I’m Not Trying to Proof-text, But…

I have to be honest.  I woke up, this morning, upset about immigration reform.  Before I had even made my cup of coffee (and this is a big deal, because I haven’t had coffee in weeks), I was already thinking about what could be done to bring some compassion, mercy, and reason to this process that seems to have imploded overnight.  I knew, when I sat down to read through the daily office, that I might project my feelings about this onto the Scriptures.  Maybe I’ve done just that.  If you think so, go ahead and call me out.

Last night I saw something that indicated that the vast majority of people (I think a study showed 92% or so) don’t actually care what clergy have to say about social justice.  This falls squarely on us.  This is a failure of clergy and the Church at large.  I apologize.

I read Psalm 55.  The whole Psalm is certainly worth your time, but here are a few verses that stood out to me:

“Lord, confuse the wicked, confound their words, for I see violence and strife in the city.  Day and night they prowl about on its walls; malice and abuse are within it.  Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave its streets” (v. 9-11, NIV).

Then, Mark 7:1-23.  Again, I would highly suggest reading all of it, but for the purposes of this post:

“‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules’” (v. 7, NIV).

“Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that” (v. 13, NIV).

“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them?” (v. 18, NIV).

“He went on: ‘What comes out of a person is what defiles them.  For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder,  adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.  All these evils come from inside and defile a person’” (v. 20-23, NIV).   

May God help us, we seem to have forgotten that the problems we have are internal ones.  In Scripture, this is almost always the way it goes down.  Jesus confronts those who are on the inside—those who live in comfort and prosperity.  Far too often, the response is, “Oh, it’s not me.  It’s not us.  Look at all of those dirty outsiders.  Heck, Jesus.  It’s you.  You are the problem!  Leave us alone so we might build our walls of protection and exclusion in order to be safe!”

Safe from whom?

Quite frankly, I have experienced more backstabbing from within the walls than from outside of them.  This is always… always… where I get myself into trouble with people who identify as religious.  Many years ago, when our family started saying things like, “Everyone is welcome here,” we found out rather quickly that this was a sore spot for the religious elite.  Interestingly, we have suffered abuses at the hands of those who hold themselves in high esteem, but I know quite a few drug dealers, prostitutes, widows, orphans, inmates, and people riddled with disease who would give me the shirt off their backs if I needed it.  Something is wrong with this picture.  Really, really wrong.

Now, I want to be extremely clear that I am not comparing refugees to any of those listed in the categories above.  If there is any comparison to be made, it is simply that we have marginalized them as people.  That’s my point here.  We have decided that they are somehow worth less than we are, because they are unlike us.  Even though they are fleeing in fear for the sake of their lives and their families, we are the ones who are afraid of them.  But I can’t figure it out, because it’s backwards.   We should have no fear of what is outside of ‘the wall.’  The evil comes from within.

My heart is so broken, today.  As I have indicated before, one of the biggest dangers in this is that I will think I have done something to help just by being sad.  Please, let’s not fall into that trap.  I have a friend who is an immigration attorney, and I am anxiously awaiting her suggestion for how to move forward with some practical steps to make a difference.  In the meantime, I have an online friend (who is friends in real life with people I know personally) who offers great insight into what is happening with Syrian refuges in Hungary, where she lives.  Her blog can be found here.  It both touches and breaks my heart every time I read it.

I certainly don’t know everything about every organization that is reputable, but I know that if you donate to Nazarene Compassionate Ministries at this link, the funds actually go to help Syrian refugees, in Hungary, right now.

I hope to have word on an action plan that will make a difference locally, in the near future.  For me, it’s a both/and proposal.  Help now, where you can.  Keep helping as new opportunities arise.  And then, when you’ve done something practical, it’s OK to break down in tears for awhile over our brothers and sisters, over their babies, over the sad state of a world in which the people on the inside don’t understand that we are the problem.

 
L.

The Poor and Politics, Follow Up

Ten weeks ago, I found myself staring at my computer screen, unable to look away from the images of Aylan, three years old, Syrian, perfect in every way from the top of his sweet little head to the soles of his velcro tennis shoes, washed up on shore, dead.  I knew I would never be able to get  the images out of my mind.  As I revisited these images, this afternoon, I could taste the bile threatening to end in vomit, because I am so literally sick about this narrative... still.

Interestingly, some of us started to come together when this story hit the press, and for a moment I felt like there might be some good left in the world.  Maybe we could identify, not necessarily with the tragedy, but with the humanity.  When we looked at Aylan, we didn't want this part of history to repeat itself.  We could help.  We could give.  We could love.

Unfortunately, this has changed, again, for many of us, today.  In the wake of the horrific acts of terrorism in Paris, we have decided that, given the opportunity, we would look Aylan in the face and say, "We're sorry, but we've decided that it's acceptable if you are not safe, because there are some bad people who originate from the same country as you do."  We have decided to be safe, instead.

I'm not saying that we should throw caution to the wind.  If you know me, you know that.  I understand that we must put processes in place that allow us to safeguard against offering safe harbor to terrorists.  But I'm not buying the line that we can't even begin to tell the difference between refugees fleeing for their lives and terrorists sneaking in on their coattails. 

And friends, safety is thinly veiled.

If we think, for one moment, that we don't have home grown terrorists or any number of others who have found a way to cross our borders, we are fooling ourselves.  If you look at the big picture, rejecting all Syrian refugees, out of hand, doesn't actually meaningfully increase our safety.

But what if it did?  Even if rejecting the Syrian refugees guaranteed that we would be 100% safe, would it be the right thing to do?  Of course not, because we are not called to live a life of safety.  We are called to live a life of love.  That's dangerous.  You don't have to look much further than the life of Jesus to see that.  And yet, somehow, we have forgotten that comfort is not a virtue... or a right... or a need.

My heart is breaking, today, at our response to the poorest of the poor, displaced, homeless, innocent, fleeing evil with no hope for the future.  I know that many good people will disagree with me, but my conscious cannot be clear unless I say what I believe to be true about our purpose and calling in this.  In addition, talk is cheap, so I am linking to a blog post, here, that my friend Sharon shared some time back.  At the end of her post, you will find several links to practical ways to help the Syrian Refugees.

L.

I Spent Yesterday at the Ocean

This last couple of days have been strange for me, and the rest of the week will probably be more of the same.  If you know me well, you may know that I am an introvert and require time alone, particularly to recharge and take care of my soul.  There have been times when I have done this well and other times when I have failed to do so, at all.  Most of life happens somewhere in-between.  In order for me to really "do" soul care days well, I need several of them (a week is great) a couple of times a year.  Having severely neglected this for many years, I have taken considerable time away from my regularly scheduled life over the past few months.  I have needed this time to work through some stuff, and although a few people have questioned this, I think most everybody actually understands the need for caring for ourselves.  It's just that most people never actually do it.  That's the back story, or at least as much of it as I am going to post here publicly, although more and more I am an open book, so if you have further questions you can feel free to go ahead and ask them.  I say all of this to bring you up to date on my present trip, which was intended, in part, for soul care.

In some ways, after working through so many issues in such a short amount of time, I feel more like I am on a vacation, by myself, than in the midst of soul care days.  I haven't decided quite what I think of this yet.  I have a love/hate relationship with the great outdoors, primarily because I love creation, but I am allergic to so much of it.  This causes me to carefully weigh the pros and cons before embarking on an outdoor adventure.  But I had never seen the Pacific Ocean, and I just couldn't be this close without grasping the experience.  I had hoped for some inspiration.  I had hoped that I would have some new insights to share about God... and creation... and God's partnership with humanity... and water... and baptism.  I know, I know.  Who thinks about this while taking a trip to the ocean?  Well, I do.  And the truth is, it was a beautiful, amazing day, and I do have some new insight that I hope to weave together in written form over some days and weeks for Thursday Theology and Sacramental Saturday.  But something else changed my perspective before I set out on my journey yesterday, and perhaps not ironically, it touched on some of the things I have recently been thinking about and discussing in regard to our care for the least of these. 

Earlier this week, a picture that I will probably never be able to get out of my head started to show up in my FB newsfeed.  As a mom... and a follower of Jesus... and just a human being... the image of a dead toddler lying facedown on the shore is painful.  I already have a pretty healthy fear of deep water.  Some people might call it unhealthy, but the truth is I don't know how to swim, none of my children know how to swim well (even after years of swimming lessons for some of them), and I have multiple friends who have lost children to drowning.  Water is hard for me.  But this little guy, Aylan... and his sweet little head... and his velcro tennis shoes...  I just can't deal with it.  Horrible, tragic accidents happen, but he is gone, because his parents were trying to protect him and no one with the power to actually do that did anything to help.

I'm so tired of hearing about immigrants (legal or not) and refugees and how they're all just a bunch of dirty, nasty people who want to suck resources away from the people who actually deserve them.  Oh, come on.  First of all, none of us deserves anything.  And second.  If you haven't taken a good look at Aylan, take a moment to do so and just consider how lovingly dressed he was on the last day of his life.  Gosh, his haircut puts me to shame if you look at my boys.  I don't think these were nasty, dirty, life sucking people.  They were just people.  Scared people.  People who wanted a better life for their kids.

And then the story escalates.  As it turns out, not only was Aylan lost, but so was his four year old brother, Galip, and their mother, Rehen.  A quick Google search will lead you to heart wrenching quotes from their father who watched his entire family die.  And how many privileged people woke up, this morning, thinking about how he deserved this, because he didn't have a legal path to get them to safety?  Oh wait.  Probably none, because anybody who is that heartless has long since moved on.  They didn't wake up thinking about these people, at all.  And yet I feel the need to share their story one more time, even though most everyone who wants to know it probably already does, because the real stories of real people matter.

So in the midst of my very nice, safe day at the beach, I took a moment to consider the crashing of waves and the way God separated the waters, and I thought about how good God is.  I thought about how beautiful creation is and yet how violent it can be.  And I thought about how we, as human beings, are not so good if we allow even creation to become the taker of life, because it's just too difficult to welcome people and process paperwork.

L.

If you're looking for a practical way to help, you might check out this link.