Today we will be having a funeral service for a homeless man who was struck and killed by a car last week. His name is Chris. He was a gentle man, much loved by the homeless community and the nearby businesses. When Dr. King was assassinated, he was working on an event in Memphis for garbage workers. He had realized that all people have the same worth regardless of their wealth or social status. Please take a moment to honor Chris, and all the invisible voiceless people who are dying just out of our sight.
When scripture talks about having eyes to see, or ears to hear, it is not talking about our physical organs, but the eyes and ears of the heart. It might be a good way to honor Dr. King this day by praying, or meditating, or resolving to look at humanity in a new way. Pray or meditate or resolve to have the kind of eyes that see past this wretched culture of greed, to the beautiful human hearts imprisoned therein. Pray or meditate or resolve to have ears that hear those voices muted by systemic indifference.
It is all well and good to praise MLK this day, but I can tell you from a lifetime of studying him, that he would much rather that we learn to see the world as he saw it, to speak on behalf of the voiceless, and to strive not only to be kind as individuals, but also to be agitators for a kindness that would include all people everywhere.
Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as (God’s) divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America “you are too arrogant, and if you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I’m God. (Human beings) will beat their swords into plowshafts and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore.” I don’t know about you, I ain’t going to study war anymore.
Powerful males protecting their vested interests, speeches that are more hoots than logic, the continual scapegoating of the weakest in our midst; even if Darwin had never lived, human politics would be proof enough that we have some intimate and unfortunate connection to the baboons.
If baboons could speak, we would find that they, too, are creationists; for evolution provides a context that lays bare vacuous boasts of exceptionalism. Darwin could have saved himself a lot of travel in seeking to prove the theory of evolution. One minute of Rush Limbaugh would have sufficed.
None of us is immune to these instincts, which is why it is ultimately futile to fight against the worst of our human nature. Instead we must call one another to higher levels of humanity. This insight is the wisdom behind the teaching to turn the other cheek or to return good for evil. Any other strategy just brings out the monkey in us all.
When ants reach obstacles they cannot cross, they link their bodies together to form a bridge. Ant bridges are a lesson in solidarity. An ant’s brain is very small, but such cooperation makes ants capable of some amazing things. Many of humankind’s most insurmountable problems would melt if we simply lived in solidarity and mutual aid.
Ant bridges are also a parable about the dangers of abstraction. We humans come together to create bridges we call “government” or “religion” or the “economy”. Unlike ants, our brains are very large and we can come to imagine that these bridges are more real than ourselves. When we surrender responsibility to any system we are like ants who have made the bridges more real than ourselves.
Whenever someone says “trust the market” or “we must not question scripture” or “we must support the troops” it is possible they have surrendered their own responsibility for being human. When we look at the institutions of our culture as static forms we can forget that we are building those structures with our words and deeds.
Einstein once said, “Remember your humanity and forget the rest.” That is probably going too far, but there is a basic sanity in not believing that the categories of our culture are concrete realities to which we must conform. Even in the Genesis creation story, God gave us the world, we are responsible for it. Human institutions are incredibly necessary and helpful conventions, but WE are responsible for how we treat each other. In the end, It’s just we ants.
If you say you love the soldiers, you will be sceptical on their behalf. They have pledged to obey orders, they are not in a good position to evalutate the overall morality of a war itself. It is your duty as a citizen to require a clear and present danger to real people before their blood is spilt. Doing research does not mean passively reading the corporate U.S. press. “Loving the troops” means reading the foreign press and studying critical analysis to make sure they are aren’t being used as toy soldiers in a rich person’s game. Even if you have not yet realized that foreign blood is as precious as our own, the more you love the troops, the more you will hate war.
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How are we to learn the art of love? How are we to muster feelings if we do not already have them? When we try to love, we are putting on a mask, but if the feelings are not there, we are only acting like we love. What is the secret of the great lovers of humankind?
The Apostle Paul taught that Love begins as faith. For this to make sense, especially to a nonreligious person, it is important to realize that faith is not the same thing as “belief”. Even the word “trust” does not quite capture what is meant by “faith”. When Paul talks about “faith” “hope” and “love” he can be heard as describing the circle of life.
” Faith” is like the roots of a plant. To feed the plant, the roots must be open to whatever soil they find themselves in. This openness begins a chain reaction with the soil. The dirt no longer consists of inert clods, but is now a nurturing home. Faith is a willingness to be open to and informed by our experience. When we are open to life, something happens that we do not quite understand. There is a chain reaction between our bodies and the world. We cannot command this process. Faith, then, is a willingness to be open to our experience.
If “faith” is like roots, “hope” is like the stirring of the plant to come to life and to grow. “Hope” is not the same thing as a wish. “Hope” in the spiritual sense has no specific object. Hope is like the plant’s impulse to blossom and to manifest the “word” that is written in it. Our hope is not that life will happen as we wish, but that we will manifest our true nature no matter what. Like the plant, we are hoping to manifest something we cannot possibly know until it blossoms.
“Love” is the fruit of this process. At times, it may seem that much of the fruit has been wasted. The fruit may fall from the tree and lie untaken on the ground. The plant gives its fruit anyway because that is its nature. It is not a question of whether others are worthy of the gift, or even whether they will receive it. Even if no hand ever finds it, there are seeds hidden in the fruit. The soil will receive those seeds and begin life anew. Love is the intrinsic generosity of the seed to give itself back to the soil. The secret is in the seeds.
I vow not to let anything that happens this day rob me of my inner peace. I promise to treat every ignorant word as opportunity to teach, every unfortunate event as a chance to learn, and every happy moment as an opportunity to be grateful, without trying to possess it, control it, or make it permanent. I vow to live this day in my own skin, not wishing I were a different person, but striving to make my life, as it is today, a work of art and a gift to the world. I vow to spend this day as a good citizen of the whole, and to be an ambassador for the common good. I will be grateful for this day of life, remembering that the universe owes me nothing. Should I break any part of my vow, I will give no place to remorse, or shame, but time and time again, I will return to my path.
It is always a death sentence when a nation comes to fear its enemies more than it loves its own people.
The Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t necessarily mean you are against war per se. It just means you’re in favor of peace in between your own nation’s wars of aggression. It would be like a killer who counted his sleeping as nonviolence.
Everybody knows the Lily Tomlin line, “The bad thing about the rat race is that, even if you win it, you’re still a rat.” You know that joke, but the problem is that our culture produces individuals who, while good and decent in their personal relationships, civically only know how to function as rats. From their first spelling bee, through competitive sports, to competing for promotions, they have been trained to turn on each other when anything truly important is at stake. Is it any wonder our elections have come to resemble nothing so much as a bad Jerry Springer show?
Anyone who works for community is demeaned in this culture. When you are a social
worker or a teacher, you roller skate uphill to work every day. It’s not just the low paycheck, it’s that your work is not seen as quite adult. When you do anything that helps people in general, you’re seen as “less than.” Our inability to co-operate and work for the common good lies behind so many problems of our day that seem insurmountable.
So this is a thank you note to every teacher or social worker. Thank you for dropping out of the rat race. I know you will never win this culture’s prizes, but I want you to know you are my hero.