It has been many months of absence from writing here and that is mostly due to the pandemic that has been going on for almost a year. I must confess that a good deal of life has gone on and I have not written about it here. I never want to be political here but I must also acknowledge that as a contemplative Christian, I must be involved.
We have lived through very difficult times over the past year. Many have been ill and far too many have died. Our political world in America has been in disarray for a good while as well. I hear people often say, “how did we end up this way”? I have had the same answer for a number of years and that is this, the Church let this happen.
Here is what I mean, the Church universal in this country (and many others) did not speak up, did not take a stand, did not speak to the church members in ways that would make a difference. The current president is not the illness, he is a symptom of what our country is and has been for a good while. Do we believe that anger, hate and fear are new? No, they are with us always. What we as the church did was to allow such things to lead us as God’s people.
Recall that Eve “ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”. We never really talk about that tree do we? How can God not want us to know good from evil? The picture here is not that Adam and Eve would never “eat of that tree” but that they were not mature enough to do so. Once our eyes are open to that knowledge, we become accountable. When we choose to disregard that accountability, we choose to go our own way, to live life our way.
This is what “take up your cross daily” means: we have to choose each day, sometimes moment by moment if we will choose our way (ego) or God’s way to see life and live it. That is the meaning of the knowledge of good and evil….that ability to make that choice to do things God’s way or according to our own way. As “young people” Adam and Eve were not ready for, had not lived enough life to make good choices, to make selfless choices like doing things God’s way.
And now, here we are as Christian (Muslim, Jewish) people who have chosen not to “know” what is going on, to not be involved. We abdicated living the very life Christ came to show us. We must hold ourselves accountable first, then the Church, and then those who are in office. We put them there and we are responsible.
I cannot leave things all negative, that is not me and not good Christian mysticism because, you see, God is good and so are the people created by that good God. I believe that we must see the God that is in every person. My daughter is a pastor and she ends each children’s sermon with this prayer:
“I see the love of God in you, The light of Christ comes shining through, and I am blessed to be with you, O Holy Child of God.”
Perhaps each of us should make this our life song.
TMM