Faith in Real Life

We recently went back to church after more than a year. I honestly didn’t know how I would feel about it. You get out of the routine and get comfortable with doing other things. Add that to the fact that I am not sure how I feel about church and religion and faith these days, and, well who could predict how this would go.

As a family we had decided that, once we were able, we would be attending St. Luke’s Episcopal Church here in Stephenville. We have been there numerous times over the years and have some longtime friends among the congregation. And Father Brad is a gracious, funny, deep, and welcoming priest. And my kids listen to him when he preaches!

The first week we went was Palm Sunday, and it was just Lexi and I, and about 20-25 other people. I didn’t realize how much I missed the liturgy, and communion, and community. On Easter, we all went and stayed for a picnic with the congregation on the church lawn. We met new friends and laughed and talked about things trivial and consequential. I felt as if a part of me had started coming back to life.

The Saturday before Easter, we gathered with extended family and caught up and shared a meal and a lot of laughter and good times. Most of the adults have been vaccinated (got mine as soon as I could), so we felt safe to sit together and share life together after so long apart.

I told some people that next week that I felt like myself that weekend for the first time in a long time. One friend thought it was okay to remind me that I could have been doing these things all the time during the last year. I bit my tongue, but inwardly screamed out that, no, in fact I could not have done it, even if I had wanted to. But now, I finally feel like I can start to live again.

So now, as we see that we seem to be closer than ever to the end of this pandemic, and as I have found the freedom of being vaccinated, I want to spend some time looking back at this last year and make sure that I do not miss the lessons that are available through these challenging times. They are far too valuable to leave behind, too precious to not let them change us. I am going to try to process them in my mind and heart, on paper, with others, and some of them will make it on this blog.

And my challenge to me, and to you, is this…do not just run back to the way things were before Covid. Do not try to simply pick up the life that had to be put on hold in many ways.

First of all, that world doesn’t really exist any longer. Second, we are not the same people we were a year ago. And finally, there were a lot of things in the old way that were not working very well, and we have an opportunity to do better.

As I look around at the daily tragic headlines, it is obvious that many of us are not ready to embrace a more united, less violent, and angry future. Which makes it that much more important for those of us who want a different world to roll up our sleeves and set about making it so. Peace.

It has been quite a while since I posted anything here. I wanted to write and post, but I didn’t feel like I had anything to say, or at least I wasn’t ready to do the work required to say it. For me to write something, I need to wrestle with it a bit (or a lot) and make sure it speaks the truth I want to share, but I also need to make sure I have wrestled with that truth myself. And I guess I just didn’t want to do that work over the last few months.

But, here I am, ready again to give people things to read that they never asked for and never knew they needed (they probably don’t).  And so, let me catch you up a bit. I shared quite a bit last year about the anxiety that took hold during the early months of the pandemic, and of the things I was doing to try to deal with it.

Finally last fall, I went to my doctor and said I needed help. He started me on a low dose anti-anxiety med. I also reached out to a few therapists and found one that I could meet with. I realized that I simply could not face this stuff alone. And so, I started taking meds and doing virtual visits with my therapist. That was not an easy thing to admit, but one of the best things I have ever done.

During those first several weeks, I became aware of a couple of things. First, when I started looking at all of the stress and difficulties that we had been dealing with in the months (and years) leading up to Covid, it is no wonder that I went down such a dark hole. I have always believed that grief and stress are cumulative, and if we don’t take the time to deal with them, they just keep coming back with every new stressor or loss. I had obviously not taken care of business.

The second thing that became so clear is how desperately I needed someone to process these things with, to get them out of my head and my heart and unpack the meanings and the effects. I think we all need some person to whom we can unburden our souls and unpack our crap (that is the clinical term) and figure out what is worth fixing and what needs to be left behind.

Oh, and the other thing that happened during Covid was that I refused to get a haircut. I let one daughter buzz it off last summer, and then did not get it cut again until 2 weeks ago. I didn’t want anyone that close to my face until I was safely vaccinated (I am), but I also wanted to see how I would look with long hair. By the time I went in, it was about 6 inches long and everyone was calling me a hippy. I think they thought that might bother me….it didn’t. It is still pretty long. Maybe that is the new, post-Covid me.

So, now that I am in a much better place, I am going to start writing again. I hope you will stop by and check it out, and if you think it is worth it, feel free to share. Peace.

At the risk of people thinking I may be crazy, I am going to share a dream I had a few weeks ago. It was so vivid that I wrote it down as soon as I got up, but then I let it sit for a while and circled back around to it here and there. I think that dreams can sometimes teach us, but it can be hard just to remember them, much less to discern the meaning. Anyway, here it is…and remember, it was an actual dream, so some of it may seem a little strange…

Emily and I were in another city where we had never been. I was supposed to speak at a church or some other gathering that we had never been to before either. For some reason, the facility was up high on an overpass, and seems to have been connected to a shopping center/mall. The meeting was business attire, requiring me to be somewhat dressed up for my talk, so I was wearing khakis, a button-down shirt, and a sport coat. But for some reason, I was convinced that I did not have the right shoes, that I only had running shoes to wear. So I began rushing around furiously (something I do lots of times in my dreams for some reason!) looking for a pair of better shoes to wear. I rushed around the mall, in and out of stores, looking everywhere with no success. And it was almost time for my talk, the meeting had started already. I know this because in my rushing I went in and out of the foyer area and could see what was happening. In all of this, I could feel my stress level rising constantly, and almost a sense of panic…what if I miss it? What if they don’t let me speak because I am not dressed appropriately?

Finally, I remembered that I had a better pair of shoes in the car. They were still tennis shoes, but they were really nice. (In fact, they were the really cool grey K-Swiss that I recently bought…how weird is that?) So, I decided those would have to do. I went back to the car, got the shoes and sat down to change quickly so I could still make my talk.

And as I sat down and lifted a foot to take off a shoe, I realized that I was wearing a pair of brown loafers that were exactly what was needed for the event, but somehow, in all of my rushing and worrying, I had not noticed. I had not taken the time to look down at my feet or to notice the difference in feel and fit. I was working from the assumption that what I needed was something I did not already possess, that what I needed to wear was something not already on my body. And it almost cost me an opportunity to do something I really like to do. It caused me stress and frustration and fear. All because I never took the time to stop and look down.

How much is that like our lives much of the time? We run and rush and worry and fret and strive to find that thing that will make it complete, that will give us peace, that will bring happiness and satisfaction. But we never stop and look around, and look inside, to see if what we want, what we need, is something we already possess.

But we are convinced that the answer lies outside of us. Or maybe we suspect it might be inside; but we realize that it will take some uncomfortable inner work to uncover and unpack it.

May we stop rushing around, at least in our minds, long enough to see what we already have…we might find it is exactly what we need. Peace.

“I think the world is big enough for everybody.” Chef Asma Khan

Do you think that? Is the world big enough for everybody? I heard that line during an episode of Chef’s Table on Netflix. Chef Khan is a London chef who grew up in India. When she said those words, I had to pause the show and make a note in my phone because it seemed so simple and profound at the same time. Maybe this line seems so evident that you are wondering why I am making a big deal out of it. 

And, in some ways, it is an obvious truth. But here is something else I believe to be true, and it is important. Not every person agrees that the world is big enough for everyone. And I think that is a root cause for many of the struggles we now face. When you look at just how divided humanity has become, we might be able to say that the dividing line is between those who think the world is a big open place to which all are invited and those who think the world is a private club just for those who they agree with.

Pick an issue and think about in these terms and see if there is anything to it. Racial injustice. Pandemic. Gay rights. Economic disparity. Climate change. I think you find it in all of them.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the problems with dualistic thinking, which forces every issue or person into one of two boxes. That kind of thinking is limiting by its very nature, and it leads to the idea that there is good and bad, right and wrong, only one or the other. It is all or nothing, us verses them, with very little grace offered or accepted. It can lead one to think that the world is, in fact, not really big enough for everybody. At least it is not big enough to allow those “others,” whoever they may be, to occupy any of it.

But if we can open our minds and expand our thinking and embrace our common humanity…then we might be able to experience genuine change. And we would recognize that there is plenty of room for us all, and I am not just speaking about physical space. The world is a big place, the universe is vast, why would we want to shrink it down and miss the mystery and the joy that can be ours together?

And it seems to me, that the more this becomes our experience, and the more we come to understand and appreciate our sisters and brothers here, the big enough world may not seem so big after all; it may seem just about right.

To say that this year has been interesting so far is probably the greatest understatement of my life. I cannot imagine anything that could have prepared me for what 2020 has brought our way. And it started so strong, only to go completely sideways around spring break. Times like this try us, change us, and if we are not careful, they can break us. None of us did anything to bring this on, but we are all facing it, together (or at least 6 feet apart).

I have written on here a couple of times about my anxiety during the pandemic. And with cases surging around us, it has come back with purpose again. I do not normally consider myself to be an anxious person, so this has been especially tough for me. I have forced myself to sit with it and unpack it and walk around it and try to see it from every angle. And I have really tried to focus not just on the causes, but on ways to manage it.

The first several weeks of the pandemic and lockdown had me in a near panic most days as I watched the numbers rise and feared for my business as the stock market came down hard and worried about our immuno-compromised daughter. My fear level helped no one in my world, and I had to fight hard to get it under control. And I am sharing this because I suspect that my story is not at all unique during this time.

The causes are fairly clear on the surface, but a little more complicated once you scratch the surface. The pandemic landed on us after a particularly hard 10 months or so, during which my mom died, we bought a new house and had trouble getting our old house sold, Emily had hip surgery, and our middle daughter had multiple surgeries.  I got sick with bronchitis in February and stayed sick off and on until late April. I was tired already.

As I have worked through it, I have found a few practices that are helping quite a bit. They have not made the anxiety go away, but they are giving me some peace and clarity in the midst of it, and I offer them here in case they might help you or someone you know.

In April, I started walking, a lot. Since April 17^th, I have walked over 200 miles, and my goal is to hit a total of 600 by the end of the year. I may not make that goal, but I will still walk lots of miles. And these walks have given me the chance to work through some complex emotions, and to leave some baggage along the roads. I listen to podcasts and sermons and spend some time wrestling with some new ways of seeing things. And I pray a lot. Some of these prayers are pretty raw, and some don’t sound at all like the prayers I learned to do growing up, but they are honest. The physical aspect of the walking has been great, but what happens to my head and heart on the walks has been as good or better.

Recently, listening to a podcast on a walk, I heard Jay Shetty and Ryan Holliday (you should check them out) discussing their morning routines, especially related to the use of their phones. Both talked about how they stay off their phones until sometime later in the morning. No emails, no news, no social media; nothing that can derail the day before it even gets started.

This made me think about my mornings, and how I would get up, grab some coffee and mindless scroll through Facebook posts, or read upsetting headlines, or focus on the market futures. None of those things will help you get off to a good start. Facebook has gotten so toxic that I am mostly off it for a while and the news just got me worked up about things I could not control. So, I am following their advice. Until work time, the only thing I use my phone for is meditating and podcasts while walking. I am reclaiming my mornings in order to better set the tone for the day. And it has been so refreshing!

And finally, I am doing something that I never imagined would become a part of my days. I am meditating several times a day. I am using two apps, Breethe and Calm, for guidance and I highly recommend them both. Just the practice of mindfulness and being focused on the present moment has already been life changing, and I can see the practice of meditation being a part of my life from now on. Taking a few moments throughout the day brings periods of peace and clarity. It has been said that everyone should meditate 20 minutes a day, unless you are too busy, and then you should meditate for an hour. My goal is to get between 40-60 minutes total throughout the day.

None of these things make the anxiety go away, and I wonder if it is just going to be a constant in my life for a while (or if it has been there all along), but these practices have been so helpful for me. And if you are fearful and anxious, they will help you as well. Give it a try. And reach out if you have any questions about any of this. After all, we are in this together.

“Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.” T’ai Shang Kan-Ying P’ien (Classic book on Taoist ethics and morality)

Every world religion has an expression of this same basic “rule.” In Christianity, it is “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In Buddhism, “Treat not others in ways that yourself would find hurtful.” In Judaism, “What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor.”

And we would do well in these times to remember and try to live by all of these statements. But I just came across the Taoist version recently, and it struck a nerve with me, because it is so contrary to the way that we tend to live and relate today. We act as if somebody else getting something means they are taking it away from us. If somebody else’s rights are protected, we act like ours are being threatened. We fail to see how interconnected our lives and our fates truly are.

Think about current events and the variety of responses to them. We can start with the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders (and masks). A healthy way for us to respond would be to recognize that we all are better off when we look out for each other, and to take whatever steps are needed to protect each other. Our neighbor’s gain would be our gain as well. But instead, we have armed citizens marching on state capitals and threatening public health workers.

People are acting as if being asked to wear a face covering is a threat to their freedom, a grievous infringement on their basic rights. While there may well be some people who cannot handle a mask, for the most part this one is pure selfishness.  When we have something so simple that we can do that might save a life, it should be the easiest decision we ever make. But many won’t do even this, and more will get sick and lives will be lost. And our neighbor’s loss is a loss for us all. The loss of any life is a loss for all of us. Like it or not, we are that connected.

The Black Lives Matter movement is a response to a systemic problem that threatens the very fabric of our country. And I find it hard to believe that people could be against seeing everyone treated fairly. I cannot believe that anyone would argue that there is not a problem when we have video proof. And if we could see that our black neighbor’s gain would be our gain as well, we might get serious about addressing the issue. But we act as if black Americans being treated better would mean that we would be treated worse. And we fail to understand that the losses suffered by our black sisters and brothers are our losses too. We are that connected.

Recently, the Supreme Court said that people cannot be fired for being gay or trans. You would think from hearing some critics of the decision that they were afraid they were going to be required to move over to the “gay” team. It was much the same after the SCOTUS decision affirming gay marriage a few years ago. Many pastor friends acted like they were going to be forced to do every gay wedding in their town and that giving same-sex couples the right to marry was a threat to heterosexual marriages everywhere. But giving people more rights is not just the right thing to do, it is a gain for us all. And taking rights from anyone takes them from everyone. We are that connected.

Imagine a world where we lived as if we were that connected, as if we actually believed that to be true. A world where we recognized that a loss for any person is a loss for every person, and where we worked just as hard to lift up our neighbor as we do to protect ourselves. May we work toward that goal for us all. And wear the mask while you do!

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”

These words are credited to Viktor Frankl, though it was Steven Covey who made them well known. I heard another author, when speaking about this quote, suggest that our task is to “train that space.”

I have been thinking about that space, and how important it can be for our daily lives and for our mental and emotional well-being.

When we use that space wisely, we can grow. We can exert our true power, make our most lasting impact, be most true to ourselves. In that space we can listen and learn and question and ponder. We can think through what we have seen or heard and decide if any actual response is needed, and if so, what kind. Should we be angry, surprised, hurt, joyful? Do we need to call out a wrong, name an injury, or begin a celebration? There is great power in that space.

But when we squander or ignore that space, we give up our power and we choose to not grow. What we get instead is usually an instant reaction, not a reasoned response. And instant reactions are often wrong, hurtful, dangerous. They can start wars, end friendships, sink businesses, and wound loved ones.

I have often said that we need to respond, not just react. We need to think things through, and that means that we may have to sit with some uncomfortable things for a little while as the actual image takes shape, or the actual meaning sinks in.

Sitting with these things is an active approach. It is more than just putting off dealing with something. JFK spoke of the need to “use time as a tool, not as a couch.” Those words were spoken during the Cuban missile crisis, while he was taking the time to study and plan and formulate a reasoned response, should it be needed. That is what I am talking about here, seeing the space as a tool, not a couch.

We are not handling that space well these days. In a world of constant information, some true but much not, and with the instant interaction that social media affords, we are missing the power of the space between stimulus and response. I mean, people don’t even proof their responses to make sure that it is readable before they post a comment to something that they don’t like on social media platforms.

In giving up the time and space like we have, we have surrendered much of our power and squandered so many opportunities to grow and learn. We don’t take the time to think through what we read or to verify that it is even true before we offer our take on it. We believe that our opinion actually matters to people we have never met, and we want to get it out there as quickly as we possibly can.

And often in doing this, we end up being hateful, or rude, or snarky, or condescending. None of those are descriptions of the kind of people we should strive to be, and none of those are characteristics of people who make a difference.

Over the last few months, as we have dealt with both the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, I have made the mistake of reading comments on people’s posts on Facebook. That was not a wise decision. I have rarely witnessed such hate, directed at both people known in real life, and people who the commenters will never meet. I am tempted to label much of this as arrogance, and some of it as ignorance, and both are true in places, but I think it is actually an expression of fear. It is fear of losing something, and the reaction is to hold on tighter and bark louder.

These exchanges are not healthy. They do not change minds, but they do harden hearts. And if fear is driving much of it, it is also causing a tremendous amount of anxiety. It can do real damage to mental and emotional health.

Over the months of the pandemic and the quarantine, I have dealt with anxiety like I have never known before. I am not an anxious person by nature, but there have been so many days where I felt like a panic attack was waiting around every corner. I suspect I am not alone in this.

Because this is outside of my normal experience, I have tried to take the time and sit with it and break it apart. Rather than just lugging this baggage around with me, I forced myself to do some unpacking. That is not fun work, but it is part of training that space between stimulus and response. I have been reading and listening to many different voices, hoping for some light to be shed on my anxiety.

I don’t have all the answers yet, but this past weekend I had one breakthrough. Much of my anxiety has come from social media. The constant barrage of information and misinformation. The instant and angry comments from everybody. The hardening of divisions over issues that should be easy for us. The conspiracy theories that range from laughable to ones that made me concerned for the well-being of some friends. All of it is just too much.

So, I am leaving Facebook behind for a while. I need the break. I can get the information I need from other places. And the people that I regularly interact with can still find me. I will miss some of it, but right now the negative impact on my health outweighs any positive value for me. I will probably come back, or maybe I won’t. If I do, I will clean up the friend list and set some hard boundaries for me.

Instead of wasting time scrolling and reading and reacting, I am going to do more meditation and writing and focus on being more present, for myself and those that matter most to me.  I am going to mindfully sit in that space between stimulus and response and allow myself to be changed for the better by and in that space, for in that space is freedom and power and growth and happiness. I am claiming that space in my life.

I have been thinking about the Jacob and Esau story quite a bit lately. It came up in a message on a podcast a couple of weeks ago, and kind of lodged in my brain, poking its head up every so often to remind me that it is there. If you don’t know the story, it is in Genesis, chapters 25 through 33, and it is a fascinating story. I will hit a few points, and then try to share what has been forming in my mind.

Jacob and Esau were the twin sons of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham. These are important people in the narrative of the Old Testament and the formation of Israel.  As the story is written, Esau was born first, and he came out manly and strong, covered in red hair. His father took to him immediately. But Jacob, the second born son was born holding on to the heel of his brother. He became the favorite of his mother. You can see where the tension is going to arise, can’t you?

Esau is a man of the field and of action, a skillful hunter who regularly brought the game from his hunts to his father. Jacob, we are told, was quiet and stayed close to home, and his mother. After one of his hunts, Esau came charging into the camp famished and demanding that his brother give him some stew. This was a moment Jacob had been waiting for, and he told Esau he would give him a bowl of stew in exchange for his birthright (his position of honor and privilege as the firstborn). Esau was too hungry to care, so he made the trade.

Later, with the help of his mother, Jacob tricked an aging and blind Isaac into giving him a blessing, which was a tremendous gift passed from father to son, and it should have gone to Esau. After that, the scheming Jacob ended up on the run until settling with relatives, taking a wife, and becoming wealthy. But he eventually had to face up to his past and go back to meet Esau in order to make things right. Along the way, he was changed by an encounter with the divine, and bore a limp for the rest of his days as a reminder.

The story is rather gripping, with action and deceit and showdowns and forgiveness. And one of the amazing thing about stories in sacred texts is that they have layers of meaning and may well speak to you differently every time you read them. One of the reasons why is that we read them through the lens of our own experience, overlaying them on our own stories. And those things change and evolve as we live and grow.

In light of the reckoning underway in America right now about the serious mistreatment of our black brothers and sisters, I think there is something in this story that speaks to us, but it may not be easy to hear. I am writing as a white man, and thus I am including myself in any criticism leveled therein. Here is what came to me a few days ago. I had to sit with it for a while and see what shape it would take.

I think most white Americans see ourselves more in Esau. We are the privileged first born, the people of action and adventure, who go out and take what we want. And we see the others (those with black or brown skin, who have an accent or a birth certificate from somewhere else) as the heel-grabbing Jacob, trying to take what is ours and push us aside.

For starters, anytime we try to read ourselves into these stories like this, we will hit some bumps and dead ends. But also, I think we have assigned the characters wrongly, at least in this current telling.

I think that Jacob represents the white experience more. We grab the heel of our brothers as if to say that you will only go as far as I allow you to go. We go to extremes to protect and hold on to what we think should belong to us, the privilege and power that we believe we are entitled to. And in so doing, we do often hold down our brothers and sisters of color.

Where the story gets problematic is with the parents picking favorites and then pitting the younger against the older, who seems to not be aware of what is happening until almost all his power has been taken. And then the younger son runs away, and with his fleeing, the chance of a reconciled relationship grows less and less likely.

When we act like Jacob-like, committed to taking and holding power, we damage the relationship with our brothers. And when we flee, whether to the comfort of our suburbs, or our clubs, or our theological certainty, we put distance between us that should not and must not exist.

I see that much of this dynamic has played out in race relations in America. We are watching it play out right now, every time a white person calls the police on a person of color who has done nothing more than exist in the same space. We see it in policies that make it so difficult for those in poverty to find a way out. We see it with inequities in housing and healthcare and education.

And those with power are now facing the same call that Jacob felt; to go back and face his brother; to make right some very old wrongs; to ask for forgiveness; and to work toward a healed relationship. And. Like Jacob, we need to realize that it will cost us something and the process will leave a mark on us as well.

There is much more that could be said, and plenty of other ways to read the story, but I think I want to stop here, but also to leave us with a question to ponder: If we have been like Jacob toward our brothers and sisters, what do we need to do in our own lives, and as a culture, to right the wrongs? Are we willing to do the work and pay the price? It is the only way to healing.

I want to see color. I value color. Color gives life to a painting and texture and layers to life. For color is part of who we are, part of our story, and in fact is a story itself. Without color, there is no vibrancy or depth. Part of the joy of being married to an artist is that we talk about color and our home is full of often-changing colors. And I want our world to be as well. Far from not seeing color, I want to see it more vividly.

In an attempt to prove that we are not racist, we often will say things like, “I don’t see color, just people.” And the intent may be good behind that claim but let me offer two thoughts. First, when we say that, we are not being honest. Of course, we see color, and often we judge by it, we just don’t want to admit it. And second, when we say that to a person of color, what we are really saying is that we don’t see them. The truth is that a person’s skin (the color, the scars, the wrinkles and spots) tell a story of who that person is and how they got to where they are. To say that we don’t see that is to say that the person’s story is not important.

After listening to a sermon on Ephesians 2 this week, I spent time with some of the verses, and came away with an interesting lesson. Here are verses 14-17:

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.

In the original writing, the reference is to Jews and Gentiles, but we can easily apply it to other divisions between people, including our current racial struggles.

We are told that our peace with each other is through Christ, who took all the hostility on himself in order to set aside the box-checking of the law and to create a new, reconciled humanity. He called out to those who were far away and those who were near. Nobody was too far away to be brought in, but nobody was close enough on their own either.

Here is what I saw…neither side was being called over to the other side, but both were being called to a new “side,” a new place, a new humanity! I think one of our problems, especially for white people, is that we think that racial reconciliation/restoration means that others who are different from us learn how to live in “our” world, and have to give up whatever cultural/religious/communal identifiers that get in the way.

I will never forget the lesson that a friend taught me in seminary. She was Korean American and had lived in a large city on the west coast. She described the vibrancy of the diversity of people there, and I called it a melting pot. She very quickly, and graciously, told me it was not a melting pot, but a mosaic, where the uniqueness of everyone added to the beauty of the whole.

That is what can happen when we see color. We each bring our stories, our victories, our scars, our hurts and our dreams. We bring different hues and shades and layers and textures. And together, God creates a mosaic, a new humanity.

For what is a mosaic but a bunch of small, maybe broken pieces, arranged together to tell a story. At first, it is a pile of broken pieces, but in the hand of an artist, those small, broken parts can come together to make something more beautiful than any of them ever could on their own.

I will not presume or pretend to understand the plight of black Americans. I know that I cannot imagine the strain of living in such dangerous times, wondering day in and day out if you will run into someone who thinks your life is not as valuable as theirs. As a parent, I sorrow with those parents in the black community who sit up anxiously waiting for their young ones to return home, only to go through the same thing tomorrow. And I am willing to listen and learn and sit with them in their anxiety and stress.

And I don’t really understand the rioting and looting going on right now. But because my experience is so different, I don’t really feel that I have the right to pass judgement on a group of people who have been put down and mistreated for so long. Yes, there are people who are using this opportunity to cause destruction just for the sake of it, and they must not be allowed to distract from the important work to be done. But, when you have lived at the mercy of a rigged system for so long, maybe this is what happens when the anger reaches a boiling point. And being quiet and polite was not getting anywhere.

But, for those who think that the destruction invalidates the protest, let me offer something to think about. In Matthew 21, we read of Jesus going into the temple and turning over the tables of the money changers and other merchants. Why would he do this?

The temple was the center of religious life, and it was to be open for worshippers, but the area that was open to all was crowded with those trying to make a buck or two from the pilgrims who had come to pray. The system of the temple spelled out the appropriate sacrifices that people needed to make, and some enterprising merchants were only too happy to provide animals for the sacrifices, at a profit of course. Oh, and they only took local currency, so if you travelled to Jerusalem for this, you would need to change out your money with a different merchant, at a profit of course.

The system, that was supposed to be open to all and to facilitate worship, that should have been life-giving and life-supporting, had been turned into a money-making scheme that took advantage of those with less connections and resources. Sound familiar?

I am not saying that these things are completely equal, but I am saying that there is some precedent for attacking unfair systems, and even for breaking some furniture along the way. Makes me wonder how Jesus would respond to this system. Maybe he is watching those who claim to be his and wondering the same thing.