Anger and Hate

     Years ago I had someone come to me for pastoral care and counseling who was in a great deal of pain.  She told me that she had been the victim of a predator, someone who found her in a time and situation of crisis or trauma and, in the guise of offering care, took advantage of her.  When she finally found the strength to end the predatorial and abusive relationship, the predator sought revenge by turning others she cared about against her.  Because the predator was a charming and likeable person, no one even asked for her side of the story.  It seems people mistakenly believed that the one doing the talking must be the one telling the truth, when instead, he was doing the talking because he was trying to preemptively spread his lies before the truth could come out. She became a pariah as the people around her chose to believe the person they preferred without ever asking her side or seeking her truth in what had occurred.  She was thereby victimized twice by the predator: first by the initial relationship, and second by the damage to her other relationships. She told me that she had come to see the predator as evil, and she hated him with a white hot hate that did not seem to fade with time.  She told me she had never known hate before this event, but now it seemed to consume her and she did not know what to do.  

    She came to me seeking help.  As a pastor, couldn't I tell her how to let go of the anger?  The hate?  Couldn't I help her to figure out how to forgive so that the rage and abhorrence would no longer wrack her body and spirit in a way that seemed to poison everything in her life?  

    I passed along the tools that I had: Pray for the ones with whom you are angry the same good things you would want for yourself.  Talk to God.  Journal.  Distract from your anger by focusing on the beautiful things in this life.  Keep a gratitude journal.  Surround yourself with people who will care enough to talk to you when they have questions or are hearing gossip about you.  Choose friends who will be open with you and will believe what you say to them.  Surround yourself with people who understand about predatory relationships, the deep damage they do, the abuse they infict, and the ways they manifest. Meditate.  Exercise. Eat healthy foods. Practice self-affirmations. Reframe your experiences as growing and learning experiences. 

    I don't know if any of those tools helped her in the long run.  In the short run I believe they were inadequate.  She was truly consumed by her anger and hatred, and those feelings were damaging her to a greater degree even than the original predatorial damage.  What she had experienced as harm was real.  But the daily re-living of that damage did more to hurt her.  And while she knew this intellectually, she could not let go of that anger.  She knew she was allowing the predator to continue to victimize her through her feelings, but she could not let them go.

       As I look back, I realize that I had missed an important step with her.  I've said before that I am a firm believer that we have to go through our grief and pain to come out on the other side.  Stuffing feelings down means they usually manifest in unhelpful ways and they don't resolve.  What I had failed to name was that anger is a secondary emotion.  Hate is often a further step removed and is a tertiary emotion that follows anger.  Both ultimately mask grief and fear.  It feels more powerful to be angry or to hate, so we often move to those feelings when we don't want (or don't have the strength) to feel those more genuine but more vulnerable feelings of sadness and fear.  Until we deal, truly and honestly, with those deeper feelings, we will stay stuck in the anger.

     Personally, I don't want to be an angry or hateful person.  So I write this as a reminder to myself, as I reflect back on my parishioner's experience, that letting these feelings pass through us is essential for our own well-being and wholeness.  Not always easy, especially when you've been deeply harmed, but necessary.  When someone hurts us, it is often our own feelings that do more damage than the other person could ever do.  And while working through those feelings is not easy, it is life-giving to do so.

Restorative Justice at the College Level

           For my youngest child's spring break we went and looked at colleges that had interested her.  Without naming names, I want to talk about one of those colleges very briefly.  Most of what this college had to say for itself was very positive and seemed like a good match for Youngest.  They talked about being inclusive and aware, though aparently one of their professors had made an inappropriate comment in a fit of anger that was caught on video and was being shown all over the place.  

           This college also talked about using a restorative model for justice on campus rather than a retributive model.  I've written about this before, but to explain again: In a retributive model for justice, misdeeds, mistakes, errors are dealt with by punishing the person who made the error.  Those who use this method seek revenge on the person, often an escalated revenge of what was done in the first place.  This model has many problems with it, beginning with the fact that punishment simply does not work to effectively change behavior.  In fact, the extremely high rate of recidivism in the United States prisons, for example, shows that the punishment we exact on our prisoners ends up cementing their identity as criminals most of the time.  They then have extremely little chance of changing, doing better, or choosing a different way of life.  We also make it almost impossible for those who've been incarcerated to find housing, jobs, or a way of getting out of that system.  We make them into criminals, even if they weren't actually criminals before.  It is also estimated that at least 10% of those who end up incarcerated are not actually guilty of the crimes they were incarcerated for.  Additionally, our retributive system does not provide healing for the victims either.  In our legal system, in fact, our retributive justice system usually ends up revictimizing the victims as they must tell their story in a court of law and have that story attacked and dismantled by lawyers seeking to defend the accused.  

        In contrast to the restributive justice system, a restorative model seeks to understand and provide healing for both victims and those who have done wrong.  There are still consequences for the offenders.  But the consequences tend of be logical or natural consequences: ways for the offenders to correct their mistakes, fix them, look at their own issues that caused the offenders to behave badly in the first place, and invites them to choose to start on a different path.  

       Many of our native tribes (throughout the world!  New Zealand has a wonderful restorative justic program based on the methods of the Maori) have used a restorative model rather than a retributive model with great success.  It sees everyone involved as people not "bad guys" and "good guys" but human beings, all in need of growth and healing.

       Our child development strategies are tending more and more towards a restorative model as we learn that children act out when there is something that needs healing, something that needs training, something that needs help.  It has moved from identifying kids as simply "bad" or "good" into recognizing that all of us are mixes of bad and good and are all on a path of growth.  Many of our schools are also learning and moving more towards a restorative rather than a retributive model.  For example, rather than expelling a child who has done wrong, many schools now work with the child, their family, the victims, and the school system to try to understand what wrong has happened and to do the work to make sure the offenders are not continuing in their behavior.  They are also working more to help the victims obtain healing help.  Expulsion, for many kids, was not only an uneffective punishment, but sometimes was experienced by kids to be a kind of backwards reward.  It encouraged further "bad" behavior rather than correcting what was wrong, teaching more fully about empathy, and helping everyone involved in these situations to heal, grow and do better.  

         So, this college we visited prided itself on teaching and using a restorative model of justice.  It proclaimed that when something happened that was "wrong" that it was explored, analyzed, and addressed individually, working with those who made the mistakes to correct them, to learn from them, and to fix the mistakes rather than to simply be punished, expelled or thrown out as "bad".  

        That's awesome.  I believe deeply in restorative justice and was very excited to find a school that declared its commitment to that system at the outset.

        HOWEVER, many students at the school were protesting, demanding for the firing of the above mentioned professor.  The firing of a teacher follows a retributive model of justice.  It does nothing to correct the problem or even address it.  It does nothing towards healing the victims.  It also simply dismisses the professor, leaving him and his family without income or without a way to correct the problems.  It responds to an error (or even a series of errors) by adding to the list of what is harmful, destructive and angry, rather than offering a way forward that teaches, heals and restores relationships.  It stops conversation, rather than exploring, learning together and working together to truly address the issues in productive and constructive ways.  It also entrenches the professor in a place of simply defending his comments rather than inviting him to do the self-reflection a more restorative process would encourage.  

       I continue to be amazed at the lack of compassion that humans show to one another.  I continue to be deeply saddened by the ease with which people choose to label, categorize and "other" those around them.  This professor stopped being a person to these students.  He is just a "bad guy" now to throw out, another person to be "gotten rid of,"  to punish, to condemn.  It was obvious that for all the rhetoric at the school claiming to follow and teach a restorative justice model that they have not been able to actually instill that value into the student body.  We have a long way to go.

Discrediting What We Fear

 

Psalm 147:1-11

John 7:37-52

 

               Last week we talked about Jesus as the Bread of Life.  And this week we come to another metaphor for Jesus: Jesus as living water.  But this time, rather than seeing a ritual created out of it by the followers of Jesus, we see how those who don’t understand, don’t agree, don’t want the changes and vision that he brings, we see how they react.  And it’s the same as any people react to things that are new and that they don’t understand: they react with fear.  They wanted him seized, they wanted him cast out, they wanted him arrested.  And this was especially true when people around Jesus began to see him as prophet, as messiah.  This was an incredible threat to those in charge.  Remember that the vision and hope for a Messiah was one who would, in a military way, overthrow the oppressors, lift up the poor, bring down the rich and mighty.  So those in charge, who would have recognized themselves as the rich, powerful and mighty had every reason to feel threatened by someone others were calling Messiah.  They were afraid for the wrong reasons, since Jesus was not a military leader, was not going to create change through violence, but through love.  Jesus was about freeing both sides of the coin: and that meant healing and redemption for the rich as well as the poor.  But they did not understand.  And so they were afraid.

               Their response?  Well, their response was to discount what they heard.  They grabbed onto something that they could use to discredit the thing they feared and they wielded it with all the strength they could muster. “A prophet does not come from Galilee” they declared.  “The messiah does not come from Galilee”.  They declared this and held fast to it.  They held on to it because it helped them to feel safe: they could discount what they were hearing, what they were even experiencing, by hanging on to a thin, flimsy and inaccurate statement and making it the center of their belief system.  “a prophet does not come from Galilee” they declared as if this was the most important statement in scripture.  They stood on it as the proof they needed to hang onto their beliefs that Jesus was not a threat and could not change their world. 

               Those in charge, those in politics, have used fear and the discrediting that which they don’t want to accept, that which scares them, forever.  Bryan Stevenson who wrote, “Just Mercy” gave a wonderful speech in which he said that our NARRATIVES have to change.  As he said, the people in power preach “fear and anger” and use those to justify policies.  He went on to say that almost every policy decision at this point in time is based on fear and anger.  None are based on hope, or love, or joy.  It is all fear and anger.  And the thing is, fear and anger are the essential components of injustice.  I want to say that again, fear and anger are the essential components of injustice.  We use it, and always have used it, to justify extreme cruelty, to “forget” that all those people whom we label and discredit, those are our brothers, sisters and siblings.  All of them belong to us.  And rather than fear them, harm them, hurt them, we need to work with them, love them, and care for them.  But until we change the fear and anger narratives, we will never succeed in becoming the world united, the world as one, the world God calls us to create.  Bryan Stevenson talked about the ways we discredit that which we fear.  We discredit people struggling with addictions who need our help: we relabel drug addicts as “criminals”.  We relabel people who are struggling to find work and call them “lazy”.  We relabel people of color as “stupid” or “inferior”.  And we do this because we are afraid.  We are afraid of that which we don’t know so we discredit it.  We are afraid of losing our wealth, so we discredit and label the other.  We are afraid of losing our power, so we discredit and label. 

               When the news started coming out about the sexual abuse that had taken place at Cameron house in San Francisco, our Presbytery reacted with fear.  They tried to muzzle the information, they tried to discredit what people were saying.  They were afraid that the truth and that information would destroy the church in this area, would discredit the church.  So out of our great fear, we tried hard to discredit the voices sharing their vulnerable and horrible experiences.  As we know this doesn’t work.  It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now.  In the process, they revictimized the victims by proclaiming their words as “lies”.  They revictimized the victims by shutting them down and shutting them out.  The church did not behave as a church, it did not act with love.  And as a result of THAT choice, we lost so many of our members.   

               I want to say this, fear is a feeling.  And as a feeling, it is a natural part of the human experience.  It can help us to see where there is danger, and it can help us to make good choices.  But it can also cause us to move into anger, hatred, violence towards others.  And while the feeling of fear is just that, a feeling, the reactions to fear are things we choose and have to choose with great care.  Do we run away, try to discount and discredit what scares us?  Or do we look at it full-on, try to understand and move through the fear into something better?  I remember a quote from the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: “We came here and we tried, all of us, in our different ways. Can we be blamed for feeling we are too old to change? Too scared of disappointment to start it all again? We get up in the morning, we do our best. Nothing else matters…But it’s also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So we must celebrate the changes. Because, as someone once said, everything will be all right in the end. And if it’s not all right, then trust me, it’s not yet the end."

               While it is deeply true that fear is a normal feeling, a part of being human, we have to choose what we will do with it.  Will we remain stuck in it?  Will we live it out by separating ourselves into “us” and “them?” Because when we do, we do great damage.  That’s when it can cause injustice, when we are reactionary to the fear and act it out.  And the deep truth is that Fear doesn’t leave room for anything else like purpose or beauty.  Or LIVING. 

I look at our playgrounds that no longer have the merry-go-rounds because they were too dangerous and are now beginning to remove even the swing sets as “too dangerous.”  And I feel sad for our children who cannot experience these things.  I remember reading an article when I was living in Ohio about an experiment some reporters had done.  They had gotten together and to see if someone could use the ice cream trucks to poison children.  So they got a truck, they never got a business license and they just went around seeing how long it would take for someone to report them as suspicious after they started selling ice cream to kids.  No one did.  No one even checked to make sure they were legitimate.  No one asked to see their business license, but if they had, the reporters had printed up a false one to show folk.  And they published this article, “Ice cream trucks could be poisoning your kids!”  The thing is, it hadn’t happened.  It had never happened.  They just made this up as a story they thought would sell.  Fear sells.  But it also prevents us from living.

               So, what is the opposite of fear?  The opposite of fear is, of course, love.  And love invites us to understand, to listen, to hear, to stay with the other in relationship, in connection.  It is what Nicodemus said today in this passage: “Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”  It invites us to look, to have curiosity, to explore.  It does not cut off or make fear-based assessments formed off of one side of the truth, one side of any story.  And it never makes decisions based on fear that limit, condemn, judge or harm others. 

               In today’s gospel story, fear was still ruling the day.  And so, the pharisees not only tried to discredit Jesus, but when Nicodemus was being rational about the situation, they responded by then accusing him, too, of being from Galilee and therefore to be discredited, discounted, ignored, unheard. 

               Fear invites us, in our wiser moments, not to run, but to listen more deeply.  Fear invites us to explore what it is we value that is feeling threatened.  And then fear invites us to look deeper, to open to other possibilities, and to act in love instead.  James Baldwin, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

               What do you most fear?  And who does your fear have the potential to harm?  What are you discrediting and discounting out of that fear?  And what limitations does that, then, put on YOU? 

               More importantly, what would it look like for you to let go of those fears and instead put yourself in the position of considering the possibility of ideas that you have discredited and rejected out of that fear?  What would it look like for you to put aside that which you fear most to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, with someone else’s view points and beliefs?  What would it look like to stop discrediting those we don’t understand?  Maybe that fast driver on the freeway is not a maniac but is someone with a loved one in the hospital.  Maybe that person who was mean and angry with you in the grocery story was just fired from their job or had a loved one die.  What would it mean to reframe our fears and choose to listen instead, without judgment or condemnation?  What would it mean to recognize that there is always more to be learned, always others to understand, always new ways of living and being in the world?

               I want to end by sharing with you a story.  Once there were two brothers who shared a farm. The older brother had several children and the younger brother had none, but each year they would gather the grain and divide it evenly, each taking half to his own granary.

After a while, though, the younger brother got to thinking that it wasn’t exactly fair that they divided the grain evenly. After all, his brother had all of those children to feed while he had no one but himself. So each night he took to going to his own granary with a sack, filling it full of grain, and carrying it to the granary of his brother.

At about the same time, the older brother also got to thinking that it wasn’t exactly fair that they divided the grain evenly. After all, he had all of those children – to look after him in his old age – while his brother had no one but himself. So each night he took to going to his own granary with a sack, filling it full of grain, and carrying it to the granary of his brother.

Eventually, of course, what had to happen happened. The two of them met there in the middle of the night – and what could they do but fall upon each other, and embrace, and count their blessings for the love in the family?

 

This story shows the opposite of fear: this is a choosing not to live in the fear of not having enough for one self, but the love of seeing the other’s point of view, embracing it, and seeking to care for the other, despite cost to oneself, despite fear. 

It is not easy to let go of fear, especially when the powers that be are constantly using it to their own advantage.  But I invite you to move deeper, to embrace love.  I invite you to remember that fear caused the pharisees to try to discredit even Jesus, even God.  And that fear as a weapon is powerful, but dishonest.  I invite you to remember that LOVE is the opposite of fear, and it is love we are called to embrace and to live out.  I invite you to remember that Jesus overcame fear not with more fear, but with love.  For that we have been created.  And for that we are called.  Amen.

Righteous Anger

 

1/16/22

John 2:13-25

Psalm 127:1-2

 

               Today we hear the story of Jesus chasing the money changers from the temple.  It is the strongest example we have of Jesus becoming angry and acting out of that anger.  And while we know and we understand that his anger was righteous anger, I am certain the people who were using the temple as a market did not feel the same way.  They saw his anger as an action of his claiming authority that he then failed (in their minds) to prove that he had a right to.  They in turn became angry, and I am certain that they, in turn, felt that their anger was righteous.  So how can we tell the difference?  How do we know when our anger is truly righteous or not?

               Anger is, almost always, a secondary emotion.  What that means is that it is a mask, or a cover, for a deeper primary emotion such as sadness or fear.  We may feel that sadness or fear are unacceptable, or “weak” so we move into anger as a result.  Sadness or weakness may hurt more, so that is another reason we move into anger.  When we look at the anger of the crowds in response to Jesus’ anger, we can see that their primary emotions were probably fear: fear of change, fear of being hurt as he was driving them out, fear of losing the income that their marketing in the temple was providing, fear of change.  They may also have been feeling guilt: which is also a primary emotion: guilt that he was calling them on their behavior, guilt that he was pointing out that what they were doing was wrong in God’s eyes, guilt that they hadn’t figured that out, addressed it, changed it themselves.  Their anger was not righteous anger for many reasons, but first of all because it was a cover up of these deeper feelings.

               So again, what is righteous anger?  Righteous Anger, according to many, involves three things: 1.  It reacts against actual wrongs: mistreatment, insult or malice of another.  Injustice towards others.  2.  Righteous anger focuses on God and on God’s concerns for the world.  It is not for one’s self: it is not about an offense towards you or something that personally offends you.  3.  Righteous anger is always self-controlled.  It does not retaliate or lose its temper.  It expresses itself in ways that are creative, that have purpose, and that change things for the better.  It is not destructive, abusive, withdrawing, passive-aggressive, or harming of anyone else.  It is not revenge, punishment or retaliation. 

Jesus’ anger was not for himself.  He was angry because their behavior did not honor God.  He didn’t care about the loss he, personally, would experience, in telling them to stop acting this way in the temple.  He did not focus on what it was costing him to point out their mistakes, their mis-steps.  His anger was righteous because it was inspired first and foremost by unjust behavior, and it was an expression of his care for God and God’s people.   The unjust behavior he was confronting was consistent, was long-standing, and again, did not affect him directly.  These are all signs of what makes anger righteous anger.  And his actions were about bringing positive change to the temple: no longer using it as a market but once again as a place of worship.  And even though it came out as angry, it was still controlled.  He did not injure people or animals in the process of chasing them out.   

I think as people we have a hard time with all of this.  We jump to anger easily in our culture, squashing down sadness, guilt or fear because we see these as weak or they are uncomfortable.  We jump to anger easily as a way to avoid self-reflection, too.  If we are angry, the problem is out there, and does not require us to look at ourselves to do the work within.  Even when we are angry on behalf of another person, our behavior often is retaliatory, punishing, revengeful, and an inability to hear any side other than the one we have chosen to hear is dangerous and damaging to relationships, to communities, and to the people who suffer our rage. 

But we are called to have compassion.  And that compassion has to start with compassion towards ourselves.  What are we afraid of?  What are we grieving?  Change is hard for all of us, and often the thing we fear is simply a change, a change we did not want, a change we did not anticipate.  The more our hearts are broken by something that has happened, is happening or will happen, the more we avoid those feelings of hurt and pain and opt for anger instead.

Parker J. Palmer wrote in  A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life, “There are at least two ways to understand what it means to have our hearts broken. One is to imagine the heart broken into shards and scattered about-a feeling most of us know, and a fate we would like to avoid. The other is to imagine the heart broken open into new capacity-a process that is not without pain but one that many of us would welcome. As I stand in the tragic gap between reality and possibility, this small, tight fist of a thing called my heart can break open into greater capacity to hold more of my own and the world's suffering and joy, despair and hope.”

But the challenge, of course, of coming into that place of openness is that it hurts.  And we don’t like to hurt.  Bryan Stevenson said that fear and anger, however, are the essential components of injustice.  They are the essential components of injustice.  We therefore have to be aware of the roots of our anger, the deep roots within ourselves of any anger.  And we have to be committed to dealing with it directly, creatively, and kindly.  Anger can become a habit.  And it is a dangerous habit to practice.  As Mitch Albom said in, “the Five People you Meet in Heaven” (p141)  “Learn this from me.  Holding anger is a poison.  It eats you from the inside.  We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us.  But hatred is a curved blade.  And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.”

Bishop Michael Curry took on the work of supporting LGBTQ clergy within the Episcopal denomination.  This did not go over well, and he experienced a lot of anger that came his way, anger that people believed was “righteous” because they believed they were speaking for God.  Again, they were not.  They were acting out their own fear of that which they did not understand.  And they were acting out their own sadness over the loss of control over a group of people.  He was attacked repeatedly, but he recognized that his own anger, his own righteous anger, would not be righteous if he was acting out of revenge, out of a desire to harm or punish those who had harmed and punished him.  He wrote, “My only challenge was learning how to receive anger and not give it back in return.  I needed to do something very difficult: to stand and kneel at the same time.  I needed to sand in my conviction, laying out what I believed and why.  And when the response was anger, I needed to learn to kneel before it.  Believe me, standing in self-righteousness is so much easier.  But when you’re facing someone else who feels as strongly in their conviction as you do, anger is totally unproductive.  Actually it’s counterproductive.  You’ve got to create space for the other person.  This is the dance of nonviolent change.  You develop the spiritual discipline of receiving and then letting go, receiving and letting go, receiving then letting go.  This isn’t easy and it’s even harder if the anger is coming at you from people you love and cherish, rather than strangers.  I found it helpful to remember a few things.  First, I wasn’t God.  No one is God.  And therefore, I was not the ultimate decider of who was right.  I could only do what I believed to be right as best I could discern it.  Second, this wasn’t about me, ultimately.  They weren’t angry at me, but at what I represented. … If you know your own purpose, you can stay out of the emotional fray your beliefs may stir up in others.  If I reacted in anger, I would add even more destructive anxiety to the situation.  I knew enough about human nature to know that a sense of safety, not anxiety, is what puts people in a space to open their hearts to change.  Third, I started intentionally praying for (those) who were speaking against me. I didn’t pray for them to change their minds.  I prayed for them as children of God.”

Anger is a feeling, and as such it is not “bad” in itself.  It is there to tell us there is work to be done.  However, usually that work to be done is internal and we have the job of remembering that to be so.  Anger is not bad.  But we must be very careful what we do with it.  And we need to be very aware that most of the time, our anger is not righteous anger.  Remember, righteous anger is addressing an injustice, it is not about you, and it never is acted out in retaliatory or damaging ways.  If we can remember this, it can help us to deal with it in healthier ways.

I think in the end, it helps to remember that all things pass.  We can endure the struggles and pain of today because this, too, will pass.  We can face our demons, look inside, confront that which is hard for us to face, lean away from anger as a secondary emotion and into our sadness, guilt, fear, for what it is.  We can do this knowing that it will not last, and that doing the inner work will move us through the pain more quickly and more fully than the anger block that we set up can ever.  It will do that because the anger is a lie.  It is hiding the real feelings underneath.  And until we get to those real feelings, we cannot heal them.

        I found this poem about change that I wanted to share with you:

Ø  On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness by Arthur Guiterman (forwarded by Gordon)

The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls

Of mastodons, are billiard balls

 

The sword of Charlemagne the Just

Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust

 

The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,

Was feared by all, is now a rug.

 

Great Caesar’s bust is on the shelf,

And I don’t feel so well myself.

 

All of these will pass.  But God’s love will remain.  We can rest in that truth.

So, is there a time for righteous anger?  Yes.  Jesus showed us that there was.  But I think we need to be very, very careful about when our anger is, indeed righteous and when it is “self-righteous” instead.  Does that mean we won’t get angry as a secondary emotion?  We will.  We are all human and we will.  But being able to step back, to own what is ours versus what is not, that is a start.  We are called into community, and community also means that we have to be very careful about how that anger is expressed.  Again, retaliation, abuse, passive aggressive actions and withdrawing should not be options for those committed to relationship, to community and to following God’s call for us.  Will we mess up?  Of course.  But that call to self-reflection will be there to help us once more. 

        Our feelings, even anger, are gifts because they call us to pay attention to what is really going on.  They call us to self-reflection, they call us into conversation, hopefully, with God.  The decisions to act out our feelings: these should take more time.  But even when we act out of our anger, the good news is always that God gives us another chance, more opportunities to learn, to grow and to choose differently the next time.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

Assuming the Worst

       When I was in seminary, I supported myself by working as an organist/choir director for a local congregation.  I quit that position my final year of seminary to do my internship and finish school.  The church I had worked for hired another young woman to take my place.  After she had been there about two months she called me, very upset, and said that she believed the pastor's wife (who sang in the choir) did not like her, was "out to get her" and was frankly just plain mean.  This had not been my experience of the pastor's wife at all.  My experience of her was that she was very sweet, very kind and very supportive.  I tried to tell the new music director that I did not believe that the pastor's wife was acting out of malicious intentions, but the new music director did not believe me.  About a week later the pastor's wife called me and said that no matter what she did, this new young woman was misunderstanding and taking offense.  I suggested that perhaps both of them needed to be talking to each other, maybe with a third person present who knew them both, to help navigate the misunderstandings in their relationships.  I offered to help, but they did not take me up on it.  To this day, I don't know why either of them was calling me about it since they didn't really want my help and also weren't willing to change their assumptions about the thinking of the other.  

    On another occasion I received a letter from someone who similarly was accusing someone else of malicious intent after an event had occurred between them that had also ended in misunderstanding.  Once again, I tried to help them to see a bit differently: I did not think the intention of either was malicious or even unkind.  They had simply misunderstood one another.  

    Finally on a third occasion a letter caused a person to be very upset and to assume malicious intent when, if read with different eyes, the person would have instead heard the support and praise in the letter for what that person had been doing and had accomplished.

    I have found myself wondering recently why we assume the worst of the other.  Why, in each of these cases, was malicious intent assumed?  Why did each of these people take offense and feel hurt when, if they had chosen different eyes, a different approach, a different start place, they would not have had to feel the unintended, un-wished-for pain?

    But as I reflected on these three events, I realized that I had been doing the same with a couple folk in my own life.  A couple folk have been making decisions and choosing actions that I have been taking very personally.  I have been assuming anger towards myself or even hatred towards myself in both cases.  And reflecting on these other stories caused me to pause.  I could see that the women in the three stories above were hurt more by their own assumptions and their own decision to hear offense than the actions that led them to feel that way.  It was very, very clear to me in each case that they could have chosen differently.  They could have heard the support.  They could have heard the caring.  They could have seen whatever hurt them as an error on the part of the other, made without meanness or anger.  They could have had compassion on those who committed the errors, seeing that they were shortsighted or unthinking rather than intentionally hurtful.  But it took my reflecting on others' responses to see the error in my own.

    I've mentioned before that I have a friend who, at one point, shared with me that she'd reached out three times over the years to another friend but hadn't ever heard back.  When I asked about the friend, she said "Oh, yeah.  It's time for me to try again!"  She was not hurt at all that the friend had never responded.  It did not occur to her to assume that the silence on the part of the other was malicious or intentional.  My friend's actions showed me the possibility of a different way of responding in the face of "slights" or actions on the part of others that we don't necessarily understand.  

    Why do so many of us respond by assuming the worst?  Maybe we feel it is better to suffer hurt now, to assume hurt now than to be caught in the unexpected realization of intended offense later.  Maybe?

    When I was in high school I had the experience of a person saying something really mean to me about something I had done.  At the time, I assumed, in part because it was so attacking, they were kidding.  I reacted, therefore, by laughing at the truth in the comment and joking about how I would probably mess up again in the future.  Their response?  Surprise at first, but then they laughed too; and the whole interaction moved from something that was potentially a hurtful fight into a funny, companionable laugh.  It was their surprise that showed me that they had not intended it to be funny, but had intended for it to hurt.  None the less, because I had first assumed, wrongly, only good intent, the situation actually ended better for both of us than it should have, than it would have, and certainly than it could have.  My positive assumptions in that moment actually made things better.

    My take away as I reflect on all of these events is that I need to work much more intentionally towards assuming the best of the other.  I need to do it for them, for the situation, and mostly for myself.  Yes, there is the possibility that I will be caught by surprise and find that the intention really was malicious, that the action really was taken out of anger, hate or spite.  But my guess is the occasional discovery of true unkindness will be less painful, overall, than the many times I have mistakenly assumed mean intent.  This is my challenge for today, and probably for the many years to come.  Changing my mind-set around this will not be easy.  But I have to believe it will be worth the effort.  And again, I think the one who will benefit the most will be myself.  I see the constant joy my friend carries who does not assume the negative.  It is something I strive for in myself as well.

BUT Let Justice Roll Down

 

Amos 1:1-2; 5:14-24

 

Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD.  Why do you long for the day of the LORD?  That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light, pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness? “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.  Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

  

I have preached before on Amos when we did our prophets series, but it has come up again in our narrative lectionary, and Amos is one of the prophets that I appreciate the most, so we are going to look anew at some of these passages from Amos.  I threw in a couple extra verses that show more of Amos than we usually hear.  These are again hard passages, but I didn’t want to simply avoid them because they are difficult.  They show an angry God even more strongly than the original few verses for today.  They show a God who is promising to punish Israel, or the people of Israel for their behavior.  Hard words.  But these are words that call us to pay attention.

        Today’s passage in Amos is saying that God is angry, VERY angry with unjust behavior.  In specific, God is angry with the elite of Israel living in comfort and luxury, while the poor are suffering.  It doesn’t matter to God that these elite go to church, that they offer sacrifices to God, that they PRAISE GOD.  Again, it doesn’t matter that they praise God, serve God, or go to church.  I think this really gets to the heart of what Amos is about. God is saying, through Amos, that going to church, belief, even faith, is NOT what wins points with God.  What God cares about, consistently and fully, is your caring for and taking care of God’s people, in particular the poor and suffering people.  God is angry at the people who are hanging out with other rich people in lofty solemn church services and not caring for the poor.  God is angry at the offerings of wealth lifted up to God.  God wants those things given to God’s people, to the poor, to the disenfranchised, the outcast, the marginalized.  God is also pointing out that these religious, worshiping people are not superior to those around them.  They have become self-satisfied.  They believe they worship the right God, perhaps the ONLY TRUE God and they believe that because of it, they have nothing to fear. 

There are many Christians who take on superior attitudes of self-importance.  WE are the saved, WE are the ones who KNOW THE TRUTH.  WE ARE THE ONES who are God’s true children.  We don’t have to do anything or care about anyone outside of these walls because we are the chosen people of God.  But this passage convicts us.  It confronts this attitude.  To quote Amos, “Are your kingdoms, (your beliefs, your rituals) really better than those around you? .....I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up these people and all that is theirs.”  God says this to US!!!  To Christians, yes.  And to all who sit in pride and luxury while others are poor and suffering.

This is the clear, repetitive, redundant message of Amos.  It is the clear, repetitive, redundant message of all the prophets. 

But then the question comes up, as it did a few weeks ago when I preached on discernment, does God really punish people?  And I want to start by asking all of you.  Did God really cause the Israelites to be attacked, the elite to be sent into exile, the temple to be demolished?  Did God do this?  What do you think?  The question is not an easy one.  If you say, “no, God doesn’t do that” then you have to own that you are saying this despite all the Biblical prophets who say otherwise.  You are arguing against a large, huge chunk of the Bible.  If you say, “yes, God does do this” then you may have to rethink your image of God.  Is a God who destroys people, any people, all good?  And what about a God who wipes out whole countries of people, including many who are innocent, who themselves are poor, or are children, or are marginalized.  According to the prophets and much of the Bible, this is what God does.  Is this the God you worship? 

Ultimately, you will have to answer this for yourselves.  I can’t tell you what to believe, what is the “right” thing to think.  But you are my church family.  And I will tell you how I answer that question for myself.  As always, I am more than happy to continue this conversation with you after church or at another time as well.

I believe that these passages are descriptive of a reality.  That reality is that we reap what we sow.  I’m not saying the world is fair.  Too many times criminal people continue to get richer while the hard working honest but poorer folk suffer.  But I still believe that we reap what we sow as a people, as a humanity, sometimes in grossly exaggerated, horrible, violent ways.  I think about kids who are bullied, picked on, harmed by bigger, meaner kids at school.  Sometimes those victims get angry enough that they pick up a weapon themselves and we have tragedies like at Columbine.  Did the victims of that violence deserve to be killed?  No, of course not.  But they were part, perhaps of meanness, perhaps of not standing up to meanness, they were part of the spark that ignited something that eventually became distorted and evil.  I think about kids who were abused as children who grow up and abuse others in turn.  Again, not a good thing, but what was reaped was sown as the violence continued. 

I believe this happens at the larger levels as well.  In countries where the poor are pushed down and deeply oppressed, eventually there are bloody revolts and revolutions where the oppressed stand up to their oppressors and overturn things.  While the war happens, things are again, much worse for everyone.  There is death, there is mayhem.  Things are bad.  But the fires didn’t and don’t start without sparks.  So too between countries.  When a country decides to be a bully with a self-satisfied superior attitude, eventually other countries get tired of it, ban together and there are wars.  When people of different faith traditions choose to be self-satisfied and smug about their religion being the “only” way, they may convert a few, but I know they generally turn off and even make enemies of many more people than they convert. 

On the positive side, too, humanity reaps what it sows.  A few years ago as I was waiting at a stop sign, I saw a man in a car up ahead of me roll down his window, try to say something to the car next to him, finally jump out of his own car, going behind and closing the trunk of the car next to him, whose trunk had flown open while we were all driving.  It was a small act of caring for him to shut his neighbor’s trunk.  But I found myself smiling at the small act, cheered by it, even moved by it.  That act of caring touched more than the people in the car next to him, for it touched many of us who watched it as well.  It reminded me of other times when people have stopped for no reason except to be neighborly, have offered a hand to help, have by their caring touched many lives in a positive way. 

I’m reminded of a Chinese Proverb:

Where there is light in the soul, there is beauty in the person.

Where there is beauty in the person there is harmony in the home.

Where there is harmony in the home there is honor in the nation.

Where there is honor in the nation there is peace in the world.

Our faith tells us that we are all connected.  And everything we do matters, affects the world.  Our faith tells us that in serving others we serve ourselves, not the other way around.  And I believe that plays out in our psyche as well as on a tangible level.  When we focus all our efforts on caring for ourselves, or even on caring just for those “like” us - who don’t really need the love or the resources, we may have millions, but it is empty.  The thrills wear thin after awhile and the silence that is left is devoid of meaning or love. In contrast, when we reach out with love and care, we may not have millions of dollars in our pockets, but we have hearts full of meaning, purpose and love.  How could we be richer than that?   We are all connected.  When your life is just, so is mine.  When yours is not, mine is empty and uneasy as well.  I believe the prophets described this reality.  They described a world in which the evils of humanity hurt and harm, and the good in humanity also can spread with grace and love.

That still doesn’t answer the question, though, of where God is in this.  Or rather, where I believe God is in this.  I believe that God is angry at injustice.  I believe God is disappointed in injustice.  God has given us the gifts we need to care for one another, and I believe it saddens, hurts and enrages God to see us serving ourselves rather than others.  I believe that we see the effects of that injustice when we look at Jesus on the cross, crucified because people were threatened by his call to love neighbor as self, threatened by the truth that we are connected and that we are therefore called to love each other in the same way we love ourselves and to give up what we have to actively follow Christ.  I believe the cross shows us where God is in the face of that injustice.  God suffers with the suffering.  God cries with the abandoned.  God calls out for truth and justice with the oppressed.

But I also don’t believe that God stays there.  God raises new life out of that death.  God brings hope and justice out of the unjust situations.  Even for the Israelites.  Just a short time after the book of Amos was written, the Israelites were almost entirely wiped out.  But out of that empty place, God, love, justice was the force that raised them again, returned them again, began their people again in Israel.  God resurrects.  God brings life out of death.

Do I believe that God punishes people?  No.  Even if you take a more literal approach to scripture, we have the story of Noah in which God makes a strong promise never to destroy people again.  But still, I believe punishment or emptiness comes, not from God, but it comes, none the less, to those who serve themselves rather than seeking to love, seeking to care.  Fortunately, even in those times God’s promise of new life and new beginnings is there for all of us, every day, in every way.  Let us try in all that we do to seek out that life, for others, for ourselves, for all creation. 

I want to end by reading you the very last part of the book of Amos. 

Amos: Chapter 9: 11-15

“In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent.  I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,” declares the LORD, who will do these things.

 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman

and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,”

says the LORD your God.

AMEN.

Dangerous, angry times

     Youngest and I went up to Old Sacramento on Saturday afternoon to have some mother-daughter time.  We went to the Crocker Art Museum and then walked down to the train museum and wharf to get some ice cream (because in my mind Old Sacramento means trains and ice cream).  As we walked into the ice cream store, we saw a sign in the middle of the entrance that read "Masks must be worn, as per state mandate.  Anyone failing to comply with this mandate will not be served."  We were wearing our masks, so not a big deal.  We walked up to the counter, ordered our ice cream and stepped aside for the next person to order.  Apparently the people who walked in behind us were not, however, wearing masks.  One of the workers (my guess is the manager) said to the woman behind me, "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but masks are required by state mandate within this facility.  Please put on a mask.  I believe I have one I can give you."  After a minute, though, he said, "Oh, I'm sorry.  It appears we have just run out.  If you do not have your own mask, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."  

    I don't know about you, but if I were asked to leave a facility, I would.  I would do it out of embarrassment if nothing else.  But also, I am lacking that sense of entitlement that some people apparently have.  This woman was one of those people.  "Well @#$% that!"  She said, "I'm not going anywhere!"

    She stepped up closer to the counter to order.  The worker said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but if you do not leave, I'm going to have to call the police."

    "You do that!" she said, and then proceeded to call him a list of nasty discriminatory slurs that I will not print here.  She then turned to two of the other workers insisting that they take her order.  The other workers both shook their heads and backed up, frankly looking a little scared.

    The first worker responded by saying that yep, the slur she had used absolutely applied to him, and that as a result he was better at certain graphicly described behaviors than she was.  He then repeated that if the woman did not leave, he was going to call the police.

    The woman responded by approaching the counter and knocking everything on it to the floor, spilling the tip jar, scattering coins, making a huge and violent ruckus.  The worker then bounded over the counter, the same counter that Youngest and I were standing in front of (which we both quickly stepped back from), to move towards her, threatening to kill her at the same time and saying, "Don't think for a second that I won't do it!"  She laughed and ran out.

    Whew.  Situation over.  But frankly, Youngest and I were so shaken by the incident that we did not have the ability to taste our ice creams at all.  

    While it is a challenge for me to NOT express some of my thoughts on all of this, today I am working hard to face that challenge because I don't see that as productive in this moment.  What I want to focus on instead is this: I think the divisions in our country and in our society, the divisions that I saw escalate in that store, reveal a much larger issue.  

    We have forgotten that we belong to one another.  We have forgotten that the person in front of you with whom you disagree is still your sister, is still your brother, is still your sibling.  We have forgotten that we are to be kind and loving to others, even when they disagree with us, even when we don't like what they believe or what they do, even when we are embarrassed or uneasy, or hurt.

    To put this a bit more forcefully: while it takes effort on our part to respond to anger with compassion, this is the job of being an adult.  Having no self-control or ability to respond to anger with a calm and listening presence can only increase the divisions and the struggles in our world.  To be kind, to be caring: these are not easy, but no one ever said that life would be easy.  Just as you can spread violence by reacting with more violence, you can spread kindness by reacting with a calm and caring presence.  YOU have the power to diffuse violent and scary situations with your very demeanor, with your caring, with listening deeply and responding with compassion.

    So once again we have a choice to make: do we add to the pain, anger, and panic of the world by responding in kind when others lose it?  Or can we be part of the solution and movement to make the world better by staying calm, by hearing one another, and by acting with love?  

    We won't always be able to do the right thing.  I know this.  As always, I'm preaching to myself here and I know that it is not easy to respond to nastiness, to hurtful comments or actions with kindness.  It takes practice.  But, for better or worse, we are getting a whole lot of practice of late!  So take it for the gift it is: to practice taking the high road in the face of anger.  People are stressed.  People are scared.  And ultimately, people are just people: flawed and trying to do the best they can in difficult circumstances.  Try to picture each person as your mother, or your sister, or your best friend: someone having a hard day.  You may disagree with them, but you can still love them.  

    If we can do anything to help the current situation in our culture, it's worth the effort.

    That interaction that Youngest and I witnessed did not just upset the manager and the customer.  An ice cream store full of customers and employees were affected by what we experienced.  And while, fortunately, no one was hurt, things could have gotten worse, they could have escalated even more.  I am thankful that they didn't.  But also saddened that it happened at all.  It would have been so easy for either of the two main characters in this incident to take a different path.  The woman could have just left when asked to do so.  The manager could have stayed calm and just said, "I hear you are upset, but we are required to follow the law."  So much could have been done differently.  But it wasn't.  So I'm just taking the lesson for what it was: a chance to think through my own reaction for the next time someone acts out.  How will I respond?  How will you respond?  How will we make this world better together?  

Too Much Judgement

          Over my life-time we have been steadily learning that punishment is not nearly as effective (if it is effective AT ALL) as a combination of positive reinforcement and natural consequences.  We've learned that beating on children, for example, does not improve behavior, but teaches kids to be bullies themselves.  We've learned that natural consequences (you break a toy and then you no longer have it,  you are mean to a friend and you lose that friendship, you spill and you have to clean it up yourself) have a much bigger impact on all of us.  We learn when there are consequences for our actions that are natural.  What children and all of us learn when we are "punished" for things we've done wrong is more to hate, distrust, fear and seek revenge towards the ones who have punished us.  We've learned this, and in many ways we are beginning to live that out more and more fully.  The best parents I know often use mistakes as teaching opportunities, seeing errors as growing and learning experiences rather than as "sins" that need punishment.  But in other ways, we continue to use the archaic and ineffective methods of punishment in dealing with "mistakes".

    With children, for example, we still use some truly ineffective punishments.  I read an article yesterday that went into detail about something I had long ago come to believe: that suspensions and expulsions just teach kids to act out more: they get out of school, the school has made it clear that they don't want the kids there, often the child gets to be home alone while their parents are working, and what kids have learned from this is that the school authorities don't listen, care, or really values them as human beings.  They are being sent away because they aren't wanted.  No one has taken the time to work with them on what went wrong or how to do things differently, they've just dismissed the child.  What child will work harder for those who just dismiss them?  What child will change their behavior when it is clear that they get rewarded with time off when they act out?  It makes no sense.  And studies are finally catching up and showing this to be true.   

    I've also mentioned before that studies also show (see previous posts) that our entire retributive justice system just creates the criminals we are somehow hoping to change by these punitive responses to crimes.  Restorative justice, in contrast, which focuses on natural consequences, healing for the victims and for the perpetrators, restoration of relationships and reconciliation, in great contrast leads to MUCH lower recidivism rates and actually makes a positive difference for all involved.

    But while I've talked about both of the above in detail in the past, I've been thinking about the other ways in which we continue to live out the mistaken thinking that judging, condemning and punishing others is the way to get others to change in the ways we want.

    For example, employee evaluations have, historically, been opportunities for anonymous people to slam someone else rather than effective and helpful opportunities for constructive feedback.  Often, they have not offered helpful critique that allow for growth and change.  And the anonymity of them means that the person receiving the criticisms can not follow through or ask questions that would allow for further clarity or growth.  Additionally, the anonymity of these critiques also encourages normally sane people to take advantage of their "hidden" status to express opinionated, judgmental and often harsh or unkind ideas without recourse or consequences.  Often these are simply the expression of likes and dislikes rather than genuine helpful feedback that would encourage growth.  My own experience with these kinds of evaluations has also been that I'll receive one evaluation with a comment like "Don't talk so loud!" while another writes, "You need to speak up!" or one saying, "Speak more slowly and calmly!" while another says, "You need to be more animated!" Even less helpful are generalizations that offer no specifics, "I don't like her sermons." or "She doesn't lead well."  All of these leave me without any real way to address opposing or non-specific complaints.  

    But even more basic to our current lives is the "dislike" buttons on all social media platforms.  What does "dislike" communicate after all?  It says absolutely nothing that is helpful.  It does not say WHY a person dislikes something.  It doesn't communicate if there was something specific that was not appreciated or if it was the entire thing.  Often people cannot even see on these platforms who it is that said they "disliked" whatever it was.  And more and more I wonder why we have this option.  I have been listening to some incredible music on YouTube lately.  But I always see in these posts a number of "dislikes".  Why do people listen to those posts if they don't like that kind of music?  Why do people bother to be critical and judging at all of a post that may not have been meaningful to them, but which could be so meaningful to so many others?  How are these snap, unclear, and blanket "dislikes" in any way productive, or helpful, or meaningful?

    We are struggling as a country with increased divisions.  I think part of this is a simple failure to communicate with one another.  But a bigger part is that we make quick and full judgments that we don't explain, don't think through and which do not serve those we judge or ourselves either for that matter.  This is a pattern, this is part of our culture, and it seems to bleed into every part of our society.

    There is a reason Jesus said, "do not judge lest ye be judged."  When a society is more focused on judging than on understanding, on condemnation instead of compassion, on tearing one another down, punishing, hurting, seeking revenge, rather than working to build up, communicate, create bridges of reconciliation and healing, then we are doomed to continue these divides that will tear us all apart.

    Bottom line?  We are far too judgmental.  And we are far too quick to "punish" rather than to heal.  Until we get this, until we change, we are heading down a very dangerous path.  God save us all! 

Angry, forgiving, thriving

    I have written often about the choice to be a thriver rather than either a victim or a survivor.  I have also written often that part of choosing to be a thriver is about forgiving, both ourselves and those who have hurt us, for whatever we have lived through.  We are all humans, none of us is perfect, and when we can have compassion, even for those who have done hard and terrible things to us, we are the ones released from that pain.  Our own anger often prevents us from healing, from moving forward, from thriving.  

    I believe all of this, deeply.  And yet, it does not prevent me from having those nights when I can't sleep because of something that happened years ago, some cruelty I lived through, something that perhaps I should have handled differently.  And I'll tell you honestly that when that does happen, my thoughts do not usually tend towards compassion or forgiveness, for myself or for the other.  Usually I envision things I "should" have done differently that would either have been a better fit for who I choose to be, or would have felt more like "justice" towards whomever hurt me.  

    Last night was no exception.  I woke up in the middle of the night thinking of the person who had uninvited me to a party she was having at her house based on misinformation that she, none the less, chose not to ask me about directly.  At the time, like the man in "An American President", I felt that I should not have to defend myself or seek to clarify something to someone who was simply choosing to believe the one side she had heard without checking it out with me.  So my response at the time was just to be polite and accept the dis-invitation without expressing any feelings about it whatsoever.  But last night I woke up thinking about this, which meant that at 2am this morning I woke up angry: angry at this woman for never asking my side, never checking things out, angry that she chose not to give me the benefit of the doubt, angry that she chose the friendship of the one badmouthing me over her friendship with me who chose to keep a private altercation private, angry that charming charismatic males are so often accepted at their word just because people want to be around them, and socially-awkward women are easily discarded in the face of those men, angry that she felt it was okay to just uninvite me.  I was also angry at myself for not naming it for what it was, "So, you are uninviting me?  And can you tell me more about why that is the choice you are making?"  I was angry at myself for not defending myself.  I was angry at myself for not speaking my truth at the time.  To be honest, I'm angry still.  I miss that friendship.  And yet, it ended that afternoon despite the fact that at the time I simply said, "I understand" and continued to smile and be polite and engaged.

    Last night I was not able to get back to sleep.  So I'm writing this from a place of half-conscious thoughts.  But still, as the daylight slowly dawned this morning I found myself thinking about who I want to be in the face of these past hurts and slights.  I've been reading about compassionate communication, as well as how to talk to people about racism/race issues.  I've been thinking about the growing divide in our country along political and ideological lines.  We've been studying together (many of us in the congregation) the importance of not limiting our connections to those we agree with, those we connect well with.  The divides and struggles will continue if we cannot hear one another, cannot learn to be with others who are different.  And all of that has to begin with re-learning compassion, with hearing below the words that are said for the feelings of the other, the commonalities in experience and values, the deeper stories that connect us all.  

    So today, I'm trying to apply that as I seek both to forgive the other and to forgive myself.  I cannot check this out with the person who dis-invited me: we have no connection at this point and I would not know how to find one since we live in different parts of the world.  But I can still listen, listen to the past, listen beneath her words of the time, listen for where she was and what she was feeling and needing at the time.  I hear her desire to have this other friendship, to maintain those connections, at whatever cost.  I hear her trust that I am strong enough to handle the dis-invitation, and, frankly, that I will not reject her simply because she has rejected me.  I hear her desire to believe her other friend and to not have anything that would confront that trust placed in him.  I hear her anger at me for a story (not much of which I know since I don't actually know what she was told) that she has heard that places me in the role of "bad guy".  I hear her need for things to be clear, for there to be a clear "bad guy" and clear "good guy" in the situation.  I choose, then, to have compassion for those needs and concerns that she had, and to forgive her for living out those feelings in a way that hurt me and my family.  I choose it, which doesn't mean that I feel forgiveness or even that deep compassion at the moment, but that I'm working towards that.

    Similarly, I am listening beneath my own choices in the moment.  I did not want to be confrontive or angry at the moment because I did not know how that would play out or if I would be able to heal any breech that caused in the moment.  I did not want to share my own experiences and have them doubted or disbelieved.  I did not know how to speak my truth in the moment and I was afraid of speaking in a way that would have deeper consequences. I was going through huge changes at the time and I could not bear one more.   I also did not want to harm her friendship with this other person and have to carry that on my conscience.  For all these reasons I responded with an acceptance, which did show a strength in myself to withstand cruelty and to even have compassion for it.  And maybe that was a gift that I gave back at that moment.  I choose, therefore, to have compassion for my own decisions at that moment.  I also choose to explore with myself, in the future, whether there is something more I need to do with this situation to heal it for myself.  And I choose to forgive the choice that I made then, learning from it that I need to find compassionate and kind ways to ask more questions, to seek more information, and to step forward into my own truth more often in situations such as this.  Again, I may not be feeling this way right now, but these are the choices I make and that I will work hard to step into.  

    Finally, I am not unaware that there are reasons this scenario was the one that woke me this morning in the wee hours.  I am experiencing something similar with another person right now who is choosing to disconnect rather than to seek out information or healing.  I do not want this, too, to become a situation I wake up from in the middle of the night in three or five or ten years, unhealed, unaddressed.  So I hear in my morning musings a call to look at this situation square in the face as well.

    We "act as if" and then we become what we take on.  Therefore I choose who I will be in this moment.  And who I choose to be is a person listening, a person trying to hear more deeply and more fully, a person seeking for connection rather than broken hearts and broken relationships.

    You, too, get to choose who you will be.  Choose well, dear friends.