The Senseless Destruction of War

A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Martin Luther King Jr., "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"

This was probably not among the most frequently used MLK quotes on Monday, but it should have been. As I have asserted several times, war is the most asinine of human behaviors. And yet we seem incapable of abandoning it, so sure are we that violence can solve our problems. Now to be fair, it does excel at giving that impression, at least momentarily, but those victories never last long. So insanely, we try, try again.

To make matters worse, too many of us refuse to question the purposes for which so many of our brothers and sisters have died. Most recently, a television journalist had the gall to voice his unease with the seeming senselessness of American casualties in Afghanistan while on-air. The outrage was swift and silly; a shining example of our "support the troops" mentality in action, with its mindless cliches and chest-thumping antics more appropriate to devoted sports fans cheering on their favorite team. Sadly, this incident was also an example of denial at its worst and deadliest.

Every war death is senseless, because each is a product of our failure to find better ways of settling differences. Living in denial about this truth might bring us temporary comfort, but it also ensures more destruction and more death.

And not only through the occurrence of future wars. Our insistence that violence can solve big problems inevitably leads us into believing that it can solve personal ones as well. Which is how a silly personal dispute in a movie theater turns deadly. And why too many children choose to express their rage with a gun. And, it must be said on this anniversary of Roe v. Wade, one of the hidden reasons behind so many of us being convinced that abortion is a reasonable solution. We are surrounded by symptoms of the spiritual death of which King warned us. Why do we not heed them?

"It is past time that we recognize this family of the One, this fellowship of the One. They are tired of us ignoring, neglecting, and tarnishing it. This family is our Creator's greatest gift to us and we spit upon it constantly. Enough!"

"Our brother calls us to love, love God, love your neighbor, love. How hard is that? What are you afraid of? If he was willing to die to love you, what’s your excuse for not loving those you fail to understand, those you despise, those you hate?"

How many of our siblings must die before we finally say "Enough!"?

Firefighters & Deportees

Two articles in Wednesday's Los Angeles Times stood out to me in an unintentionally interconnected sort of way. The first was on the previous day's memorial service for the 19 firefighters killed in Arizona. The second told the story of the rediscovery of the names of 28 Mexican citizens who died in a plane crash near Coalinga in 1948. They were deportees on their way home, who became a nameless group buried in a mass grave. Two sets of people, separated by time and so much more, memorialized on the same sheet of newsprint. An unintentional connection bursting with meaning.

"We come from a common source. We are children of the same parent. Like it or not, we are family."

The firefighters certainly deserve every last drop of honor we can muster. But why did the deportees deserve anything less? A society should not be measured by the way it remembers its dead heroes, but by how it acknowledges the passing of those it labels as insignificant or unworthy. For these divisions exist only in our minds.

"In the end, we will all die. We will all return to the artist’s palette. We will all return as one … Our creator loves us all equally, saint and sinner. Our brother died and rose to welcome both to the banquet."

Recovering a name seems like such a small thing, especially when it is attached to someone who died so long ago. But a name means that you were known and loved, that you were a person with dignity, and that you have a seat at the banquet. These particular names remind us that we lost 32 siblings in that Central Valley canyon, not four individual Americans and a single inseparable mass of foreigners. Each one of them left behind a story that deserves to be heard just as much as the stories of those 19 firefighters who sacrificed themselves for us in that other lonely canyon.

So rest in peace, our dearest brothers and sisters:

Miguel Alvarez. Andrew Ashcraft. Bobbie Atkinson. Frank Atkinson. Robert Caldwell. Travis Carter. Frank Chaffin. Tomás de Gracia. Dustin DeFord. Francisco Durán. Santiago Elizondo. Rosalio Estrada. Marion Ewing. Bernabé Garcia. Salvador Hernández. Severo Lara. Elias Macias. José Macias. Christopher MacKenzie. Tomás Márquez. Eric Marsh. Grant McKee. Luis Medina. Manuel Merino. Luis Miranda. Sean Misner. Ignacio Navarro. Martin Navarro. Scott Norris. Román Ochoa. Ramón Paredes. Wade Parker. John Percin. Apolonio Placencia. Guadalupe Ramirez. Alberto Raygoza. Guadalupe Rodriguez. Maria Rodriguez. Anthony Rose. Juan Ruiz. Wenceslao Ruiz. José Sánchez. Jesús Santos. Jesse Steed. Joe Thurston. Baldomero Torres. Travis Turbyfill. William Warneke. Clayton Whitted. Kevin Woyjeck. Garret Zuppiger.

Love & Good

No more hurting people. Peace

Martin Richard wrote these words for a school project many months ago. And almost immediately after the young boy's death at the Boston Marathon, his words went viral on social media, as a sort of collective plea for a world free of violence. A noble desire, but one that will continue to go unfulfilled. Why? Because we are not willing to do what it takes to make such words and hopes into reality.

But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Luke 6:27-28

These are words we do not want to hear, especially right now. Love those who made bombs to maim and kill? Show them mercy and compassion? Bless them and pray for them? Yes, that is what we are called to do, for it is the only remedy that will work.

"Our brother calls us to love, love God, love your neighbor, love. How hard is that? What are you afraid of? If he was willing to die to love you, what’s your excuse for not loving those you fail to understand, those you despise, those you hate?"

I shared similar thoughts after Aurora and Newtown. I will do so again after the next community suffers from our love of violence, and the one after that, and so on. I am under no illusion that anyone will actually listen; we've ignored Jesus for two thousand years after all. But truth is truth, whether we want to hear it or not.

Yes, love is stronger than hate, and good will triumph over evil in the end. Many of us have spoken of these truths since Monday. But they are not magic talismans to ward off the bogeyman. Jesus had to die, brutally, before the Easter we are in the midst of celebrating could happen. Living that Truth requires a whole other vantage point.

"From your perspective, you see love and hate, good and evil, right and wrong. I see what is and what will be, and what I see is love and good, always."

Are we willing to embrace that kind of love and good? Are we willing to go wherever they demand we go? Even if that means loving those who killed Martin Richard?

Peace Be With You

There is a certain kind of irony to life in that just as the Church is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the papal encyclical "Pacem in Terris", the world should be subjected to the saber-rattling of North Korea. Pope John XXIII shared a vision that "projected a world where peace would be achieved by governments dedicated to the fulfillment of human rights." Kim Jong Un is teaching lessons "about the value of having a nuclear weapon or two." So which of these two men is the crazy one?

I say we are the crazy ones. We chase a peace that will never come, while dismissing one easily within our grasp. Peace is not some utopian way of life that we can talk or kill our way into. It is a state of being that comes from placing absolute trust in Love, and that manifests itself most purely in the love of our enemies.

"Our brother calls us to love, love God, love your neighbor, love. How hard is that? What are you afraid of? If he was willing to die to love you, what’s your excuse for not loving those you fail to understand, those you despise, those you hate?"

Yes, we must fight injustice. Yes, we must reject violence. But simply because that is what love demands, not because doing so will bring about some magic land of peace and justice. Love calls us to tilt at windmills, and to do so joyfully.

"It is time for us to embrace our family, even though we will fail, and probably fail miserably. This is another paradox of our Creator. We can never truly be one family in this life and yet they compel us to try, they demand that we make the attempt."

And therein lies the key to peace: we are family. It is a truth more profound than any encyclical and more powerful than any atomic bomb. A truth we proclaim with a Kiss, and not a kiss that says, "I will tolerate you," but a kiss that says, "You are my brother, my sister, and I love you." A truth that reveals that the Kingdom we crave has been right in front of us all along, if only we would trust in it.

"So much of life is a paradox, but it is there that we find God the most. It is there, in the confusion and that mess that we must dwell. It is there that we experience true beauty, true joy. It is there that we can see something wonderful, something that sends a chill down our spine, and puts a smile on our face and a laugh in our heart, where we know with certainty who and what we are and why we are here in this time and place. It is in that moment that we are at peace."

Peace is not a grand dream, but a simple love. Peace be with you.

Farewell, Brother Benedict

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected ... He was seen as the Vatican's "Enforcer" ... "God's Rottweiler," the "Panzer Cardinal" ... Hence in the immediate aftermath of his election, most commentators fell back upon tried-and-true labels: "archconservative," "authoritarian," "hard-line."

Probably the best expression of all this came in an editorial cartoon in L'Unità, the newspaper of the old Communist Party in Italy. Understanding the cartoon requires a bit of background. In Italy, perhaps the most revered pope of modern times is John XXIII, known as il papa buono, "The Good Pope." One treasured memory of John XXIII is an evening in October 1962, the opening of the Second Vatican Council, when the Catholic Action movement organized a torchlight parade that finished in St. Peter's Square. The pope was not scheduled to address the crowd, but when it arrived, John XXIII wanted to speak. He said something burned into the consciousness of most Italians, repeated endlessly on television and radio. Smiling down on the crowd, he said ... "When you go home, you'll find your children. Give them a kiss, and tell them that this kiss comes from the pope." It summed up the legendary love of the man.

Thus the L'Unità cartoon showed Benedict XVI at the same window, saying, "Tonight, when you go home, I want you to give your children a spanking, and tell them that this spanking comes from the pope."

John Allen, "The Word From Rome", National Catholic Reporter

This is my favorite anecdote about the conventional wisdom on Pope Benedict. Once upon a time, it was a perspective I shared. As his papacy comes to a close tomorrow, I trust that I am not the only one who has shed that view.

Benedict confounds our American socio-political labels. His words alternately delight and enrage both the family values and social justice crowds. He refuses to be stuffed into one of our usual boxes. Theology professor Charles Camosy describes Benedict as the Pope of "the 'great et…et' or 'both/and' way of being authentically human."

Yes, it must be said that, as the headline of a more recent John Allen offering puts it, "Benedict leaves behind legacy full of ups and downs." But popes are more than just CEOs of a global corporation, this one in particular. Benedict is in love with Truth, and that is the gift he was given to share with us. "He asked searching questions of both the church and the world, and offered his own provocative answers," says Allen, who concludes the aforementioned article with another anecdote.

British Prime Minister David Cameron may have provided the best epitaph while bidding the pontiff farewell at the Birmingham airport on Sept. 20, 2010, after a four-day swing in Scotland and England.

"Holy Father," he said, "you made us sit up and think."

The reason I love Benedict so much is that I've come to believe that the central truth he is trying to get us to see is the same one I am struggling to proclaim: We are family. As Benedict himself said in his final General Audience today:

It’s true that I receive letters from the world's greatest figures - from the Heads of State, religious leaders, representatives of the world of culture and so on. I also receive many letters from ordinary people who write to me simply from their heart and let me feel their affection, which is born of our being together in Christ Jesus, in the Church. These people do not write me as one might write, for example, to a prince or a great figure one does not know. They write as brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, with the sense of very affectionate family ties. Here, one can touch what the Church is – not an organization, not an association for religious or humanitarian purposes, but a living body, a community of brothers and sisters in the Body of Jesus Christ, who unites us all.

"Our brother calls us to love, love God, love your neighbor, love ... Our brother died and rose so that we might all be one people, one community."

"You are my sibling. We are family. This is the essential truth of life. It is the only moral truth that really matters."

Benedict may not have blown us a lot of kisses in the last eight years, but let it never be said that his love for us, his family, was anything less than legendary.

May God bless Pope Benedict XVI, our brother Joseph Ratzinger!

The Real Baby Jesus

Of all the early Christian writings that did not make it into the Bible, my favorite is the "Infancy Gospel of Thomas", a collection of stories on the "Boyhood deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ." And of its many stories, my favorite is this:

Later he was going through the village again when a boy ran by and bumped him on the shoulder. Jesus got angry and said to him, "You won't continue your journey." And all of a sudden he fell down and died.

Some people saw what had happened and said, "Where has this boy come from? Everything he says happens instantly!"

The parents of the dead boy came to Joseph and blamed him, saying, "Because you have such a boy, you can't live with us in the village, or else teach him to bless and not curse. He's killing our children!"

(Greek Text, Chapter 4)

Who among us hasn't said or thought "Drop dead!" towards someone who hurt us? The difference is that we don't possess the power of God. Infancy Thomas portrays Jesus as one who has to grow and mature just like the rest of us, and along the way learns to use his talents and wisdom for the good of others. Here is the Incarnation in all its strange glory: a young man who is truly God, but also unmistakably human.

That is what I love about this gospel. It doesn't try to force the Incarnation into human logic. It celebrates it as a strange mystery: Jesus Christ, True God and True Human. Can we ever truly understand just how strange it must have been to be Jesus? The emotions and brain of a human being, along with the wisdom and power of God. What word is there to describe this reality other than strange?

The Truth that Infancy Thomas conveys is that the Incarnation is not this pretty feel-good image; it is messy and chaotic. It is not God coming to clean up our problems, but a Parent sharing in the beauty and wonder of their children's lives. Now, this may not be the Jesus, nor the God, that we want. It certainly wasn't for the bishops and theologians who rejected this gospel. But for at least a handful of average, ordinary Christians, Infancy Thomas spoke of a God who chose to be just like them. That is strange and glorious, and perhaps, worth a listen.

"You demand truth along your lines, your logic. Truth does not exist for you. You exist for it. Stop your arrogance and embrace the paradox of love."

As the final words of Infancy Thomas say, "To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen."

Our Love of Violence

"Americans of faith today need to be challenged by a very direct question: do you trust God or guns more?" This was the response of Susan Thistlethwaite to the massacre in Aurora, Colorado. The people's answer to her query seems to be clear.

Mass shootings are not incomprehensible, despite what we tell ourselves. They are a natural by-product of our belief that war, abortion, capital punishment, and other forms of violence can successfully resolve our societal and individual problems. As long as such attitudes are the norm, some people will turn to violence as an outlet for their own frustrations. They will spew it like vomit, and no one will be left untouched.

This chaotic violence is not a modern phenomenon. Technology may have increased the destructiveness of the acts and our awareness of them, but this sort of violence has been with us since we first chose to use death to "fix things." Which, according to the Bible, was right from the beginning. And in spite of all that humanity has learned in the centuries since then, we cling stubbornly and insanely to that attitude. As much as I abhor the "culture of death" label, perhaps John Paul was on to something.

So how do we begin to trust God more than guns? We could start by actually listening to Jesus when he tells us to love our enemies. He is not being naive and impractical. He is telling us that violence is a weed that flourishes easily and chokes even those who think they can use it righteously. Only love can truly fix anything.

"Our brother calls us to love, love God, love your neighbor, love. How hard is that? What are you afraid of? If he was willing to die to love you, what’s your excuse for not loving those you fail to understand, those you despise, those you hate?"

We cannot embrace both God and violence. So which will you choose to trust?

Faith & Reason

In last week's post, I mentioned taking time recently to watch several documentaries. Two more among these were the PBS Frontline series "From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians" and Bill Maher's "Religulous".

Despite their obvious differences, both of these works touched on the larger question of the rationality of faith. Human beings have always struggled with spiritual beliefs, as the gospel episode of "Doubting Thomas" makes clear. Our analytical minds want to know and understand the mysteries of the universe. The problem is that the mysteries of ultimate truth do not lie in the realm of rationality. Logic can take you to the edge of the chasm of belief, but cannot build a bridge across it. The leap of faith is an act of mystical courage. You either make that leap or you don't.

Unfortunately, mysticism is something we have a hard time dealing with. It is chaotic, paradoxical, and just plain messy. While we strive for knowledge, it call upon us to recognize. When we want to understand, it tells us to experience. We want clarity; mysticism looks like pure and deliberate confusion. The truth we hide from is that God, life, and love are exactly like that: gloriously and beautifully confusing.

Acknowledging this reality does not mean abandoning the pursuit of knowledge. Faith is not about settling for something of lesser intelligence. It is about acknowledging that truth is not the same as scientific or historical fact. Faith is an act of humility.

"We know you must approach us with logic, but do not get carried away by your ego ... I am not saying that you should turn off your brain. Your mind is our mind. Just see and accept your limits. Delight in them, they will teach you great things."

Faith also demands trust, something that pushes all the skeptical buttons of modern American society. We do not trust institutional authority, so why should we listen to organized religion? We cannot help but see the death, destruction, and evil that has come from corporate religion. Surely that must indicate that anything religion says is illegitimate? If that is our standard, however, what ideology or belief system would ever pass muster? Our failure to live out faith properly speaks to human imperfection, not the falseness of the faith itself.

Faith cannot be proven true or false, as much as we might want it to be. Intuition is the key. As I said last week, intuition is the voice of God within us. It speaks of what is right or wrong about a particular belief system, of what is true and trustworthy. It tells us where to find God. No amount of evidence can ever replace our intuition.

"Trust yourself. Trust your heart. She will not fail you. Believe in your own goodness, in your own loveliness. For that is what you are. Love and goodness brought to life. Turn your eyes inward, and you will see it is true."

Perhaps it is inevitable that our society views faith and reason as opposing sides in the Great American Culture Wars. There are plenty of individuals and groups happy to exploit this faux conflict for power and profit. We have allowed ourselves to be tricked into believing that easy formulas illuminate truth, when in fact they are nothing more than security blankets. It is time to wake up.

"We were created to give witness to the paradox ... to celebrate [it], to cherish it. Yet you run from your destiny. You hide in the worlds you create for yourselves. You demand truth along your lines, your logic. Truth does not exist for you. You exist for it. Stop your arrogance and embrace the paradox of love."

2012 & the Kingdom of God

December 21, 2012: Turning point in human history or just another day? If you believe in one of the many Mayan calendar theories you are probably eager for or terrified of the answer. But what about the rest of us? What should that day mean to us?

As we celebrate Easter today, we also proclaim our visions of the Kingdom of God. For many, that Kingdom is meant to exist here on Earth. A world of peace and justice is not just possible, it has been divinely mandated. For some, especially those drawn to New Age beliefs, December 21st is the key to making the Kingdom a reality.

I say that such ideas are the fantasies of children. Why are we so unable to see life for what it is? Why are we so unwilling to recognize our Creator's gifts?

"From your perspective, you see love and hate, good and evil, right and wrong. I see what is and what will be, and what I see is love and good, always."

"Look around you. Love surrounds you no matter where you are: in the rose garden and the trash heap, the wedding chamber and the grave, the sword and the plowshare. All are love, as all were created through love. The grand paradox of life is that all has purpose and that all is love."

"Why are you so anguished? Life unfolds as it should. Stop and enjoy the process ... that is why you are here, that is why you were created."

It might be tempting to interpret this truth as a rejection of social justice efforts. That is the fantasy of the spoiled brat, of which we have too many in this world. We are family. We have a duty to help our brothers and sisters see and feel our Parent's love.

"It is time for us to embrace our family, even though we will fail, and probably fail miserably. This is another paradox of our Creator. We can never truly be one family is this life and yet they compel us to try, they demand that we make the attempt."

December 21, 2012: Turning point in human history or just another day? It all depends on what kind of day you want it to be.

Redemption & Forgiveness

The articles that inspired this post were written several months ago, but seem particularly appropriate for today, Palm Sunday. Last November, the Los Angeles Times published a two-part series about the California state prison hospice, and the struggles of John Paul Madrona, an inmate pastoral care worker, to make amends for the murder that resulted in his incarceration. In December, the Times published a follow-up piece about the murder victim, Tracy Takahashi, and the reactions of his brother, Dean, to the original series of articles.

"I think it is not up to me to forgive," [Dean Takahashi] said. "It's not for my side to offer redemption - that has to come from within ... But I will say this: The path that [Madrona] is on, that path is far from hopeless. It is a good path. Whether he is inside the prison or out, I want him to stay on that path. That is what I ask of him."

What are we celebrating today if not these attitudes? My Brother gave his life to show us what love means. This truth does not diminish his nature, it tells us everything we need to know about our Parent. They tell us that life is never over until it's over; and it's never over. Every moment is an opportunity to redeem ourselves; to live with hope, generosity, compassion, empathy; to find our "good path" and run with it to infinity and beyond. We are true children of the Creator, and we are meant to love all of our brothers and sisters with the same passion that we remember today.

"Our brother calls us to love, love God, love your neighbor, love. How hard is that? What are you afraid of? If he was willing to die to love you, what’s your excuse for not loving those you fail to understand, those you despise, those you hate? ... Our brother died and rose so that we might all be one people, one community. The words and ideas in your head cannot change the reality of your heart and soul. We are all one people, one community. You may not like that truth, but you cannot outrun it forever."

The Same Team

The title of this post was inspired by a video produced by the LDS Church. Entitled "Same Jersey", the video's central message is that "all of God's Children wear the same jersey; our team is the brotherhood of man." This is a common idea that is echoed in all of the major world religions. When Catholics state in the Creed that God is the creator "of all things visible" they are proclaiming this same essential truth about human unity. The same truth that I mean when I speak about family: "We come from a common source. We are children of the same parent." Like the video says, we're all part of the same team. So if we all believe this, what's the problem?

The problem is that while corporate religion says all the right things about human unity, it is exclusive by its very nature. How can an institution proclaim that we are all on the same team, and yet also insist that some of the teammates will not receive a share of the championship reward? How can corporate religion say that we are children of one Creator, and yet also teach that only a portion of our brothers and sisters will earn salvation? Some faiths are more generous than others in who they grant salvation to, but almost all of them hold that not everyone will see paradise.

I say to you that this notion is false. A true team rises and falls together. The truth is that we were created as a family, we exist as a family, and we will die as a family. Whatever dimension of life awaits us after death is one we will discover as a family of brothers and sisters, not as disconnected individuals. What kind of Parent would our Creator be to only welcome home some of their children?

"In the end, we will all die. We will all return to the artist’s palette. We will all return as one ... Our creator loves us all equally, saint and sinner. Our brother died and rose to welcome both to the banquet. Is this unfair? Ask the paradox."