“So many times we separate from others by treating them in our minds as an object: objects to be used, objects to be manipulated, to be taken advantage of, to be treated unkindly. And the same thing we are doing to the Earth—we are unkind to it. . . . When we live from spirit and we are connected to the sacred and the goodness in us which exists in every human person, when we see that, that’s how we will treat another person, and that is how we will treat the Earth—from that standpoint of sacredness.”—Veronica Pelicaric, “Planetary Community,” The Soul of Nonviolence
Verse of the day
But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members yet one body.
– 1 Corinthians 12:18-20
Voice of the day
We are all one, and if we don’t know it we will learn it the hard way.
– Bayard Rustin
Prayer of the day
God of all, remind us that we are one body working together for the good of each other amid your creation.
“Nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself.”—Philip Berrigan
A mature human intimacy requires a deep and profound respect for the free and empty space that needs to exist within and between partners and that asks for a continuous mutual protection and nurture. Only in this way can a relationship be lasting, precisely because mutual love is experienced as a participation in a greater and earlier love to which it points. In this way intimacy can be rich and fruitful, since it has been given carefully protected space in which to grow. This relationship no longer is a fearful clinging to each other but a free dance, allowing space in which we can move forward and backward, form constantly new patterns, and see each other as always new.
Currently I am reading a book that was recommended by a friend from the International Thomas Merton Society. David Carlson’s book Peace Be with You: Monastic Wisdom for a Terror-Filled World takes a look at the September 11, 2001 attacks ten years after that day. It is an intriguing reflection on that day from the perspectives of monastics (women and men) in the US who shared their stories with the author.
Carlson shares some of the writings of Thomas Merton and he himself notes, as I have before on this blog, how prophetic Merton’s words from the 1960s were in 2011 and I’d imagine he would say still are today.
He explores Merton’s description of the Cold War as a mirror of hell. Merton wrote the following in New Seeds of Contemplation (p. 123):
Hell is where no one has anything in common with anybody else except the fact that they all hate one another and cannot get away from one another and from themselves. They are all thrown together in their fire and each one tries to thrust the others away from him with a huge, impotent hate. And the reason why they want to be free of one another is not so much that they hate what they see in others, as that they know others hate what they see in them: and all recognize in one another what they detest in themselves, selfishness and impotence, agony, terror, and despair. The tree is known by its fruit. If you want to understand the social and political history of modern man, study hell.
Reflecting on Merton’s words as I look at the world around me and my own internal wrestling with hatred and fear, I pray that I can believe, as Merton stated so eloquently on p. 296 of New Seeds, If we believe in the incarnation of the Son of God, there should be no one on earth in whom we are not prepared to see, in mystery, the presence of Christ.
That’s a pretty tall order and yet I am compelled to open my own eyes, as challenging as it may be, and see the presence of Christ in my neighbor and even my enemy. I invite you, dear reader, to join me as we seek to make a difference in this world that is so filled with hatred and fear.
Creating space for the other is far from an easy task. It requires hard concentration and articulate work…. Indeed, more often than not, rivalry and competition, desire for power and immediate results, impatience and frustration, and most of all, plain fear make their forceful demands and tend to fill every possible empty corner of our life. Empty space tends to create fear. As long as our minds, hearts, and hands are occupied, we can avoid confronting the painful questions to which we never gave much attention and that we do not want to surface….
When we think back to the places where we felt most at home, we quickly see that it was where our hosts gave us the precious freedom to come and go on our own terms and did not claim us for their own needs. Only in a free space can re-creation take place and new life be found. The real host is the one who offers that space where we do not have to be afraid and where we can listen to our own inner voices and find our own personal way of being human. But to be such a host we have to first of all be at home in our own house.
Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. . . . The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adore the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.
“We are in such a climate of hate right now. We’re seeing diminishing acts of kindness and love because fear of the stranger has been so deeply cultivated in us. Breaking down that us-and-them binary is part of the work of love. We need to challenge all the binaries we face and try to see where to find a relationship with the ‘other’—the one we fear—so that we can enact compassion.”—Sharon Salzber in The Work of Nonviolence
In our world full of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture, and country, from their neighbors, friends, and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found. Although many, we might say even most, strangers in this world become easily the victim of a fearful hostility, it is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings. The movement from hostility to hospitality is hard and full of difficulties. Our society seems to be increasingly full of fearful, defensive, aggressive people, anxiously clinging to their property and inclined to look at their surrounding world with suspicion, always expecting an enemy to suddenly appear, intrude, and do harm. But still—that is our vocation: to convert the hostis into a hospes, the enemy into a guest, and to create the free and fearless space where brotherhood and sisterhood can be formed and fully experienced.
“I plan to stand by nonviolence because I have found it to be a philosophy of life that regulates not only my dealings in the struggle for racial justice but also my dealings with people and my own self.”—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Pastor Michael Moore's Blog 