“The world is imperfect, yes, but we have a responsibility to future generations to do all we can to make the world kinder and fairer. Whether we succeed in our own lifetime is not the measure. The Talmud teaches that the perfection of the world is not ours to complete, nor our to abandon. We don’t expect to see perfection and we will never stop working for it.”—Rabbi Malka Drucker
In a hurried and fast-paced world where speed and productivity are revered over and against rest and reflection, it is easy to become discouraged and burned out. I know that I have been guilty of neglecting the sacred rhythm of Sabbath rest in my quest to meet my own expectations and those of society and the church.
When we lived in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Denise and I tried to take sacred pauses to simply “be” in God’s presence in the midst of creation. It was easy to do when I often stepped out of the church and had to “wait” for the local elk herd to move across the parking lot on their way from the golf course to Fall River and the meadow. They reminded me to slow down and savor my surroundings.
Today we often see hawks, pelicans, egrets, herons, ducks, and the occasional dolphin when we walk from our apartment to the Wharf and walk alongside the Inter-Coastal Waterway. When we move to our new house in Mobile later this month we will enjoy the beautiful magnolias and azaleas blooming in our neighborhood. We will also enjoy being with the many birds who live in the live oak trees.
What is it that these pause and reflect moments are teaching me? After so many years working and ministering at such a breakneck speed, I am learning to slow down and be more intentional in what I say and do.
I am also learning another lesson that I need to learn and savor every day. Who am I? Who is Michael Moore — Am I a retired Air Force Chaplain? A retired Presbyterian minister? Someone who grew up in Minnesota and has watched SPAM being made? After so many years of being “defined” by my career and calling, I am discovering and savoring who I am aside from all of the “titles.”
I am a child of God. I am created in the image of God (imago Dei). With retirement I am discovering that I haven’t lost a sense of who I am. Instead, I am rediscovering who I am as a child of God. Thomas Merton had something to say about being made in the image of God in his book, New Seeds of Contemplation.
To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name. — Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation (p. 60)
Guess what, dear reader — You too are created in the image of God. You are created to love and be loved. In a world filled with so much fear and division, this message needs to be shared with others. It is done one relationship at a time. Then we will truly live out our calling to be children of God.
The only message I have to the world is: We are not allowed to kill innocent people. We are not allowed to be complicit in murder. We are not allowed to be silent while preparations for mass murder proceed in our name, with our money, secretly … It’s terrible for me to live in a time where I have nothing to say to human beings except, “Stop killing.” There are other beautiful things that I would love to be saying to people. There are other projects I could be very helpful at. And I can’t do them. I cannot. Because everything is endangered. Everything is up for grabs. Ours is a kind of primitive situation, even though we would call ourselves sophisticated. Our plight is very primitive from a Christian point of view. We are back where we started. Thou shalt not kill; we are not allowed to kill. Everything today comes down to that — everything. — Daniel Berrigan source
In the light of the rise of Christian Nationalism some timely advise for the Church of today and for all who call themselves Christians.
On January 14, 1935, (Dietrich) Bonhoeffer wrote his brother Karl-Friedrich,
I think I am right in saying that I would only achieve true inner clarity and honesty by really starting to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously. Here alone lies the force that can blow all this idiocy sky-high—like fireworks, leaving only a few burnt-out shells behind. The restoration of the church must surely depend on a new kind of monasticism, which has nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising discipleship, following Christ according to the Sermon on the Mount.
From Paul Dekar’s book, Thomas Merton: God’s Messenger on the Road towards a New World (p. 100)
You are not what you do, although you do a lot. You are not what you have collected in terms of friendships and connections, although you might have many. You are not the popularity that you have received. You are not the success of your work. You are not what people say about you, whether they speak well or whether they speak poorly about you. All these things that keep you quite busy, quite occupied, and often quite preoccupied are not telling the truth about who you are. I am here to remind you in the name of God that you are the Beloved Daughters and Sons of God, and that God says to you, “I have called you from all eternity and you are engraved from all eternity in the palms of my hands. You are mine. You belong to me, and I love you with an everlasting love.”
(Victor) Hugo stated that peace, a universal religious ideal, emanated from divine law. For Hugo, God’s dream was peace, not war; justice, not oppression; universal prosperity, not the gap between rich and poor that characterized the economic imbalance between the rich and poor in Hugo’s time, and still does. Deploring the immense sums nations squandered on armaments, Hugo urged all countries to direct these funds to the arts, research, agriculture, or science. He pleaded that nations cease to traffic in arms. He advocated creation of international bodies to settle disputes and mediate conflicting interests.
As the audience applauded, Hugo said, The divine law is not one of war, but peace. Lay down your arms. And in that day you will all have one common thought, common interests, a common destiny; you will embrace each other and recognize each other as children of the same blood and of the same race; that day you will be a people, costs directed not to arms but the common good.
Source: Thomas Merton: God’s Messenger on the Road towards a New World, p. 43
This is what we need today… Oh Lord, this is what we need…
I came to believe that heroism is neither being perfect, nor doing something spectacular. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s regular, flawed human beings choosing to put others before themselves, even at great cost, even if no one will ever know, even as they realize the walls might be closing in around them. — Heather Cox Richardson in her Martin Luther King Day Reflection on Substack
“Once there is seeing; there must be acting.”—Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step
Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: “May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fulfill my deepest desire”? But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burnout.
“It may be that the most radical thing we can do right now is to act from our vision, not our fear, and to believe in the possibility of its realization.”—Starhawk
