There’s a constant pull (whether overtly named or seductively inherent in our frothy zeitgeist) to take sides. So, I’ll be plain.
I’m on the human side. I’m for every elder, every child, every human person. I’m for every human of every ethnicity, every history, every political persuasion, every religion. I’m for people I disagree with. I long for their well-being, their safety, for them to experience mercy and goodness.
Because I’m bound to the Jesus story, I long to be the kind of person, God help me, who embraces every human as my brother and sister. I must do so, not as an act of charity but sanity, knowing as I do that every human is created, like me, by God the Father. This being trust, I must be for those I’m supposed to view as enemies as well as those assumed to be friends.
This means I’m opposed to all that degrades dignity, all that kills innocent life. I’m opposed to murder, and I’m opposed to revenge.
These basics don’t by any means answer all our horrific realities or the calculations that must be made (though we must admit that our blinders too often limit our possibilities). But these convictions absolutely rule out a whole range of postures, rhetoric, and ideologies.
I don’t live this ethic out consistently, not by a long shot. But it’s my hope. Christ have mercy.
Well put Win.
I just finished listening to your book on Eugene. I loved it. Thank you for all you put into writing it.
I was standing in the back of the chapel, (not a student just an older woman) probably the last time he was here, and as he walked out he was putting his coat on and it looked like he could use a little help SO I helped. He smiled and said thank you. Somehow it felt like an honor.
Babs
Winn, I love this. This whole post and especially the phrase, I long to be the kind of person who…. reminds me to share a newer spiritual practice I’ve been doing since this summer, which was born from having plantar fasciitis, which ruined some backpacking plans, and I was mad about that, but as part of my varied custom therapy that I crafted for myself, I now regularly stand on an acupressure mat for 5 minutes at a time to relax my feet. I moved the mat to be right in front of a cross shaped rendering of 1 Cor. 13-4-8. I stare at that passage. I meditate on it. I read it over and over again, sometimes really slowly, other times, reading it again and again… but always in awe of it, challenged by it, encouraged to become the embodiment of it… and it is a lifetime journey of continuing to move toward love, which is exactly what you are talking about in this post and that is the invitation of Christ to move more and more toward this way of being and doing. It is the journey of our lifetime.
THANK YOU! I’m so tired of humans acting like life is a football game with a winning side and a loosing side. Forget winning and let’s do ‘loving.’
Very well put, Winn. I miss you.
Amen! Very well said. Lord have mercy!