June 9, 2008

You are sad. Why? — Because you are living in yourself and not in God. Remember that God is present. You are not alone for a single moment. He surrounds you. He sees you. He bears everything with you. He wants to help you. Always live in the assurance that God is present. The awareness of His presence will transform everything for you, and your sadness will disappear.

Mother Basilea Schlink, Daily Meditations

Jane Jimenez

Unplugging…it speaks of stopping…even of taking steps back, but the very word itself…unplugging…is a word of modern times, of action, of being electrified, charged up and holding voltage…even as the end of the cord lies on the floor…out of the source of juice…unplugged.

I have absorbed the static electricity of our times, not knowing that the very first step of unplugging was just that…the very first step.

Modern life has taken on a visceral quality.  We are propelled forward with our first breath in the morning, a schedule sounded by the alarm, children and school bells, snarls of traffic and a push on the gas at the first open stretch, having mastered the one fluid motion of bumping-wheels-to-the-curb-turning-pulling-key-opening-door-feet-out-and-down-closing-a-click-of-the-key-as-it-drops-into-purse-door-locked-almost-early-again-one-minute-late.

But it’s not just the activity of the day.  It’s the activity of the mind…of the spirit…of the soul.

The more I unplug, the more I find I need to unplug.  I exchange my radio and television for music.  I exchange my music for melody…lines of quiet musical poetry that aren’t improved by bass.

No longer needing to respond to the latest Fox News Alert, confident that next week will be soon enough to know who won the primary, silence beckons with her promise of a door that opens into a different world…and I turn the dial to fade the last diminishing flute tone down and out of sound.

Silence makes me aware of a different noise, the noise of the self, the mind turned inward, feeding on worries, questions, and habits that have pressed out the Source of life.  I am plugged in still, plugged into myself.

I have been struggling to set myself on a more inspired path for the coming years.  I have strained to hear and see God’s vision.  I thought that unplugging would reveal the Word.

It hasn’t.  And I fear it is because I am still plugged into the barrier that separates me from my Master.  I still grasp for control.

Unplugging my desires, my plans, my goals, my pride, my vision of what I think I need to do…I have been led by the challenge laid out by modern motivational speakers, “Make a difference, think big, ask for the sky and lay it all out, like Jabez, before our Father.”

From a quieter perspective, I think I have been trying to build a bridge to heaven.  Not His bridge, but my bridge.  His bridge was given on the cross.  It’s already here.

Laying down plans, unplugging from myself, I set myself down…quiet…chided…chastened…and loved.   The only thing left to do is pray that my every desire and every action will be created and activated from the Source above.

I am still.  Waiting.  He is God.

March 24, 2008

Jane Jimenez

Cancellation in mathematics was always fun for me, a time when one could rid oneself of numbers instead of being required to create new ones out of sums and quotients.

I was especially grateful that cancellation was useful in the division and multiplication of fractions.  Imagine that a teacher, who heretofore had made me account for every number written in my math problems, now gave me permission to strike through numbers, no matter how large, canceling out any number that appeared both above and below the line.

As I reflect on Senator Obama’s Pennsylvania speech, explaining his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and their separate views on race relations, I find myself flinching.  While I trust that his heart wants to repair the harm done by hateful sermons, I feel Obama is relying on the human cancellation theory, failing to ultimately offer us a solution for bringing Americans together across the vast divide.

Certainly Obama is not alone.  The Human Cancellation Theory has been around since Genesis.

Applied to human behavior, applied singularly to human bad behavior, this cancellation theory requires you to forgive…lets me off the hook…absolves me of my misdeeds…leaving me with the same gleeful feelings I used to get from striking through numbers in math.  There are two functions to this human cancellation theory.

I did something bad, I did something good:  my good cancels my bad.

I did something bad, you did something bad: your bad cancels my bad. 

Obama’s speech, trying to pave a way of understanding and forgiveness for his pastor, relied on them both.

Yes, Rev. Wright said some hateful, spiteful things.  But, on the other side of the line, he has created programs serving the hungry.  Cancelled.

Yes, Rev. Wright has spurred others to reviled their brothers and sisters on the basis of skin color, but on the other side of the line, so did Obama’s grandmother.  Cancelled.

No time is more important than Easter Sunday for considering reconciliation of human relationships.  The good news is that there is a path to canceling our bad deeds.  But it is not as we, as mere humans, would devise it.

As we mathematically consider our actions, both good and bad, we are inclined to divide the impact of our sins while multiplying the sins of others.  From the human perspective, reflecting on our own condition, we use human math to calculate the cost of our sins as forgivable…and cancelled…while those of our foes multiply on into infinity.

One pastor suggested this human math is like looking down on two people trying to jump to forgiveness and salvation across the Grand Canyon.  From the edge of the canyon, I might leap out six feet.  An Olympic star might make it 30. But we both will fail in the end.  Six feet, or thirty, both attempts are woefully inadequate.

Obama’s speech this week dealt with a problem that, if relying on one single human serving as president, will be unsolvable.  While we all want race problems to go away, we know they are founded on human relationship problems that have existed since Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.

To be fair, we are expecting Obama to do the impossible.  Yes, he has encouraged us to believe he is the savior who will lead us to the impossible dream of reconciliation and peace.  For our part, we have bought into his promises because we wanted to.   It seems the easier path.  But relying on human math, we are all doomed to fail.

Peace that comes through a true cancellation of sin comes at a price.  For Christians, we were bought at a price, a price freely paid on the cross, offering the cancellation we hope for…the cancellation we need…that when freely given and freely received, brings love, brings reconciliation, brings life everlasting.  If there’s a message worth sitting in a pew for twenty years to absorb, this is it.

Happy Easter.  He is risen.  He is risen indeed.

March 14, 2008

Jane Jimenez

Pastor Jeremiah Wright has unleashed devilish forces.  In this country, at a particularly sensitive time, when we Americans are balancing our many hopes for the world, he has heaped fury onto the scales and thrown us out of balance.

The People’s Press, modern media outlets, free…and willing…to explore subjects not sanctioned by the more liberal press, has brought Rev. Wright into the center ring…and held him there.  All lights have been shining on his act this week, revealing an uncomfortable truth.  Prejudice is not restricted to the color black.

I married into a Hispanic family, a mixture of Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia.  By nationality and marriage, our hues of brown range from rich espresso to pale café-au-lait.  In the security of family love that permits acknowledging truth uncommon in the common press, we have witnessed the rare and uncomfortable situation where it is suspected that a family member is favored based on their position on the color wheel.

In this presidential election cycle, we had nationally prided ourselves that we could rise above the divisions of race and evaluate the caliber of presidential candidates on qualities more than skin deep.  Rev. Wright has ended this false pride…and our silence on race.

Everyone has something to say.  And most of it needs to be said.  Silence about race has allowed us to pretend that it doesn’t factor into the judgments people will be making when they pull the lever at the polls.

But the wider discussion in the media has missed the deeper implications of Rev. Wright’s passionate sermons.  We treat his statements as public speeches delivered from the podium to an audience.  Not so.

These were sermons delivered from the pulpit by one who has presumed to be a teacher, for which he will be more strictly judged.  The scriptures are full of fire and brimstone.  And we humans must sometimes be startled into righteousness by a sermon that comes from the belly.  But in our righteous anger, we must sin not.  If vengeance comes, it must come from the Lord. 

If the media walks fearfully around issues of race, it is even less capable of reporting on issues that involve religion.  For the most part, hampered by lack of intimate scriptural experience and biased by caustic suspicion of people of faith, reporters are missing the core meaning of Rev. Wright’s sermons and Obama’s presence in the pew.

The essence of Christian faith is the essence of Rev. Wright’s folly.  Reporting on this story outside the meaning of the Christian faith is like reporting on race relations in America while denying the presence of slavery in America.

Christianity…the life of Christ…is a response to sin, that unavoidable part of our human nature.  Why do we sin?  And how do we deal with sin…all of it…racial prejudice…and lust, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy…how do we deal with our human nature?

As a Christian, Rev. Wright had assumed the privilege and responsibility of preaching the good news from Christ, sharing the words of Christ, a message which came from the Father. 

He brought to the members of his church the eternal message of hope.  But the hope of Christ does not rest on blaming others for our sins.  Even less does it rely on threatening other sinners with damnation.

It’s a hard Gospel of love.  We are not given shortcuts.  Love is the reward at the end of a straight path.  Peter spoke for us, asking Jesus, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” 

It was a question back then, just as it is today, with an unwanted answer.  Not seven times, but seventy times seven.  If our jacket is stolen, do not stop him from taking your tunic. The hope for humanity does not end in brotherly love until we get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.   

This is religious truth that is the essence of why Rev. Wright’s words should matter to Obama, and why they should matter to us.  One chooses a church very carefully.  We may continue to attend, even when we wish they sang different songs and had pews instead of chairs.  But we dare not embrace the message of a church that refuses to deliver the message of Christ.

Beware, fellow Americans. We were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. [Gal 5:13-15, NIV]

Rev. Wright is not a wayward uncle to be humored so as not to disrupt the annual family picnic on the Fourth of July.  He is the spiritual leader of the flock, tending His sheep.

A flock that cheers a message of hate will never be a flock that delivers a message of hope to our nation…no matter how pretty the speech.

In his Christian responsibility, Obama might have used his influence over the years to redirect Rev. Wright’s heart to spiritual truth.  But if this had been his course for twenty years, resulting in an intransigent refusal of Rev. Wright to rewrite his sermons, Obama should have sought out a new church…he would not have founded a national political movement “inspired” by this particular “spiritual mentor.”

Sitting in silence for twenty years, surrounded by the joyful jeers of parishioners cheering on a message of hate, is more the sign of one more sheep in the flock than of a shepherd who can deliver on inspiring promises of worldly hope.  For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 

Obama claims a Christian faith.  His claim to faith is about so much more than the color of our skin.  It is why the words of Rev. Wright matter.  It is the real story that should run in The New York Times.

New International Version (NIV), Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

**********