We must do things differently!

     Today as I was driving back to church after a meeting, I was stopped at a red light and noticed a very skinny and very dirty homeless man who clearly had some mental health issues, standing on the side of the road staring at his fingers and talking to them.  

    Suddenly a police officer drove through the red light, stopping in the middle of the street.  He jumped out, grabbed the homeless man, threw him on the ground, kneeled on his back and grabbed his arms in a way that I am certain broke at least one of them, screaming at him the whole time and eventually handcuffed him.  I swear, if the light hadn’t changed, I would have been able to video at least the end of this unfortunate encounter. I couldn’t believe it. Or rather, I could believe it but the fact that this behavior still continues is utterly baffling to me. This was a 6 lane road, so there were many of us who saw this, but the officer didn’t care and didn’t think he’d be challenged or corrected, probably because, again, this was a homeless and mentally ill person: someone many feel it is okay to reject and to treat like they are sub-human.

    Someone reading this might say that I had no idea what proceeded that and they would be right.  Nonetheless, this man was not putting up any resistance at all, he was laying on the ground crying in pain but not fighting this officer at all. He had nothing on him, nothing with him, nothing that could have been damaging or threatening.  There was no reason at all why this officer could not have talked to him politely, asked him questions, taken him gently in, if that is what needed to happen.

    When will we start caring about people enough to take seriously that this kind of behavior from the people who are supposed to “protect” us does not, in fact, protect us, but instead creates a society of violence, retribution, vengeance and fear? This behavior will never lead us to remember that we are all connected, and that those people we dismiss as “other” and “not worthy” are our siblings: they belong to us, and we have a responsibility to care for them, to HELP them, rather than harm them more.  

    I keep thinking of a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, “When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenging it?”  She said that a long time ago, but have we moved any closer at all to true understanding, compassion, and caring for one another?

    Our Old Testament law of “an eye for an eye” was supposed to mitigate the amount of retaliatory damage we could inflict on the other.  Jesus took it even further, “I say to you, do NOT return evil for evil!”  So many people claim to believe and yet I know very, very few who really want to help those who do damage rather than try to avenge them.

    The truth is that our retaliatory responses make nothing better.  Our punishments do not lessen the amount of crime in our society.  I’ve written about this before so I will not go into the details here.  But this doesn’t work.  Restorative justice DOES.  It goes so much further in terms of changing people for the better so that crimes are not repeated and people can re-enter society better and more able to be well-functioning and contributing individuals.  

    This has to begin with what we see as acceptable responses by our law enforcement to those they don’t like or those with whom they are angry.  Being okay with the way police abuse even those we reject has to stop.  And it has to stop with us.  

Listening

 Listening

Last week I sent an email attempting to schedule a meeting with a group that meets fairly regularly that I’m a part of (not one at church).  I said very clearly in the email, “The only day that consistently does NOT work for me is Thursday.”  The first person to respond wrote back immediately with, “Great!  Thursday is perfect for me!”  Grrr.  They clearly had not actually read my email.  Later in the same day I had a similar situation happen with a second email.  I said something that I felt was very clear and the response made it equally clear that the person who responded had not actually read the email but instead had just answered quickly and automatically to what they assumed I had written.  Equally frustrating.  A little while later it happened again, this time with a text message.  

I believe that we are listening less and less clearly to one another.  Part of this is the frantic pace at which we now move.  Part of this is the need to “get things done!” that means we zoom through emails and texts as things that need to be checked off, finished, addressed quickly so we can move on to the next thing.  Perhaps another part of it is that we are all so stressed with the anxiety of COVID and the problems in our lives and in our world that we simply don’t feel we have the energy to attend very clearly to that which is in front of us.  

At the same time, I think each of us has a deep need, in the face of this frantic disconnection from one another, to BE heard at more depth, with more intention, and with more genuine care.  We are isolated and alienated from one another, what with COVID and with our most common means of communication being through texting, emails, and even the phone, but less and less in person.  We have been created to connect.  We have been created to be in relationship with each other.  We need each other, we need relationships, and we need, deeply and desperately, to be heard.  So when we only communicate in these quick, disconnecting emails and texts, our isolation can be intensified, and along with it the desperate need to be truly heard.  The solution to this has to start with each of us, individually.

I would like to challenge all of us, then, to be willing to take a little more time, to be willing to “get less done” for the sake of deeply and truly listen to one another. Even if it is just a scheduling email or text, the need to be heard remains. I invite all of us to “put on the ears of God” or to strive to  be the ears of God in our listening.  How would God listen?  With all presence and with all fullness.  How are we called to listen?  Similarly with all presence and all fullness.  That will take more from us.  We will actually have to read the emails, texts and listen to the phone conversations or in person conversations with more attention, with more commitment of time and with a deeper intentionality.  But my guess is that we will be blessed by the choice to listen more fully and more deeply.  My guess is that we will find ourselves gifted in the listening through seeing deeper into one another, and maybe even seeing God more fully in one another.  The promise is that when we respond to the call of God, we will be enriched.  Listening deeply to one another is another way to love one another.  And we will find ourselves more deeply heard and understood as well.

Thanks be to God for the lives that touch ours, interact with ours and share with us their thoughts, feelings and ideas as well.  In connecting truly with others and in listening deeply to others, we will in turn find ourselves more deeply heard.  

"I'm just being honest"

     I love that phrase, "I'm just being honest."  I equally love the phrase, "I'm just speaking my truth".  Please note the heavy sarcasm in my comments.  These are two phrases that are used to justify cruelty.  Somehow, as a culture, we believe that honesty and the integrity of being one's genuine self are acceptable excuses for truly unkind, hurtful words.  But really, are they?

    It's not that people don't need feedback.  And it's not that people don't need to hear hard truths.  We all can grow, we all can learn, we all have blind spots in our self-understanding that mean that the constructive feedback of others can help us move forward on our journeys.  Seeing things in a new way, learning how things we have been part of or have done might have caused damage: these are important lessons for all of us.  But please notice that I used the word "constructive" when I talked about feedback.  Attacking someone's personality or saying things in a way that is simply negative is not constructive.  Those comments are seldom truly heard in a way that can communicate something helpful to a person and it is extremely rare that a person can grow from mean comments.  There are ways we can communicate truths that do help people to grow, to learn, and to move.  

    Bottom line: when people say "I'm just being honest" or "I'm just speaking my truth" what I now hear is "I am being lazy" - too lazy to think through a positive, constructive, or helpful way of giving feedback or speaking truth.  There are always ways to communicate that are equally honest, but are not cruel, generalizing, vague or violent.  While it may take work to figure out how to say those things, that work is worth the effort if it actually has a chance of communicating something helpful, something important, and something that is not just inflammatory or destructive.  Cruel words are damaging, not "honest".  

    I struggle to understand, truly, why people do say those mean things.  Do they not see that this reflects much more on themself, on the kind of person they are choosing to be, than on the one they are attacking?  Do they not understand that when people hear meanness coming from someone, they are much less likely to trust and value the person expressing the cruelty than they are to then see the one who has been attacked in a negative way?  

    Unfortunately, I guess this is not universal.  I did hear someone recently extol the "loyalty" of another person, who then went on to describe that loyalty as manifesting in the attacking and unkind words they spoke to another person that they both didn't like.  I found myself staring at the one telling me of the "loyalty" of the other, wondering how long it would take them to realize that someone who is unkind is someone who is unkind.  While that person's unkindness was directed at another in this instant, how long will it take for that unkindness to circle around to the one praising it at that moment?  Not long.  Never long.  

    So, to take my own advice here, I don't want to just stay in the "attack" but also want to offer other ways we can express our truths that might be more helpful.  Using "I" phrases is always a good start.  "I feel x when you do y because of z".  "When x happened, I felt y because of z."  Those are good starts.  Wondering is also helpful, "I'm wondering about this thing over here that happened.  Can you tell me more what you were hoping for/working towards/expecting when you said or did x?"  "I'm wondering how it felt to say x?  I'm wondering what happened that led to this?"  We can learn to address specific events rather than globalizing.  Instead of "Why do you ALWAYS..." we can say, "I'm thinking about what just happened and wondering if you can tell me more about it from your perspective."  "I noticed that Saturday when Naomi said x, you responded with y and I'm wondering what that was about for you."

    I understand that sometimes these things feel contrived.  But isn't it better to work on learning to communicate in helpful ways?  It may take practice, but we can learn and then it will become second nature and not feel contrived anymore.

    I write this to myself as well.  I am currently wondering what led that person to use that phrase, "I'm just being honest." And I'm feeling sad that I heard it yet again because it triggered for me memories of when, as a child, another child used that as an excuse to say unspeakably cruel things.  I wonder what they were hoping to communicate.  And I'm hoping that I can learn more from the underlying beliefs and ideas when I am able to ask deeper questions.  

    One step at a time, here.  One step at a time.

We just plain don't hear one another.

       We don't really hear each other.  I think the older I get the more aware I am of the truth in this.  

    Of course we see this most clearly with little things.  For example, I asked my husband to please take the trash from our bathroom outside and instead he moved the trash from our room to the kitchen.  When I asked him why, he said "Oh, I didn't understand what you said!"  Okay.  Actually I think he just didn't hear me.  Not really.  I had been careful to use the word "outside" to make it clear that I wanted it to go all the way out, but he didn't hear it.  He undoubtedly heard what he wanted to hear, but it wasn't what I meant and it wasn't what I said.

    Other times, we hear the words but we make assumptions about what they really mean.  I told Middle I thought he should look at other colleges since he seems to be changing his idea about what he wants to study.  Later he told me that since he was just going to community college next year it would save us a bundle.  I asked, "What do you mean?" To which he responded, "Didn't you tell me I shouldn't go to the colleges I've been accepted into already?"  No, that's not at all what I said, and it certainly wasn't what I meant to communicate.  I just said he should look at other colleges to see if there is a better match for what he is wanting to do.  But he assumed I meant something else.  He took what I said and expanded it to mean something different.  In this case he heard what he expected to hear.

    But I think there are other, much more profound ways in which we do not hear one another.  I cannot count the times I've thought that I've said one thing in a sermon only to have people respond in ways that make it clear they've heard exactly the opposite of what I was intending to communicate.  This has worked both for me and against me at various times.  I've had parishioners say, "That's exactly what I needed to hear today!" after which they have "said back" to me the exact opposite of what I thought I'd said.  I've also had parishioners say that they really disagreed with me and then explain to me a belief that I have in common with them.  When I've tried to tell them, "that's actually what I just said" usually their response is to argue... (sigh).  I'm not alone in this.  My pastor friends talk about this happening to them pretty regularly and I remember one time when I was able to witness it first hand.  I was standing with a pastor friend of mine and one of his parishioners.  His parishioner was telling him very excitedly that she was going to see the replica of Noah's ark in Kentucky.  She said that this proved the ark had been real and she couldn't wait to see it.  He responded, "Well, actually, I don't really believe that."  She said, "Oh, I know.  People shouldn't really have to see the replica in order to know that it historically happened!"  It was beyond her vision, her understanding, and her comprehension to believe that a pastor, her own pastor, especially, might not believe in the historicity of Noah's ark.  So even when he told her that he didn't, she morphed what he said into something that made sense to her.  In these cases, I think people are hearing what they've heard others say who are in similar roles or positions, so they are transferring others' thoughts and ideas onto another, usually because of the role or position that person has.  They have expectations or assumptions about others' beliefs and they can't hear otherwise.  

    Finally, there are times when a person will hear something, they'll be able to repeat it back, but within a week or so they've forgotten it.  It will be said again, they'll again be able to repeat it back, but another week will go by and they will have forgotten it again.  I have found this to be particularly true with discussions of theology or deep self-reflection.  I have two examples of this.  I had a parishioner who really struggled against the idea of God as a man sitting in the clouds cursing some and blessing others.  We had really good conversations about why I didn't believe this either.  At the end of each talk, she would say, "Wow.  That's so helpful.  I have a much better understanding now.  And I don't feel bad anymore about not believing in that kind of God.  Thank you."  A week would go by and she would approach me again, "I don't understand how people believe in this God in the clouds who curses some and blesses others."  And again, I would take it on but try using different words.  "I don't understand that either.  That doesn't match what I believe either.  My God is not 'all powerful' but has given us free-will and interacts with us through relationships."  "Oh, that's helpful," she would say.  "You've really cleared that up!"  Another week would go by and she'd come back again, "I don't understand this image of a God who makes terrible things to happen to some but not to others..."  Around and around and around it kept happening.  I started to feel that perhaps I wasn't understanding the real issue, so I'd just ask more and more questions, trying to get underneath it.  But nothing really new or different was expressed.  Somewhere between us in this communication we were not hearing each other.

    My second example is more personal.  When we were going through our hardest time, I was seeing a wonderful therapist to help me navigate those waters.  Usually she just helped me to understand my own thoughts better, to hear my own insights more clearly.  But there was a time when I asked her point blank for her opinion about something.  She paused thoughtfully and then said to me, "I don't think that you are ready to hear what I think about this.  And my experience is that if I tell people things that they are not ready to hear, that they can't take it in; can't hear it, can't retain it, can't remember it."  This, of course, made me more curious.  So I asked her to tell me anyway.  She did so, and my memory was that I responded with, "Wow.  Well, thank you for that.  I will sit with that and really ponder it."  But I'll tell you the truth, by the end of the day I couldn't for the life of me remember what she had said.  I hadn't been able to hear it, retain it, or take it in, just as she had predicted.  I still don't remember it.  I remember only that the interaction happened.  This mirrors some early childhood parenting classes that I had taken which said that if a young child starts asking questions about things like where babies come from or other things that we feel are beyond their age of understanding, it's okay to answer them because they will only retain what they are old enough and mature enough to retain.  This was true for my own children.  They often asked huge or deep questions.  But as they grew they would ask those questions again, repeating back to me only a tiny part of what I had told them before.  Each time they would retain more as their own ability to do so grew with their age and experience.  But they could not retain the whole of what I was saying until they had matured enough to take it in.

    My point here is that sometimes we just aren't ready to hear or retain certain pieces of information.  We can't comprehend it or make it part of our understanding of the world, so we simply don't.  And this, too, greatly reduces our ability to hear one another.  

    Finally we often fail to hear one another because we are starting at different places with different values.  I was listening to some talks recently on the difference between liberals and conservatives.  One of the key findings was that liberals and conservatives start with different basic value systems.  But because we don't understand or we fail to hear those really innate, underlying differences, we continue to try to "persuade" using our own set of values.  Of course this fails, every time.  If we don't start with the same understanding we will never be able to hear with understanding those who start at a very different place with different base assumptions and values. 

    The truth is that our ability to hear one another is crucial.  Relationships are built on communication, and communication must start with hearing.  We cannot begin to understand, to relate, to truly care for one another without starting with hearing.  But obviously, hearing is not simple.  It is not easy.  There is a reason good listeners are sought out for counseling, spiritual direction, guidance, coaching.  They are sought out because most of us struggle to hear and be heard.  But perhaps that choice to really hear has to begin with us.

    So what do we do with this?  People don't hear one another for the reasons I mentioned above.  They don't hear because they hear what they want to hear, hear what they expect to hear, make assumptions,  hear what they can hear, hear what fits with their basic world views.  How can we improve hearing? With practice. We ask clarifying questions.  We repeat back what we think we have heard to see if we are really getting down to the gist of it.  We admit when we are struggling to understand.  We write down what the other has said so that we can go back to it and try to hear it again.  We ask more questions.  We try to understand where the thoughts and ideas and expressions are coming from.  We ask for clarity again.  

    In this age where we have become more and more divided, the only hope for bridging those divides will be to start with hearing, to open up to grow deeper in our understanding and our willingness to learn from each other.  It is a choice we must make to strive to listen, to close our mouths to hear more clearly and deeply.  In a world of increasing division, isolation, fear and anger,  it is essential that we make that beginning today.

Messages we deliver without meaning to.

         I've been thinking, recently, about a number of situations in which people communicate much more, or at least a different message, than they perhaps intend to deliver.
     A man I often see at Presbytery usually does not acknowledge me.  When we pass each other, when we are in the same groups, when we are at the same table, he doesn't talk to me or smile or nod his head in recognition, although I usually try to make eye contact, smile and say hello.  I assumed that was because he simply didn't know who I was and, in a conversation with a mutual acquaintance I must have made the comment that we really didn't know each other: that I knew who he was, but I didn't think the reverse was true.  About a month after I had made that comment, this man actually approached me and said, "I DO know who you are!  See, I'm telling you that I do know and have known who you are for a long time!"  Okay... except that I had actually been giving him the benefit of the doubt by assuming that he didn't acknowledge me because he didn't know who I was.  Frankly, it hadn't occurred to me that he was actually being intentionally rude or dismissive.  I just really didn't know how to respond to his acknowledging that he knew me.  Perhaps I should have named what I heard from him directly, "So, what I am hearing is that you haven't acknowledged me before, not because you don't know who I am but because you didn't feel it necessary to acknowledge me.  Perhaps it wasn't worth your effort to respond to me.  Or...?  Help me to understand this."  But I didn't.  Which leaves me wondering what he was really trying to communicate with all of this.
        Another situation:  A good friend of mine invited some folk over for dinner.  Since she (like many of my friends) is a vegetarian and doesn't cook with meat, she made what I felt was a hearty meal of a vegetable stew that was packed with beans, tofu, pasta and tons of vegetables and cheese, along with homemade bread, salad, hors d'oeuvres (including fruit, cheese, dips, vegies) and a home baked-fancy dessert.  A couple days later one of the people who attended the dinner said to her (within my hearing), "Well, I never before thought it was okay to just serve people soup, but now I know I can and I won't work so hard on meals I make for others."  I was shocked.  Um... how about "Thank you for the meal and the company"?  But what was interesting was that I don't actually think she meant to be hurtful.
        A person I know has been very fond of sharing the fact that when her daughter was very little (2 and 3 years old) the little girl would beg anyone passing by to come play with her.  The mother has no realization at all that telling this story always makes the hearers wonder why SHE didn't make the effort to play with her daughter herself.
        Another person I know has a husband who was trying to quit smoking after having some related health problems.  As we know, the first 30 days of trying to conquer any addiction can be trying.  This person bragged though that after 15 days of her husband acting grouchy, she went out and bought him a pack of cigarettes which she then insisted he smoke because, "Well, I didn't like his grumpy attitude."  So, half way through the hardest part, his grumpiness was more important to her than his health?
        One time I was standing with a group of people discussing plans for an event and the director of the project asked if someone on the committee could do a specific task.  One of the other members of the committee said, "Say 'Please'!" much to the embarrassment of all of us.  I was struck with wonder that someone could be trying to correct another person's social skills in such a completely socially unskilled way.
        On Facebook a while ago a friend of mine posted "happy birthday to three of my favorite people!" and she proceeded to name three close friends.  A person who is also a friend to all three of those people responded in the comments, "I'm tagging on here.  Happy birthday to..." and then named two of the three folk, even though the third was also his friend on Facebook and a close acquaintance, at least, in the real world.
        What do we communicate with our slights?  What are we really saying when we are rude to other people, or when we share times we've been unkind or inattentive or lacking compassion for others?  Why would we act this way?  Are we unaware that our own behaviors (as well as our words) reflect so much more on ourselves than on anyone else we might be trying to confront, make fun of, or judge?
          I know we all make mistakes.  And we all can do things or say things that affect other people in ways we don't see, don't expect or don't understand.  I am grateful to those people who actually tell me when I've communicated or done something that hurts others or hasn't been received well. But these other incidents end up also being gifts because they call me to pay more attention to what I'm communicating that I might not even be aware of.
         I think that during this stressful time we have choices to make about what we will contribute to the world in each day.  Do we give support and kindness, or do we act out with anger, harm or unkind actions?  Do we offer grace and compassion, or are we unforgiving and unkind?  We have a choice. Do you want your time on this earth to have contributed in a positive way to the lives of others, or did you want it to have negatively impacted the world?
         As I said, we all make mistakes.  And we are not always aware of what messages we actually send out, good or bad; the long term affects of our behaviors, for better or worse.  I hope you will tell me when I have done harm so that I can work on doing better.  For this day, I am working to hear more deeply what others are communicating and what I may be intentionally communicating as well.

The Universal Language - Pentecost

Numbers 11:24-30

1 Corinthians 12:1-13

Acts 2:1-21

               Today we hear the Pentecost story as we do every year.  We also heard two other scriptures, both of which are focused on gifts of the spirit, and in particular, the recognition, naming and celebrating that those gifts are not just given to a few, but given to all people, for the common good.  Pentecost in many ways focuses on this as well.  The gifts of hearing and understanding, of crossing the lines of difference in culture and ethnicity and even religion: all of these, too, were gifts of the spirit and all of these, too, were given to the entire community of people.  I loved hearing our scripture this morning in all the different languages and our service parts led by different people because I felt blessed by those different voices, and the recognition of the different gifts that each of them have: in this case, the gift of languages and crossing divides of understanding with people who speak those different languages.  In today’s readings, they were “All filled with the Holy spirit” we are told.  So there are two messages here.  As Paul tells us in the Corinthians passage, “A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good.”  So first, each person is given gifts.  And second, all these gifts are for everyone’s good, for the common good.

               But we struggle with both of these things, don’t we?  And, frankly, this is a human problem that has been in existence from the very beginning.  In this passage from Numbers, Joshua had trouble with the fact that other people besides Moses were given spiritual gifts, that they could prophesy too.  He wanted Moses to stop these other people, to prevent them using their gifts.  Of course, Moses was able to see a bigger vision, “Are you jealous for my sake?  If only all God’s people were prophets with the spirit on them!”  And this happens in the New Testament too.  In Mark 9 (and in Luke 9), we hear the story of the disciples getting upset with Jesus because someone other than them was throwing out demons in Jesus’ name.  The scripture reads, “John said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we saw someone throwing demons out in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us.’  Jesus replied, ‘Don’t stop him!  No one who does powerful acts in my name can quickly turn around and curse me.  Whoever isn’t against us is for us.’”

               But we have trouble with this, don’t we?  And I’d say our trouble with this is on both ends.  First, we don’t like others being able to do what we feel is for us to do alone.  Like in the PCUSA there was a huge debate about whether or not Commission Lay Preachers (so people who don’t have the same kind of theological training as our pastors) should be allowed to serve churches, to serve communion, to moderate session, to do baptisms.  Many pastors felt that they did not want to share what we ourselves have been trained to do.  On the other end of this, then, is people who feel they don’t have the rights and privileges of serving God in the same way or to the same degree as those of us who are ordained.  One of my pastor friends this week was sharing that he is struggling with his congregation because people are not stepping up to help.  They are all asking him, “What should we do?  Lead us!”  And he is burning out.  Their need for his leadership is understandable.  When things are different and difficult, when people are in grief and in pain, they want leadership.  They want answers.  They want someone to guide them and tell them what to do.  But what all of these stories show us is that, as we say in the Presbyterian church, “the ministers are all the people.”  Too often in our churches, people become used to being an audience rather than a participant.  And when that happens, they fail to see their own gifts, their own callings within the church.  We have different gifts.  Maybe you are not comfortable with public speaking, but you are comfortable with listening to someone.  Maybe you are not comfortable teaching, but you have gifts for seeing the big picture and looking down the road for what is best to be done.  Maybe you don’t have the gift of comforting others, but you are able to tell stories in such a way that people are touched and moved.  Maybe you don’t have the gift of seeing what is to come, but you are an artist of some kind: a musician, a painter, a dancer, or a storyteller who can tell deeper truths through your art.  We all have these gifts.  If you don’t know what your gift is, this is a wonderful time to take space to figure out what it is.  Try new things, explore the callings, the tuggings, the urgings of your heart and see what you can learn.  But each of us has gifts.  And it is not right for us to think that one gift is more important or more valuable than another gift.  As the Corinthians passage said, “Christ is just like the human body – a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many.”  In other places Paul says that the weakest parts of the body are to be honored the most.  And truthfully, we are only as strong as our weakest link.  That goes for our families, our churches, and also our country, and our world.  All of your gifts figure into the leadership of the church, not as watchers, not as people being entertained, but as participants in worship, in the life of the church, in service, and in the community.  The new language, then, of Pentecost, is a common language of everyone being touched by the flame of the Spirit in shared leadership within the church and without as well.

               The second part of this then, is that all of the gifts we are given are for the COMMON good.  They are not for you, they are not for one person or for one family.  They are all for the common good.  During this time, we look for a difference between social distancing and spiritual distancing.  And we find that we are being called to use a different language, or different languages within the church.  We are not, during this time, speaking in languages of being together in body, but we are learning to speak a new language in the church of being together on-line, and in prayer, and through bible study.  We are learning new languages of being together virtually as we figure out how to care for one another even from a distance and how to care for those most impacted by the virus whether that be because of disease, or lack of work and resources.  The languages of our activity are different now.  Our activity is more “home based.” But still, the language of Pentecost, the language of prayer, the language of faith, is a universal, communal language for all people, no matter how we are speaking it, no matter where we are speaking it, no matter in what way we are speaking it. 

               Without Pentecost, Easter is not participatory.  Without Pentecost, Easter itself is just something we see, that we watch, that we hear about.  But with Pentecost, the church is born.  And the church is community, it is action.  It is the speaking of a new language, a language of prayer, a language of singing, a language of caring for one another both within the church community and without, but in new ways.  The language of Pentecost is putting aside the individual in favor of the communal.  What is best for all people?  What is best for community? 

               I think about the times that we are in.  I read an article that was talking about how people were much more willing to shelter in place and be careful and protective when they thought that the people affected by the disease were people like them.  As soon as they came to see that the people being affected were different or other than them, people have moved to reopen, to not be afraid to risk the lives of “those people over there.”  You may have all seen on the news the sign held by someone at one of the protests against the shelter in place “sacrifice the weak: reopen.”   He didn’t see himself as part of “the weak” so he was willing for others to be sacrificed.  Or another one, “Sacrifice the elderly: reopen.” As we learn that people of color are being more deeply affected by this than white people, I have heard things much worse.  But as the church we are called to care for everyone.

               I saw a video this week.  A man was asked if he thought that it was okay if people died in order to reopen things.  He said he thought it was.  The interviewer asked him how many people he would think it would be okay to sacrifice in order to reopen the community.  The man said, “between 70 and 700.”  I don’t know where he came up with that number.  But the interview repeated back to him, “So, you feel it would be okay if 70 people died in order to reopen things around here?”  “Yes,” the man replied.  The interviewer then said, “well, we just happen to have 70 people.”  And around the corner came 70 people, in the front of the group was a child, about 5 years old.  And as they rounded the corner, the little girl starting running towards the man being interviewed.  He looked stunned and he said, “That’s my family!”  The little girl who’d started running towards him yelled “Daddy!” and threw herself in his arms.  At that point the interviewer asked him again, “how many people did you say could die in order to reopen this area?”  To which the sobbing man replied, “none!”

               Again, we may think this is hokey. And it was a bit: it had me sobbing by the end, which was the intention, I’m sure.  I also realize that things are much more complicated than this.  As businesses close, people are losing work, losing income.  They are struggling to put food on their tables and to care for their children.  These are real problems too and the answers to these problems are not as simple as “stay closed or re-open.”  It’s just not that easy.

               But in some cases, the situation is a lot more clear cut.  I am shocked by how many churches, church communities, for example, have decided to put what?  Their pastor’s needs?  Above the needs of the community.  Churches across the nation are becoming the hot spots of the virus: spreading disease not only among their members but then out into the larger communities because they are reopening too soon.  And why are they doing this?  What is the loss to the church if we learn how to stay connected through the internet, through phone, through the mail, through our prayers rather than gathering together in person?  But churches seem to have forgotten to love their neighbors as themselves.  We are called to be Christian first and foremost, called to love our neighbors as ourselves, and churches, of all places, must remember to love their neighbors, their members, those people their members interact with, and the needs of the larger community for healing, for some time and space to figure out cures and vaccines, for some time of social healing, as themselves. 

               I think about the story of Abraham confronting God when God wanted to wipe out the city of Sodom.  In Genesis 18, Abraham approached God and said, “Will you really sweep away the innocent with the guilty? What if there are fifty innocent people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not save the place for the sake of the fifty innocent people in it?  It’s not like you to do this, killing the innocent with the guilty as if there were no difference.  It’s not like you! Will the judge of all the earth not act justly?” The Lord said, “If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom, I will save it because of them.” Abraham responded, “Since I’ve already decided to speak with my Lord, even though I’m just soil and ash,  what if there are five fewer innocent people than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city over just five?” The Lord said, “If I find forty-five there, I won’t destroy it.” Once again Abraham spoke, “What if forty are there?”  The Lord said, “For the sake of forty, I will do nothing.”  He said, “Don’t be angry with me, my Lord, but let me speak. What if thirty are there?” The Lord said, “I won’t do it if I find thirty there.”  Abraham said, “Since I’ve already decided to speak with my Lord, what if twenty are there?”  The Lord said, “I won’t do it, for the sake of twenty.”  Abraham said, “Don’t be angry with me, my Lord, but let me speak just once more. What if there are ten?”  And the Lord said, “I will not destroy it because of those ten.” When the Lord finished speaking with Abraham, he left; but Abraham stayed there in that place.

               We too, should spare the city, or the church, or the world, because there are at least ten folk among us who are vulnerable and do not deserve to be put at risk.

               We forget that God is in all places and in all situations.  We forget the spiritual truths that connect us, the spiritual practices of prayer, sabbath, study.  We forget that God is bigger than this time and that this time, too, will pass.  We forget the importance of healing to Jesus, and of times of sabbatical for all people.  This virus is calling us into these spiritual practices.  And calling us to learn new languages of connection through conversation which can be done on phone, mail and on-line.

               Our challenge is to be tree-planters, which we plant for other people: for our children’s children.  Olive trees take 100 years to bear fruit.  But people planted them for their children’s children.  We tend to be people of “now”.  We forget to think of others and we forget to think ahead.  But this time is calling us to remember. 

               The story of Pentecost is a story of understanding, of all people across all differences coming together and speaking and understanding a universal language.  That language is the language of the Spirit, the language of God.  That language is the language of Love.

Sunday's Sermon - Listening

Proverbs 19:2-27

James 1:19-25

 Proverbs 18:13:  “Wisdom requires a humble, earnest effort to hear what the others say and a willingness to see our world in the other’s terms.”  Other translations:

New Living Translation: Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish.

English Standard Version: If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.

We are told in today’s scriptures that listening , really listening – not answering before listening and not responding or thinking before hearing – that this is what leads to wisdom. 

But listening to one another, really listening to one another, is hard. 

In many ways we tend to avoid really listening, and instead, when someone else is talking, we spend our time thinking about how we are going to respond.  Sometimes we fail to listen in a more obvious way: we can be trying to multi task, playing on our phone while listening, checking email, or frankly doing anything other than being fully present with the person who is speaking and with whatever they are speaking about. 

I had a week which really brought all of this home for me.  It began when I had to take my daughter to an audition at the Lesher Center.  The auditions are 15 minutes, but when I arrived at the Lesher parking garage, it was clear that they were having a large event in the Center.  When there are such events, the parking in the garage goes from being a very low set fee (free for the first hour, followed by 50 cents for each hour following), to a set $3 charge.  That’s fine, except that I was only going to be there for 15 minutes.  I pulled up to the attendant and said, “I’m not here for the event.  I’m here for an audition for my daughter.”  The attendant was not listening.  She was looking straight at me, but she was not listening in any way.  She responded, “Great!  The event is $3 and it’s on the 2nd floor!”  I paid the $3 and went ahead and parked, but found myself annoyed.  I was not annoyed because I had to pay $3.  I was annoyed because she did not listen or even try to listen to what I had said.  I felt dismissed, unvalued as a human being, invisible.

At church during that week we were being harassed by a woman who wanted to argue with me about theology.  She is not a member of the church, does not come here for any reason, does not live in the housing next door, is just a random person who was demanding my attention.  I asked Sandy to tell her that during lent, meeting with her was not going to be possible.  There was simply too much going on between extra services, mission activities, and people in our congregation needing pastoral care.  But she did not listen and would call the office 3 or 4 times a day insisting that I meet with her so she could set me straight.  Again, so busy talking that she could not hear what any one else had to say.

That same week I had a meeting with a small group of folk at a restaurant.  When I arrived (the first one there), I told the waiter that I needed a table for three of us.  He tried to sit me at a table for two.  I held up three fingers and said again we needed a table for three of us.  He moved me but then said, “Will this then be just for one?” as he handed me a single menu. I was flabbergasted.

When the other two people arrived, I was feeling frustrated and unhappy about all of this, so when they asked me why I was upset, I shared with them my struggles with how little we actually listen to one another.  At that point, one of the other two folk I was with took out his phone and began reading his email and checking Facebook.  He was doing this AS I was complaining that people don’t really listen to one another! 

I’m reminded of the story I have told before of the little girl who was talking to her mother while she was washing dishes.  The little girl insisted that the mother stop and listen to her.  The mom said, “But honey, I AM listening to you!” To which the little girl replied, “I need you to listen with your EYES.”  Really listening to one another requires giving others our full attention, with all of who we are.

As you know, many of us in the congregation have been reading the book Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande (New York: Picador, 2014).  At one point Gawande is describing the two neurosurgeons that his father visited when he had a fatal brain tumor.  One of the doctors was short with Gawande’s father.  He didn’t want to answer his questions and he basically said he was the best person for the job and Gawande’s father could take it or leave it.  But the doctor at the Cleveland Clinic behaved differently.  Gawande wrote this:

The Cleveland Clinic neurosurgeon, Edward Benzel, exuded no less confidence.  But he recognized that my father’s questions came from fear.  So he took the time to answer them, even the annoying ones.  Along the way, he probed my father, too.  He said that it sounded like he was more worried about what the operation might do to him than what the tumor would. … The surgeon said that he might feel the same way himself in my father’s shoes.  Benzel had a way of looking at people that let them know he was really looking at them.  He was several inches taller than my parents, but he made sure to sit at eye level.  He turned his seat away from the computer and planted himself directly in front of them.  He did not twitch or fidget or even react when my father talked.  He had that midwesterner’s habit of waiting a beat after people have spoken before speaking himself, in order to see if they are really done….Benzel had made the effort to understand what my father cared about most, and to my father that counted for a lot. (p198-199)

As I read this, I was struck by a couple of things.  First, what Gawande said about the doctor really looking at his parents was actually about really listening to his parents.  The doctor took the time to fully listen and care about what the other, in this case Gawande’s parents, were saying. It also resonated with me what he said about the “midwesterner’s habit of waiting a beat after people have spoken to speak themselves.”  I experienced this when I lived in Ohio.  However,  my experience of this pause was not so much that people were waiting to see if you were done talking as it was that people there listen to what you are saying and then take a minute to formulate their response.  They are not spending the time when they should be listening in planning or forming what they will say next.    

Sometimes those differences in the way we listen and hear cause problems.  One of the challenges that David and I have been working through is this very different way of listening.  I grew up here, I have spent the large majority of my life here.  I am used to the way people here “listen” which is to say, I’m used to people NOT listening, but using the time that others are speaking to decide what they are going to say.  We tend to talk then in a very quick succession in conversations.  There are no pauses between speakers.  The result is that often in a group it can be very difficult for everyone to be able to have their say.  If you can’t manage to be the first one to squeak out your words in following someone else’s speech, you won’t be heard at all.  People often talk over each other. 

When I was back in Cleveland, I tried to adjust to their different way of speaking.  I tried hard to honor the pause between speakers.  I have to say it wasn’t easy and many people made the comment that I was very “high energy” by which they meant I spoke quickly and jumped from one thing to another rapidly.  But coming back to the Bay Area, the rhythm, while very hurried and rushed, is more comfortable, or natural for me.  It’s what I’m used to.

David, on the other hand, is mostly a Clevelander.  That means that he actually listens while a person is talking, and then pauses while he is taking time to consider what he wants to say in response.  Unfortunately for him, this has caused problems as I have taken the silence to mean that he has nothing to say.  I’ll jump in again into the silence, “not giving him a chance to speak” he says.  In reality, I’m not giving him a chance to LISTEN because we just don’t listen here.

Who is the loser in this game?  Well, we all are.  But I think the people who lose the most in this are we who fail to take the time to really hear one another.  As today’s scriptures say, “Wisdom requires a humble, earnest effort to hear what others say and a willingness to see our world in the other’s terms.”   We lose the chance to grow in wisdom, in understanding when we fail to take the time to listen.

I think about what we did last Sunday afternoon with our “Crossing our Differences” conversations.  For those of you who came, how hard was it to just give a 30 second pause between speakers?  Did that feel like wasted time?  Did that feel like we didn’t need the time because we already knew what we thought, having spent the time while the speaker spoke to listen to our own thoughts rather than their words? 

This is especially hard when we disagree with one another.  We don’t WANT to hear what the other has to say.  We don’t want our thoughts to be challenged.  We don’t want to have to listen deeply enough to care about another point of view.  BUT I find again and again that when people think they disagree, when they actually choose to really listen to one another, they can find a whole lot more common ground than what they might believe they share.  Maybe we don’t want to see that.  Maybe we don’t really want to know that we have more in common than we would think.  But the dangerous truth is that when we start listening with our ears, we may find that we are also learning to listen with our hearts.  And while that may not be comfortable, it is important to try to do.  It helps us build bridges, it helps us grow, it helps us learn.

So how do we begin this journey towards listening?

The first thing is to be intentional about listening to people with all of our being.  In other words put down our phones and our chores and our activities when someone else is talking and really be present with them. 

The second thing is to intentionally take a minute after a person speaks to think about your answer.  If you know that you will give yourself that time when they are finished talking to formulate your response, you can just be listening when the other person is talking and wait to think through your answer after they are done.

The third is to take time to ask clarifying questions, or to repeat back what you think you are hearing so you are sure you are hearing correctly.

Fourth, just remind yourself that it is in listening that we grow and learn, not in talking.  Choosing to listen means choosing to take the better part.

One of the other things we are told in this passage from Proverbs is that Wisdom is gained in community.  In other words, when it is hard to hear one another, the community can help us.  When we are not growing, not gaining the knowledge that can lead to wisdom, the community is there to aid in that process.  And also, one of the true gifts of a faith community that talks together, prays together, and studies together is wisdom, when we choose to really hear one another.

The same is true with God.  I think most of us spend our prayer time talking at God.  And that’s important.  It’s really important to share with God our thoughts and feelings and what is going on with us.  But what I would suggest to you today is that it is MORE important for us to listen.  And then to check in with God about what we think we are hearing.  “Am I hearing you right, God?  Are you really telling me to love that person over THERE??!!  Are you really telling me to speak out about x, y or z?”  Whatever it is, reflect back to God.  Ask God if you are hearing correctly and then listen some more.  God does speak to us in many, many ways: through our experiences, through other people, through nature, through art; through scripture and stories and songs.  But all of it requires taking the time to listen.  Learning to hear God requires intentionally taking time out, daily, to listen.

The good news is that God is there both to listen to us, and to share with us when we are ready to hear wisdom.  That is the good news.  Today and every day. 

Habakkuk

               Habakkuk is one of the prophets whose words are written as poetry.  But unlike many other prophets, Habakkuk is a prayer to God.  More than that, it follows the format of many of our psalms of lament.  Next lent I expect us to focus on the different types of psalms.  We haven’t done that yet, so to give a preview, there are many different types of psalms, and like with hymns or other kinds of poetry, the different genres of psalms follow different formats.  Psalms of lament usually include most of the following components:

               Intimate Address to God

               Complaint

               Petition

               Argument in favor of the petition

               Vengeance

               Rejoicing and praise

               The main difference between Habakkuk and another writer of a psalm of lament is that unlike the psalms, which usually offer the complaints, petitions, etc. on behalf of the speaker, Habakkuk is speaking on behalf of the people.  He was one of the Southern prophets, speaking very close to the time of the Babylonian exile, anticipating the exile, and pleading for God to intervene, to save the nation, to save the people. 

               As I listened to Habakkuk’s words, I am reminded of an exchange that I’ve seen several cartoonists recreate in which one person is complaining and loudly lamenting, “I want to yell at God and demand to know why God allows so much suffering, so much pain!  I just want to demand that God tell me why God hasn’t done anything and I want to scream at God that if God really cared, God would DO something.  I want to demand to know why God hasn’t done it!”  To which the listener to this rant asks, “Well, why don’t you?”  The original speaker responds, “Because I am certain God would ask me the same thing.”

I think this is summed up well in the words to one of my favorite praise songs, sung by Matthew West entitled “Do Something”:

I woke up this morning

Saw a world full of trouble now, thought

How’d we ever get so far down, and

How’s it ever gonna turn around?

So I turned my eyes to Heaven

I thought, “God, why don’t You do something?”

Well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of

People living in poverty

Children sold into slavery

The thought disgusted me

So, I shook my fist at Heaven

Said, “God, why don’t You do something?”

(God) said, “I did, I created YOU”

I’m so tired of talking about

How we are God’s hands and feet

But it’s easier to say than to be

We live like angels of apathy who tell ourselves

“It’s alright.  Somebody else will do something.”

Well, I don’t know about you

But I’m sick and tired of life with no desire

I don’t want a flame, I want a fire and

I wanna be the one who stands up and says

“I’m gonna do something”

We are the salt of the earth

We are a city on a hill

But we’re never gonna change the world

By standing still

No, we won’t stand still

If not us, then who

If not me and you

Right now

It’s time for us to do something

If not now, then when

Will we see an end

To all this pain

It’s not enough to do nothing

It’s time for us to do something

Habakkuk is speaking words that almost all, if not all, of us have felt at one time or another.  We, too, want God to fix the pain in the world - ideally in the way we think it ought to be fixed.  There are many times when we feel if God really loved us, really loved the world, God would surely step in and fix things.  For many this is reason enough to believe that God doesn’t exist at all.  After all, if there were a God, why wouldn’t he/she step in a fix everything?  But the response of God?  Well, according to Habakkuk, the response is, again and again, to throw it back at us.  We have been given this world, we have been blessed with unbelievable abundance, with good minds, and with each other.  We have been given all the tools we need to confront the pain in the world.  We’ve been given all the resources we need so that everyone could have enough, should have enough.  If they don’t have enough, we have no-one but ourselves to blame.  I’m reminded of the saying, “Pray as if everything were up to God.  Act as if everything were up to us.”

This is, indeed, the message of all the prophets.  A message that Jesus echoed every time he told us to love all people even our enemies, even those people we don’t understand, even those people we don’t like, as we love ourselves.   If we were experiencing hunger or oppression or pain, we would fight for better.  But we don’t do this for those among us who are, in fact, facing these things.  We don’t give to others to the same degree that we take care of ourselves.  Extremely few people do.  But that’s the call.  It’s the call of the prophets, it’s the call of Jesus.

And perhaps it is a hard message to hear.  I know it is for me.  I wonder how I can be better at not contributing to the pain and suffering of the world, how I can use my resources for the good of everyone.  None of us is wealthy by American standards.  But we are wealthy in comparison to most of the world.  How can we better use our resources to further God’s kingdom and to care for our brothers, sisters, siblings throughout the world?  How can we use our power for good?  To change the systems that oppress and keep resources from those who need them the most?

I remember in my Prophets class as a seminary student our professor telling us that all of the prophets were speaking to the elite of Israel and Judah: those who had both the power and the resources and were using it for their own gain to the great loss of those they were supposed to serve and love.  Our professor told us that while in some ways these words apply to us as well, there is a difference in that while we have many resources, most of us have very limited power. I shared with you a few weeks ago that a Princeton University study showed that public opinion has absolutely zero impact on the decisions made by our federal government.  The limited power we do have comes in the form of how we vote, and in the actions we take locally.  But still, our power is not that of the people being addressed by the prophets.  Their words were meant to convict the leadership.  Well, we know that that fails to happen.  Those in power STILL use their power to better their own positions and rarely, RARELY, consider the “least of these” as the people they most need to care for.  But as I said in my first sermon on this series, the prophets were extremely political.  They were speaking to those in power and condemning them for not caring for their own.  And while it may be a relief to know that we don’t carry that kind of power, normally, I think that we must consider that these words are being spoken to us as well.  As I was working on this sermon, my Facebook paged dinged at me and this quote popped up from the Lord of the Rings: “Some believe is it only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found.  I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love.” 

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn.  One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it.  The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

None of us truly wins, until we all win!  None are whole if we are not all whole. 

I'm reminded again of the story of Ubuntu: I am because we are.  Some children were approached by an anthropologist who said whoever could run the fastest would win a bag of candy for himself.  He put the children all on a starting line, but when he said "go!", all the children took each other's hands and ran together so they would win together.  The confused anthropologist asked them why they had done this.  The children answered that they could not be happy if even one of them was unhappy.  They had to win together because then they would all be happy together.  They understood at a much deeper level than we do that we are all interdependent. I am who I am because of all the people who have gone before me as well as all the people I now know.  We create our future together.

Today we end our series on the prophets and so there is one other piece that I want to discuss with you this morning.  Several of you have asked me after hearing these fiery words from our prophets each week if I really believe that God punishes people in the way that the prophets believed happened when the Israelites were exiled to Babylon.  I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that I do not believe this.  Just as I do not believe in a God who will step in and fix things because that God has already given us all we need to fix it ourselves, I also believe very deeply that God is not a wrathful being who will harm or hurt us.  God wants genuine relationship with us.  Genuine relationship means that there must be freedom to be who we choose to be, act how we choose to act, and either fail or succeed at bringing love, peace, and grace to a broken world.  That leaves us then, as we reflect on the prophets, perhaps to wonder if their words of threat actually mean anything.  While I do not believe that God brings wrath upon our heads, I do think that in life there are consequences for our actions.  Our behavior changes the world.  It affects the world.  And the world is then the one that we live in and live with.  If we want a world that is kind to us, we must create that world by being kind to others.  When we fail to seek justice for one another, all of us are lessened, deeply and truly.  The call of the prophets, and the call of Jesus to love all – all creation, as we love ourselves: that is not just for the “other”.  That is for our well-being as well.  The prophets threat is real: if we do not care for one another, all will be lost.  If we do not take care of our poor, our marginalized, those we don’t want, those we don’t like, those we fear, those we ‘hate” – if we cannot learn to see them as the brothers and sisters that they are, the threat to us is real.  I don’t believe it’s because God will harm us.  God’s love for us is genuine, deep and sincere.  But if we continue to create a world in which others live in terrible ways, if we accept this as okay, as the norm: if we continue to think in terms of “us and them”  then at some point, we will be the “them” who are hurting as well.  Maybe not in our lifetimes.  Maybe it will come for our grandchildren or their grandchildren.  But it will happen.

The call of the prophets, as I have said, is the same as the call of Jesus: love God, love yourself, and love each other with all that you are and all that you have.  It’s not easy at all.  But it is simple.  

Burn out on Caring in a difficult time, and one response.

         We live in a time when burn out for people who really care is an increasing risk, an increasing likelihood.  If you care about the homeless and the housing crisis in California, if you care about our immigrant brothers and sisters, if you care about people of color, people of faith traditions other than Christianity, if you know any women (and we all do, whether we are aware of it or not), or even men, who’ve been assaulted: if you care about the “least of these” as we are called to do every single day; if it bothers you that we live in a society that manifests increasing apathy towards those who have suffered and even condones violence towards those who are already knocked down then this is a hard time to be active and engaged in our world. If you take seriously the call to love your neighbor as yourself and therefore are able to have compassion for people who are different that you are; if you remember that all of us are God's children, and that by corollary, all of us are siblings to one another; if you are aware therefore that the suffering people are people we are both deeply connected to and called to love like our biological siblings; if you care about the increasing division and growing irreconcilable differences between people in our country, in our communities, and even in our families; if you see meanness and are affected by the lack of simple courtesy and kindness towards strangers, then this is a hard time to keep going with hope and purpose and conviction that we can make the world a better place.

         Of course we hear about things we can do to counter this: focus on gratitude, name five things for which you are thankful each day; make sure that you have room for play in your life; take breaks from the struggles; exercise; laugh; sing.  But there is one other thing that can really help. In the midst of the daily struggles, sometimes the choice to do or be part of service that helps others (or even just one other) at this moment, now, with a real problem they are having  - this choice in itself can bring healing, can bring a tiny and reassuring sense that we can and do make a difference, a glimpse into the possibilities for genuine change and healing that can be brought on by people who care no matter what else is going on in the world.  Find a place to help.  Donate to a food bank, give school supplies, help serve meals, be part of a shelter program, donate to other organizations that make a difference.  Or, join in, give to, and work with organizations that create more permanent long term healing and change for people who are down and out: a new job training program, an education program, tutoring and care for disadvantaged children and youth, be part of a permanent low income housing program.  Yes, advocacy will always be of prime and extreme importance so that deep problems and issues can be confronted before they become monumental traumas and tragedies.  But being involved in a program that is not dependent on the politics of the day, but is simply dependent on our time, energy, resources and dedication and that really touches and changes lives: this can be healing not just for those served, but for our tired and frustrated souls as well.  Truly, we are called, as we are called into any caring work, to do this as much for our own souls, our own minds, our own spirits as we are for others.  I am grateful there are programs and opportunities out there for this kind of service.  They give me the strength and renewal to continue to work for advocacy too.