Hard Work

 

I do so enjoy it when there is convergence.  I’m reading a book a good friend recommended called The Hope that speaks of becoming a “sacred activist.”  This is not a book about converting anybody.  It’s a book about acting in the world to make the Golden Rule something more than a pleasant idea.  Then another friend suggested a TED lecture by Jody Williams.  Here’s the link.  Ms. Williams won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her work on banning landmines.  Her topic: real peace takes hard, sustained work.  

 

Last week at Living Interfaith we remembered the words and vision of Martin Luther King Jr..  The essence of his “I Have A Dream” speech was set to music by Grace Lewis McLaren.  She added her own words to his by having the choir sing to close each  verse, “May we share his dream, and work to make it real.”  That’s the essence of it.  Sharing the dream is not enough.  No matter how beautiful the dream, sharing the dream is not enough.  It takes work to make it real.  That’s what “sacred activism” is about.  That’s what the effort to ban landmines was about.  And that’s the question for us.  All of us.  Are we willing to walk our talk?  Are we truly willing to work?

 

In our consumer driven culture, this is no small question.  Are we prepared for hard, sustained work to make the world we have dreamed of for thousands of years real?  Or is a bigger house, a better car, a nicer vacation our driving motivation.

 

I got yet another solicitation from Consumer Reports the other day.  When I was a youth I swore by it.  Not any more.  Consumer Reports will tell you which product costs less and is the best made.  Once that was what I cared about.  These days I’m more interested in whether or not the producer of the product pollutes the water and/or air.  I’m interested in how the manufacturer treats its workers. 

 

John Donne wrote that we are all a part of the whole.  “Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am one with mankind.”  John Donne believed we were all one with mankind.  Are we still?

 

Only if we are willing to work at it.  It may be our dream, but we need to work to make it real.

 

These days, the book I look to before purchasing an item, food, clothing, whatever, is The Better World Shopping Guide.  It was written for “socially and environmentally responsible consumers.”  Think of it as earth democracy.  Where every dollar we spend is a vote for the world we want to live in, and the world we want our children to inherit.  Do you really, as example, want to eat a delicious confection made of chocolate, once you realize that that chocolate was harvested through child labor or slave labor?

 

Not too long ago, we had a service about the high cost of cheap.  What it costs the world to bring us items that we consider “bargains.”  Exploitation of labor.  Massive pollution.  Every dollar we spend is a vote for the world we want to live in.  What’s our vote to be?  Today?  Tomorrow?  Next month?

 

Peace is hard work.  Justice is hard work.  Living a life that says “we are one with mankind” is hard work. 

 

And I do want to share a true joy I had last week, when talking with members of our church.  Several made it clear they were indeed not only willing to work but committed.  They wanted to work.  If Living Interfaith is to be more than a name, we’ll need that effort.  Interfaith is all about being one with mankind.  May we share the dream, and work to make it real.

The Power of Fear

 

In the Seattle area headlines today are two different legal proceedings.  In one, a police officer is facing an inquest.  He shot and killed a wood-carver who was carrying a folded knife.  In the other proceeding people were sentence who gave help after the fact to a man who set out to murder police officers and succeeded in murdering four.

 

I’m a minister, not a psychiatrist.  What I would offer here is something to ponder, NOT scream about, or pontificate over. 

 

My thought is that these two events may not be unrelated.  The officer who shot and killed the wood-carver has testified that he was in fear for his life.  Many who witnessed the shooting contradict the officer.  But, just from reading the testimony, they are contradicting that the officer was indeed in jeopardy.  But what if both sides are right?  What if the officer faced no immediate jeopardy but yet was indeed in fear for his life?

 

There has been a lot of important work done on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for our returning troops.  Surely work has also been done regarding police officers, courageous men and women who put their lives on the line for us, not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but on the streets of our cities.

 

I recall not only the four officers assassinated by a person whose name is not worth repeating here.  I recall also the police officer in her car who was assassinated as she sat in her car, I believe on break.  And there have been others.  And I wonder, wouldn’t most of us, if we were police officers, be in fear for our lives from the moment we went on duty?  And I wonder if enough thought and effort has gone into dealing with PTSD amongst our police officers.  Has, as example, the culture of the police department, as the military culture did for so long and still does much too often, created a sense of “weakness” or worse, “cowardice” as a label for any officer who admits to feeling the stress of his or her occupation?

 

I wish I knew.  But it is my hope that those who have some ability to professionally size up the situation will take a serious look at the stress our local police are under and what can be done to help them.  For the difficult fact to face is that this police officer may in truth have feared for his life … at a time when his life may not have been in danger. 

 

Ok.  Warning.  We’re going to change direction now. 

 

On the subject of fear, but not the police, there was an article I read this morning that I strongly recommend.  Written by a Arab-American, it raised a question I hadn’t thought of.  What if the assassin in Tucson this last week had been Muslim?  Nothing else different, still a loner, seemingly unrelated to any particular group, and mentally ill – but a Muslim.  How would the media have acted?  How would much of the country have re-acted?

 

The man who wrote the article states that before the name of the assassin was available he found himself praying that the assassin not be Muslim.  How divided we have become.  How polarized we have become.  No one appears to care what the religion espoused by the shooter is as long as it isn’t Islam.  The shooter has been called an assassin, a murderer, and a deranged man, but the one thing he hasn’t been called is terrorist.  Would that be true if his religion were Islam?  Here’s the article.  I hope you will find the time to read it…and to ponder it.

And the Doorbell Rings

 

It has been almost a month since my last posting.  For those who may not know, I went in for sinus surgery in late December.  I begin to feel almost human again.  And I must tell you I have a new respect for the joy of sleeping!!  For nearly a week I had minutes of sleep only.  The following week an hour or two.  Now, at worst I wake up once during the night.  Ah the joy of a good night’s sleep!

 

But then today, as I was printing off the Orders of Service for tomorrow (Steve Crawford, one of our earliest members is speaking on “Celebrating the Non-Holiday: Day to Day spiritual living” and I’m really looking forward to it!!) the doorbell rang.  I’m just back from answering it.

 

At my door was a local pastor, making the rounds and seeing if I had a “church home.”  I told him I did.  He asked about it and I talked to him about Interfaith.  He nodded politely but then asked about Jesus’ words that said that he was the way.

 

I told him I agreed with Jesus word’s.  Jesus spent his life preaching love and compassion and justice for “even” the poorest among us.  I said I agreed that that indeed is “the way.”  But that it’s also the way urged in Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and so many other spiritual paths.

 

He then told me that clearly I disagreed with Jesus (and again he quoted chapter and verse, something I cannot do) when Jesus said he was the only way to heaven.  I said I agreed with Jesus, as I interpreted Jesus’ words to refer to his loving ministry.  I reminded him that Jesus could be looked at as an early practitioner of Interfaith in his dealings with the Samaritans, and that I agreed that the only way for the Kingdom of God to be here among us is if we will practice the love, compassion and engagement with everyone that Jesus modeled. 

 

He politely told me that anyone who didn’t believe in Jesus was going to hell … as stated, he believed, in Scripture. 

 

I, I hope with equal politeness, told him that I thought a Christian of love and compassion was on the right track, as I believe as Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Humanist or any other of love and compassion is on the right track.  And that our beliefs may not be all that helpful if, whatever our spiritual path, they cause us to act without love or compassion.

 

He wished me well. I wished him well.  And he turned and left.

 

It was after I closed the door that I had one of those “coulda, shoulda, woulda” moments.  What I would have liked to have left him with was that while I had told him what I personally believe, the fact that he didn’t believe what I believed did not mean he wasn’t welcome at Living Interfaith.  All that would be asked is that he truly respect the beliefs of others.