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civility, discourse, freedom, guidance, hard grace, home, morality, prayer, responsibility, thanks, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, United States
Sometimes it’s difficult to get in touch with all the extraordinary blessings we experience as citizens of a free country. If I stay in the peaceful village where I live and don’t access the outside world through the “marvels” of technology it’s possible to enjoy a picnic or a good book while sitting outside in the sunshine. These days, however, in a political climate that is totally untenable, where hate is blatant and civility is often missing from human discourse, one wonders where it will all end.
When I was young, among the many things I learned about morality was the important axiom that freedom is not the same as license; we are not allowed to do everything we want just because we can. We must consider the common good as well as our desires. As the technological age has put us in touch with the world such that we now know what is happening everywhere – sometimes at the exact moment it occurs, our responsibility to the freedom we have inherited has deepened. At the same time, in a country as largely populated and diverse and a society as complex as what we still call the United States of America, we find that freedom can be what some have called a “hard grace.”
There is a tendency in me this morning to lament the “state of the nation” but I know that would be unfair to all those Americans around our country and the world who are responding to crises today, to all those health workers and researchers who are working to overcome disease, to teachers and farmers and mothers and fathers who are teaching their children what a privilege it is to live in this country and how we must work to assure justice for all. It would be unfair as well to people who are gathering in places of worship today – in churches, synagogues, mosques and the wide open spaces where the Holy is found – to give thanks for what we have been given and to ask for guidance as we go forward. I add my prayer to theirs as the music and the words rise in me, giving me confirmation of my gratitude for this country and the life that is possible here.
God bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from above. From the mountains to the prairies, to the oceans, white with foam, God bless America, my home, sweet home. God, bless America, my home, sweet home.
Thinking about the situation of those in the path today of Hurricane Maria, people who will be blasted for the second time in two weeks by devastation, I picked up Meg Wheatley’s book, Perseverance, since there is nothing I can say of any relevance on my own. What I found was a quote from a 14th century Japanese Samurai Warrior. It was not what I was looking for but did make me think. What if it seemed I had lost everything? I mused. What would be left that would make me refuse to lie down and die? The answer focused on inner strength and so I repeat it here as a hope for those whose lives seem empty at this moment and a way to consider hope when all outer hope is gone.
For the first time in over a week, I awoke this morning in darkness. It was 5:50AM and although it was only the light on my phone that allowed me that information, sleep had already fled and it seemed I was being called to pay attention. So here I am awash in thoughts of light and darkness, blindness and sight. Isaiah 29 promises today that out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see while Psalm 27 hurls into the dark a declaration in answer to – perhaps – our own question: The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The psalmist goes on in confidence attesting to the belief that he shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living and urging us to wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted and wait for the Lord. Matthew’s Jesus cures two blind men and I begin to wonder why he warned them (sternly, the story says) to see that no one knows about this – a directive that they totally ignore. Perhaps there is some deep value here about holding things in our hearts.
Today there is a different sound outside my open window, one I don’t remember hearing since the leafing out of the trees was complete in the spring. It’s raining, a steady drenching rain that makes itself known in the sound of its passing through those leaves on its way to ground. Oh, we’ve had showers and the occasional rumbling of thunder with five minute sprinkles but this is different; this is like a long drink of cold water on a hot day. The birds are silent, most likely hunkered down like all of us humans trying to stay dry, but the farmers must be – no doubt – dancing with joy. I’m happy for the farmers and the animals and the tasseling corn. I’m happy for people everywhere who are thirsty and whose water has not been polluted by design or by neglect.
The Sophia Center for Spirituality 