I miss them so. All I want now is to be with them. Do you have a picture of your family? Wow, they are precious too!

Look at them. Look at us. We have so much in common. Why are we even fighting?

Those are dangerous questions to ask during war. When you realize the person in the other trench is just like you, it’s impossible to want to kill them.

The truce lasted weeks. Commanders ended it by threatening those who had stopped fighting, but the questions lingered.

What are we doing here? Why are we fighting? Isn’t there a better way?

A better way

War is a constant in human history, our original sin in many ways. It snuffs out precious lives and turns what we’ve built together into rubble.

And for what? All we get is more death and rubble followed by more war. Our faith is meant to lead us a different way, away from death and mutual destruction to life and mutual healing.

We are created to be makers of peace.

Blessed are the peacemakers, we’re reminded, for they are acting like God’s children, unlike those who engage in nonstop conflict. Conflict is complicated but the way out is clear. We need to trade our love of war for a commitment to make peace.

How to do it?

First, we stop glamorizing war. War is always the ultimate human failure — God’s children killing each other because we refuse to get along. Noble and courageous acts are done during wars, but war itself is never noble or courageous.

Rather than choosing sides, we need to choose right actions. Do unto others as we’d have done to us. If you don’t want this done to you, then don’t do it to anyone else under any circumstance. We mustn’t respond to evil with evil.

Second, we must address the injustices and the lies we tell about one another that prolong conflict from one generation to the next. War never just happens; it’s the inevitable result of an us-against-them mentality that produces injustice.

We need to be aware of how God’s children are being mistreated and work to change the conditions that plant the seeds for the next conflict. We need to stop seeing others as less than human and recognize the image of God in them.

Which leads to the third point: We must break the cycle of a bomb for a bomb, a bullet for a bullet, a grave for a grave. We must move beyond grievance and revenge.

War is always the ultimate failure

When apartheid was upended in South Africa in 1948, Archbishop Desmond Tutu led a Truth and Justice Commission that sought to cut off the hostilities and create a chance for healing.

Those who presided over apartheid wanted amnesty without having to acknowledge their grievous wrongdoing. Some of those who had been oppressed wanted vengeance instead of reconciliation.

Tutu and Nelson Mandela chose a different way.

The Truth and Justice Commission urged those who had caused the oppression to acknowledge it and seek forgiveness. Those oppressed were urged to listen and try to forgive.

They did. Healing occurred. A new way was possible, a way of peace.

That’s how the cycle is broken: truthfulness and forgiveness. Leaving our trenches. Sharing our stories and our photos. Acknowledging we’ve hurt each other. Remembering we are more alike than different.

Accepting the divine summons to live together as one family.

Making peace involves putting down weapons, listening to each other, acknowledging we’ve hurt each other, seeking forgiveness, and working to settle our differences without mutual destruction.

Is that approach delusional and unrealistic? No. Thinking that another war will finally end war is delusional and unrealistic. Insisting violence will bring peace is delusional and unrealistic.

Make peace or dig graves? Share precious lives or hide in deathly trenches? Build healing community or reduce God’s world to rubble yet again? It’s time to choose.

What are we doing here?

Giving to all who ask

The first snowflakes of the season drifted through the October air as we handed out candy for Halloween last night. I thought back to the many times we wore winter coats over our costumes in Cleveland for Trick or Treat.

On this cold night, something else very familiar was in the air.

Youngsters – some braving the cold in costumes, others keeping warm in coats and caps – approached the driveway, yelled “Trick or Treat” and said “Thank you! Happy Halloween!” once the bags of gummy worms and chocolates were dropped in their bags.

Their unchilled gratitude reminded me of one of my most memorable Halloween visitors, a few years back.

On that much warmer night, a young girl dressed in a frog costume toddled toward the house. Her eyes were wide, her gait uncertain. Her parents said it was her first time trick-or-treating.

So precious!

I smiled, told her I liked her costume, and plopped a gift into her bag. She looked down at the snack-sized candy bar and then back up at me, unsure how to respond.

Her parents told her to say “thank you.” She did. And off she toddled, trying to wrap her brain around this unusual night.

This isn’t how things normally work in our world. It’s a glimpse of how they should work far more often.

People don’t usually dress as frogs. And people don’t usually smile at every stranger who comes their way and then give them something with no strings attached.

The coolest part of Halloween – besides the costumes and the decorations and the pumpkins and the stories – is how we set aside a night to celebrate unconditional sharing.

No means testing for one night

We give to all who ask of us. Everyone who asks, receives. Nobody is turned away. We don’t judge whether someone is more deserving or less worthy. No one asks a child what they’ve done to earn their treat – well, I hope not, anyway!

For one night, we put aside our means-testing mentality that assumes people don’t deserve what they’re about to get, our judgements that this person is less deserving than me. Instead, we welcome them just as they are.

Do they have plenty of candy at home already? Can their parents afford the best chocolates? Or is this child from a home where three meals a day is an unfulfilled wish?

We put aside judgement and just give.

And everything is freely given – no fine print, no hidden agenda. Everyone is accepted and welcomed, regardless whether they’re a young child in a frog outfit or a teenager who has outgrown costumes but still likes to get treats.

This is us at our best. This is what we are called to be more of the time.

It’s too bad that we don’t operate this way more often. We waste so much energy creating standards of worthiness and judging who meets them and who falls short. We reward those who meet our arbitrary measures and deny those whom we deem unfit.

Put aside judgement and just give

I know one person who doesn’t celebrate Halloween because they think that handing out candy teaches young people they can get something for nothing. They see it as a bad life lesson.

I see it as a reminder of grace.

Grace can’t be earned or owned, only accepted and shared. Our next breath, our next heartbeat, our next moment of love is handed to us with absolutely no merit on our part. They’re just plopped right into our bag.

Many people — yes, including self-described religious people — reject grace. They refuse to believe that each of us is a divine charity case.

To be honest, there’s part of each of us that hates our divine dependence. We’d rather live with the illusion that we merit and deserve all we have. We prefer the delusion that we’re self-sufficient and we somehow earned what we’ve actually been handed.

How do we respond to grace?

We recognize all we’re given and then turn to the Giver and say, “Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” And then we go and do the same.

Just as grace fills our bags to overflowing, we fill each other’s bags. That’s how this works. We are meant to give generously and receive gratefully, enclosing a bit of grace inside each wrapper.

So, where were we?

It’s been a while since you’ve seen a new post here. A few have been recycled, but nothing truly new.

The reason: For a long time, I didn’t know what to say. Perhaps you, too, have felt the same way in recent years. You couldn’t find the words for what’s going on in our society, in our world, in our religious malpractice.

What, exactly, do you say in such muddled times?

We’ve all been through a storm of pandemic worry and global divisiveness. We’ve had to reinvent our lives repeatedly. Stress and uncertainty leave us traumatized and exhausted on many levels.

No surprise that some have taken advantage by turning us even more against each other, reckoning they can prosper off the fog of our political, religious, cultural, and military wars. They’ve gained money and power off conflict and division; they’ll stoke its flames again and pocket the profit.

How do we respond without contributing to the conflict? Can we be more than just another voice in the echo chamber?

For the longest time, I had no idea. You have to know what you want to say before you can say it, and often I was speechless.

More than another voice in the echo chamber

Finally, I read about how those who guided us through dark times in history managed to find a way and become lighthouses that helped others follow. They understood the power of words and actions working in tandem.

They spoke and acted prophetically, not only calling out the misuse of religion and power and resources but also presenting the vision of a better way we can go.

They avoided getting trapped in pointless back-and-forth with those who prosper from conflict and want more of it, or with those who misuse power for personal gain rather than the common good, or with those who pervert religion into a scandalous cover for abominable behavior.

They called those things out, yes, but then they spent most of their words and actions embodying a different way. They offered a new vision. They named what is good and gave it new breath with their words.

And there is the answer.

Martin Luther King, Jr., put his dream into words, sacrificed to establish it, and invited people of goodwill to join in the work of building it.

“So often the church, in our struggle, had been a taillight rather than a headlight,” he said, speaking of his faith tradition. “The church had so often been an echo rather than a voice.”

Too often, people of goodwill are a dim light looking backward into the darkness instead of a high-beam headlight showing a way forward. A familiar echo instead of a fresh voice.

We need to find our voice — you and me — and use it to advocate and build something better. Our words can be a map through the wilderness in which so many have become lost.

Not everyone will follow, but enough shall, and that will make a difference. It’s always been that way.

Enough to make a difference

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who helped lead South Africa through the darkness of apartheid, put this way: “The world is often a difficult place full of fear and anger and suffering. But it is important to see that love and joy also fill our world.

“I’m asking you to help us show that our world is not beyond hope. Anger, fear, and despair – No! These will not have the last word.”

Instead, let your words flow into our struggling world in need of direction. Send your words of reconciliation and peace, goodness and possibility, love and forgiveness into hearts in need of healing and mending.

Because these words – and the people who embody them – are what have remade the world many times already. They’re the only things that can do it again – not endless back-and-forth argument, but a language that helps us see someplace different and shows us how to get there.

Let your words be that map.

A replacement theory: Love for hate

Ruth Whitfield was headed home after visiting her husband of 68 years at a nursing home. Can you imagine what the two of them talked about that day – so many memories!

On the way back, the 86-year-old woman stopped at a grocery store in her Buffalo neighborhood.

Andre Mackneil was there, too, picking up a cake for his son’s third birthday celebration. What a wonderful day for that family, right?

Katherine Massey, a 72-year-old former writer for the Buffalo News, also was getting groceries. Nearby was Pearl Young, 77, who ran a food pantry in the predominantly Black neighborhood for 25 years.

Pearl embodied the gospel message of feeding the hungry and caring for the poor. She was Jesus incarnate.

She was about to be gunned down.

In another aisle was great-grandmother and cancer survivor Celestine Chaney, 65, shopping with her 74-year-old sister. Also in the store: 62-year-old Geraldine Talley, 32-year-old Roberta Drury, and 52-year-old Margus Morrison.

Watching over them was Aaron Salter, 55, a retired Buffalo police officer working as a security guard.

Making trips between store and the parking lot was church deacon Heyward Patterson, 67, who helped people board a shuttle for those without transportation. Earlier, he fed people at a soup kitchen.

Wonderful, beautiful, inspiring people. People of deep faith. People of great love. People of such decency and goodness and kindness. People who made an impact on many lives and their community.

The kind of people our faith celebrates. The kind of people who remind us what we can be. The kind of role models we should tell our children to emulate.

In minutes, all were shot dead by Payton Gendron, an 18-year-old white man who perceived all of them as a threat because of the color of their skin.

He, too, was a victim of the poison offered so readily and convincingly by so many in our society – people in politics, media, and culture-war religion. Another life ruined by the flames of hate devouring our society.

Just the latest.

In every generation, opportunists fan the flames of hate until they’re white-hot. When hate is acted out, we focus on the weapons involved, and rightly so; America is uniquely defined by guns and the carnage they produce daily.

But our attention can’t stop there. It needs to go deeper. It must start with identifying and challenging the hate that sows fear and impregnates violence throughout our communities.

Choosing love over hate

We must push back against the hate that tells people to fear anyone who is different. The hate that urges people to arm themselves because “those people” are dangerous – those Black people, those Jewish people, those Muslim people, those gay people, those trans people, those Asian people, those Mexican people, those immigrant people, those doctors and teachers and scientists, and on and on.

Hate that says “those people” are out to get you, replace you, destroy your way of life. You must protect yourself. Stop them. Keep them away. Get them before they get you.

Hate that also says: Don’t get to know any of those people we’ve labeled a threat. Don’t listen to the stories of a long-married couple or a man picking up a child’s birthday cake – you know, people just like you.

Don’t hear their stories because you might realize you’re being told lies about them. Don’t let your children learn about any of this because they might start seeing through the lies, too.

Keep the lies and the lines in place. Feed the fear. Fan the hate.

At church last Sunday, we shared the stories of those gunned down in Buffalo. We mustn’t forget their stories, nor the hate that told so many lies about them.

But remembering them isn’t enough.

Our society is awash in people peddling hate for personal gain. They pollute our politics, our airwaves, our social media, and yes, even many pulpits with their us-against-them poison that produces these atrocities.

Stopping the poison

We mustn’t ignore the hate being circulated. We can’t be silent about the evil being promulgated. Nor can our response be limited to words alone.

We need to lovingly and persistently call out those who inject this poison into our world. Turn them off. Vote them out. Hold them responsible when their inciteful words have the intended effect.

Our faith calls on us to not only reject the ideology of hate but to work collaboratively to protect all God’s children and build communities where all are treated equally as God’s beloved.

Places where the divine image is seen in all, not only a select few. Where loving lives are celebrated, not desecrated. Where the peddlers of poison are turned off and turned away.

Where hope-filled, faith-filled and love-filled people — like those at the supermarket — partner with God and put their lives into in the redemptive work of replacing hate with love.

(Information about the shooting victims comes from The Associated Press and media outlets in Buffalo.)

Seeing our belovedness in sanitized ashes

On the first Sunday of Lent, we discussed the story of Jesus hearing God’s voice calling him beloved before going off by himself to make choices based on that belovedness.

Then, everyone was invited to come forward for ashes.

I know – in most churches, those got distributed the previous Wednesday. It’s not practical for our church, which meets in a YMCA that is busy on Wednesday nights just like many of our church members.

So, this year we reverted to the original practice of starting our Lent on a Sunday. We called it Ash Sunday.

The palm branches from our virtual, pandemic service a year earlier were burned into a gritty, ashy pile. Instead of blending in a few drops of oil for lubrication, we use hand sanitizer to make the ashes stick and avoid germs.

Folks in our church come from different denominational backgrounds. Some are familiar with Lent and ashes; others have never experienced the centuries-old practice.

On this day, everyone is invited to come forward and choose where Lent’s message will be traced. If they leave their arms down, the ashes will go on their forehead. Or they can present the back of a hand to be marked with a cross.

Made from the same ashes and love

I sink my right thumb into the wooden bowl holding the ashes and scrape out a small load. I make eye contact with the person in front of me and greet them by name as I reach my ash-blackened thumb for their forehead or hand.

“Remember you are God’s beloved,” I say, “made from the same ashes and love as everyone and everything else. Keep living your precious life in this love.”

Remember your belovedness. Relax into it. Embrace it. Let it transform how you look at yourself, at others, and at all creation. Live in this connective love.

The ashes remind us of two defining truths that need to be revisited not only during Lent but throughout our lives daily.

First, they remind us that life and love are unlimited – how could they be otherwise? — but this phase of unending life comes with a shelf life. It’s the most precious gift we receive. What are we doing with this part our precious life?

Second, the ashes remind us of our connection to everyone else and everything else that God has made. The beautiful, poetic creation story describes God scooping ashes and dust from the earth – our umbilical cord to the rest of creation — and breathing divine life into us.

Then God makes us one from the other, locating our precious lives within a sacred and universal mutuality. All is done out of love. Everything pulsates with this eternal breath of life.

Remember you are God’s beloved … and so is everyone else. You have sacred life within you … and so does everything else. Now, go live in that love. Try to live gratefully, graciously, generously, lovingly, sacrificially, joyfully. Go and nurture the breath of God in all.

Remember …

Some members of my church had other commitments on the first Sunday of Lent. When they expressed disappointment at missing out on the ashes, I was tempted to respond: Well, maybe next year.

Then I thought: Why not next week, too?

So, for the second Sunday of Lent, we shared ashy blessings again. Those who couldn’t be there the previous week were invited to come forward. Those who had already received ashes were invited to come up for seconds and another blessing – there is no limit!

They came forward to hear their name and receive Lent’s everlasting reminder:

You are God’s beloved, made from the same ashes and love as everyone else and everything else …

A communion of dust

(Photo by gocyclones@creativecommons.org)

Watching the horrific images from Ukraine – buildings and people and communities turned into dust – pulls us more deeply into the message of a day focused on ashes.

Some faith communities use ashes to open Lent, a season of trying to do better. In a skin-on-skin way, the tracing with ashes reenacts two foundational truths.

First, the ashes remind us life is the greatest gift, freely given to each of us. It’s meant to be savored and celebrated and shared gratefully, generously, and sacrificially.

Although life itself is unending, this phase has a shelf life. The ashes shaped into a cross pose an overriding question: What are we doing with our precious life?

Which brings us to the second reminder writ in ash: Our lives are meant to be lived in communion with God, each other, and all creation.

A beautiful and poetic creation story in Genesis presents the image of God forming us from the dust and ash of the earth, a vivid reminder that we are linked on our deepest levels to the rest of creation.

All is created from the same unifying stuff.

Although the long-ago authors of that story didn’t know much science, they got it right in the big picture. Science details how we are indeed made of the same stuff on our deepest physical level.

We are human. We are stardust. We care connected to everything in our shared dustiness.

Gratefully, generously, sacrificially

The creation story also forcefully reminds us we are connected to each other. There’s no room for strident individuality; we’re made in mutuality.

And the breath of God – the divine force of life – animates everything. All is woven together in endlessly sacred breaths – people, plants, animals, oceans.

On Ash Wednesday, ashes become our reminder and our communion.

We trace with ashes in solidarity with Ukrainians and all who are beset by violence and oppression. We pray for them and work with them to bring more peace into God’s world.

People of many nations, races, and backgrounds are tracing with ashes today, rubbing them into different skin tones as a reminder of our combined work of bringing more justice and less hate into our lives and our world.

The ashes connect us with those struggling to breathe in hospitals and hospices, and with newborns taking first breaths in maternity wards and homes around the world.

The ashes also remind of our connection with the green daffodil shoots poking from the cold ground and the rhythmic pounding of the piliated woodpecker prying a meal loose from tree bark.

Life. We are connected in life. How are we recognizing it? How are we using it?

Life from the ashes, love from the dust

Ashes ground our time of Lent, six weeks of taking a clear-eyed look at ourselves and our world and seeing how we need to repent. Simply, we acknowledge how we’re missing the mark and we try to do better. There’s plenty of room for improvement.

We try to reconnect where we’ve pulled away. We try to live more fully within the love from which and for which we are made. We try to move beyond the attitudes, insecurities, fears and self-centeredness that cause division and pull everything apart.

We’re invited to make small changes that will lead to bigger changes in our lives and our world. As more people change and work together, the world changes in profound ways.

On earth, as in heaven.

From the ashes, may we experience a rebirth of God’s peace, love, and justice in the world. May the dusty reminder of life’s preciousness inspire us to use it more gratefully, generously and sacrificially.

May new life grow from the ashes. May new love emerge from the dust yet again. 

More than dried ink on a page

(Photo courtesy of Jemasmith@CreativeCommons.org)

A dust-up over the Catholic priest who didn’t precisely recite the words for baptism underscores the two different approaches to religion.

In case you haven’t heard, a well-intentioned pastor in Phoenix said “we baptize you” – recognizing he represents Jesus and the entire faith community – instead of the assigned “I baptize you” in the church’s rulebook. A furor followed.

The beloved pastor resigned. The diocese suggested thousands of baptisms performed by the priest were invalid, meaning other sacraments that followed – including marriage and ordination – could be invalid as well.

Because, well, the rules, you know.

It must be pointed out that the Catholic church’s practice of baptism has changed significantly over the centuries. Are those baptisms invalid as well because they deviated from today’s proscribed formula?

And if we say those baptisms were valid even though they differed, why the kerfuffle? Is it about the words, or something else?

Which brings us to the foundational question: Is faith about parroting words, or something more?  Are sacraments about dried ink on a page, or are they about the Spirit living in the hearts of people?

Dried ink on a page

In one view, God dictates – Scripture, doctrines, rulebooks, what have you – and we’re the recording secretaries who write things down, memorize them, and repeat them accurately.

Memorize, recite, repeat.

In this approach, our rituals must be tightly regulated and closely policed, with major penalties for even a small deviation. If we misread one word or substitute one pronoun, we lose points and pastors.

It also bears repeating that Jesus frequently got in trouble for going off-script. Eating with the wrong people. Yes, saying the wrong things. Loving in the wrong ways. Baptism is an invitation into this off-script way of living.

His teachings remind us that faith isn’t about duplicating rituals or parroting words.

Faith is about trying to live in the Spirit of the words – words of love, compassion, healing, inclusion, peacemaking, forgiveness, reconciliation, helping the needy, welcoming the stranger, renouncing power and wealth and self-interest.

Basically, faith is about living in the love from which and for which we were made. It’s about moving beyond the fears and the insecurities and self-interest that separate us from one another and from God.

It’s not about reciting correct words; it’s about living in the Spirit that is the inkwell for those words.

An off-script faith

It’s about sharing meals with those who are hungry, giving a word of encouragement to someone who is struggling, sharing our authentic self with others so they, too, can be their authentic self with us.

It’s about seeing the many injustices around us and putting ourselves into the struggle to right these wrongs.

It’s about seeking and questioning and being open to different perspectives and new experiences of God in every place, in every circumstance, in every life.

It’s about becoming more gracious, more compassionate, more accepting. Becoming a little more in love with God and life, with one another, and with all God’s creation.

A living faith always begins with a “we” instead of an “I” or a “me”. Faith isn’t a solo endeavor. We grow collectively – that’s aim of any Spirit-filled community. Two or more, as the saying goes. An “us” and a “we”.

Together, we create space for people to be their authentic self, share their stories, hold one other in their joys and their struggles, and experience the God of love together. Then we go into the wider world embodying this transformative way of living.

Every moment becomes baptism, bringing us more deeply into the Spirit that washes over us without exception, without word, without end.

When church is deeply dangerous

(Photo by John Morse, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=569761)

The 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., was bustling the morning of Sept. 15, 1963, as the faith community prepared for its Sunday service.

They gathered even though Black churches across the South were firebombed and the homes of their leaders were set ablaze by white supremacists intent upon keeping Jim Crow the law of the land.

As the service was about to begin, dynamite exploded beneath the front steps. Four girls were killed. Many others were seriously hurt.

Why were Black churches so frequently targeted by those defending the status quo? That’s a relevant question for Black History Month.

Short answer: Black churches were accurately perceived as a threat to the status quo. Faith-filled people gathered each week in beloved community, shared the Good News, felt the Spirit, had hope renewed, prayed for justice, and left their sanctuaries to go work with God to change their world.

On earth, as in heaven.

They didn’t merely recite those words to the foundational prayer; they lived those transformative words despite the cost. They went out their front doors to elevate the poor, liberate the oppressed, challenge unjust systems, and love everyone equally as a child of God.

Are we doing the same today in faith communities? How can we do it more like them?

We focus on building beloved communities where people’s physical and spiritual needs are met, and rightfully so. But it’s easy to get so caught up in what’s happening within our walls that we forget our faith communities are meant to be launching points into our wider communities.

“a taillight rather than a headlight”

We’re called to leave the safety of our stained-glass space and do this work of challenging attitudes and systems that treat some as less than a beloved child of God.

And that’s when the work of faith becomes dangerous.

A transformative faith community is a threat to the status quo. It’s always been that way. Jesus’ message — the last are first, the poor are blessed, the rich are living woefully, everyone is your neighbor to be loved – was unpopular then and now.

We’re called to be light for the entire world and salt for the whole earth. Not only are we obligated to help the hurting and the needy, we also are obligated to challenge the injustices that leave so many people hurting and needy.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was saddened by how in this prophetic work, the church has often been “a taillight rather than a headlight … an echo rather than a voice.” He was disheartened by faith communities functioning as little more than social clubs, “more cautious than courageous” in areas where faith ought to lead us.

“an echo rather than a voice”

His Letter from Birmingham Jail was directed to white religious leaders who agreed with his principles but urged him to stop pushing for justice, which was placing them on dangerous ground within the white church circles that provided safe harbor for supremacists.

His response: “The judgement of God is upon the Church as never before.”

In religious circles today, there’s much discussion about where church is heading, what it will look like in years to come, how it’s changing, and what it should do to adapt to the times.

A starting point is to open wider to the love-bearing, reconciliation-seeking, justice-driven Spirit that refuses to be confined to sanctuary or pew.

To follow that Spirit as it leads us out of our safe spaces onto the holy ground around us where there’s much work to be done. To be light and salt where they’re not wanted or welcomed.

To be churches that are considered threatening because they brightly illuminate what many people would rather not see.

Traveling the familiar road

(Photo courtesy of formulanone@creativecommons.org)

Interstate 71 connects the top and bottom of Ohio, bridging the gap between Lake Erie to the Ohio River. For 252 miles, it meanders through busy cities and remote cornfields.

My life has played out on the two-lane road. I’ve traveled major sections of it more than any other highway – nearly 200 times, I’d estimate.

The first trip came when I was only 16 and visited Ohio University for a tour. A year later, we packed my stuff in the family station wagon and headed down the interstate again, bubbling with anxiety and anticipation on the trip from my hometown of Cleveland to my new dorm address in Athens.

During my four years there, I retraced that route many times, visiting home for holidays and breaks. After graduation, I got a job in Cincinnati and made the four-hour trip regularly.

I traversed it for baptisms and birthdays, weddings and funerals, reunions and goodbyes. I drove it as a young single person, a married person, a parent with two kids in the back, an empty-nester, a retiree.

The road hasn’t changed much – it’s expanded to three lanes in places and the rest stops have been upgraded, but it’s much the same.

By contrast, I’ve changed from trip to trip. That ribbon of road has been a backdrop for my life’s journey.

People on the go

It’s almost cliché to talk about our journey, but it’s one of the most common themes of our lives and our faith traditions. Scriptures are full of stories about people on the go: leaving for a promised land, heading toward a manger.

Our faith traditions remind us we’re meant to be people on the move. As Rachel Held Evans puts it: “Scripture doesn’t speak of people who found God. Scripture speaks of people who walked with God. This is a keep-moving, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, who-knows-what’s-next deal, and you never exactly arrive.”

It’s important to travel well, and our faith traditions offer advice.

First, travel light.

In the synoptic gospels, Jesus tells his followers to hit the road and share the good news of love, reconciliation and healing.  He tells them to carry no money, food or traveling bags. Instead, they’re to stay wherever they’re invited and eat whatever they’re given.

Same applies to us. We need to travel light, especially in our consumer society where accumulating, storing, maintaining and showing off our stuff is a priority.

Travel light

We also need to be careful not to overpack other stuff: grudges, insecurities, judgement, expectations, ideas that things should be a certain way. It slows us down and gets in the way.

But why should we travel light? This brings us to the second piece of advice: Travel together.

When you don’t carry much, you’re more open to people helping you along the road. And that’s the whole point! We’re not individuals accessing a common road; we’re one traveling party heading down the road together.

This is the heart of true religion: Love one another and care for everyone because they are your neighbor. We’re traveling together.

Travel together

The famous parable describes a person traveling alone who sees someone bleeding by the side of the road and stops to help this fellow traveler. The Samaritan and the injured stranger complete the journey together to a place of healing.

As Ram Daas puts it: “We’re all just walking each other home.”

A final bit of advice: Travel openly.

Make the journey with an open mind and an open heart. Pay attention to those around us – don’t just walk past. Embrace the mystery, the uncertainty, the surprises.

Travel openly

Don’t fixate on the destination. Let the journey take us places we wouldn’t choose. Remember, it’s about the traveling, not the arriving.

Bethlehem wasn’t a final destination for any of the characters in the Christmas stories. It was a stopover where they met, had an encounter that changed them, and then headed for the road again with a different outlook on everything.

Same for us. Each stop, each encounter, every step should bring us closer to the truth of who we are, connect us with others, and lead us together into the heart of God, which is ultimately where the road wants to take us.