To Remain Human

 

(This is why LNPC is doing a digital fast.)

To Remain Human

by Brian Lewis

The nervous system

was never designed

to carry the grief

of an entire planet

Yet here we are

A child starving

crosses our screen

between weather reports

and advertisements

Forests burn beside stock prices

Wars arrive

in the same hand

that holds photographs

of our grandchildren

And somewhere inside us

something ancient

keeps trying

to respond

This is the exhaustion

few know how to name

Not simply stress

Not simply fear

But the unbearable collision

between the human heart

and the scale

of modern awareness

We were meant

to know the sorrow

of the village

Now we are asked

to metabolize

the suffering

of civilizations

And many are drowning

Some in rage

Some in distraction

Some in endless performance

Some in irony so thick

it becomes a shield

against feeling anything real

Others quietly disappear

inside themselves

their spirits dimming

beneath the constant demand

to remain informed

productive

available

certain

The world keeps shouting

Choose a side

Move faster

Consume more

Outrage harder

Win

But the soul

does not speak

in that language

The soul speaks

through silence

through grief

through awe

through the sudden trembling

that arrives

when one human being

finally feels

the reality

of another

This is why

so many people

stand at the edge

of breakdown

Not because they are weak

But because they are porous

Because somewhere beneath

the armor

their humanity

is still functioning

And perhaps

that is what must now

be protected

Not merely ecosystems

Not merely institutions

But the fragile interior capacities

that allow human beings

to remain human

inside an age

that profits from fragmentation

To remain tender

without collapsing

To remain informed

without becoming consumed

To remain compassionate

without surrendering discernment

To stand before suffering

without turning away 

and yet also

without allowing suffering

to transform the heart

into stone

This is harder

than revolution

Harder than ideology

Harder than certainty

Because it asks something

few civilizations

have ever learned to cultivate

strength

without cruelty

Perhaps this is why

small acts matter so much now

A hand on a shoulder

A teacher

who notices the silent child

A man planting trees

whose shade

he will never live to sit beneath

A woman refusing

to let cynicism

be mistaken for wisdom

These are not small things

They are the architecture

of psychological survival

The architecture

of repair

And maybe the future

will not ultimately be decided

by those

who accumulated the most power 

but by those

who learned

how to carry immense complexity

without surrendering

their capacity

for love

Because civilizations do not die

only from invasion

or collapse

They also die

when people can no longer feel

one another

When exhaustion

becomes identity

When distraction

becomes culture

When tenderness

becomes embarrassment

When the human nervous system

finally says

enough

But I do not believe

that ending

is inevitable

I think there are still people

quietly rebuilding

the interior world

Still people

teaching children wonder

Still people

protecting beauty

Still people

who understand

that compassion

is not sentiment

It is infrastructure

And perhaps

the task before us now

is not merely

to save the world 

but to become

the kind of people

capable

of inhabiting it together.

 

Walking Humbly

Matthew 2:1-12

On Christmas Eve, an eight year old church member and I discussed the scandalous fact that even though all our nativity scenes place those wise men right up there in the hay near the manger, they likely did not arrive until Jesus was around two years old. His mind was blown. I didn’t even get to the part about there most likely women being in their group of undoubtedly more than three, because unlike a kids’ birthday party, three gifts doesn’t mean three people showed up.  

And when the Magi did find Jesus, it was in a house, on a street in the small, unremarkable town of Bethlehem, where Mary and Joseph had temporarily settled.  Maybe little Jesus was playing with blocks on the floor of his dad’s shop, or sitting in the kitchen in his diaper, gnawing on a hunk of bread while his mom made lunch.  Maybe Jesus was toddling around the yard with the kids of the shepherd’s families, who had become good friends, being the only other people besides Uncle Zechariah and Aunt Elizabeth to know who Jesus really was. In any case, however ordinarily the day in Bethlehem had begun –sometime after morning chores and greeting neighbors, tending to animals, and work in the carpenter shop—suddenly the quiet neighborhood streets were flooded with the spectacular sounds, smells and sights, of a camel-filled caravan winding toward and piling up in front of Joseph’s house, an entourage of exotically-dressed travelers, excitedly conversing in a foreign language as they approach the front door.  
And even though our nativity scenes don’t give us this glimpse, the Christmas story is not complete until we celebrate Epiphany, the visit of the Magi.
 
A friend recently gave me a book about walking. The book begins in frustration, that while so many other religions have maintained physical disciplines, like Hinduism’s yoga, Taoism’s tai chi, Buddhism’s kung fu, and so on, Christianity seems to be largely cerebral, without a physical component.  And yet, we have an incarnational faith, that is, we believe that God came embodied, into this life in a physical human form to share life with us, so to disconnect prayer from a bodily expression of it seems strange.  

Turns out that it seems perhaps we do, but it’s overlooked because it is the most basic, simple, ordinary human thing: walking.  Our faith story begins with God walking with Adam and Eve in the garden, and after they hide themselves from God in mistrust and shame, “walking with God” becomes synonymous throughout scripture with "holiness." Jesus' ministry began when he walked into the wilderness, and continued through walking, criss-crossing territory, meeting people on foot and face to face, and, when he wasn’t in a boat, Paul’s journeys walked him across the Mediterranean region. Historically, walking pilgrimages - first to Jerusalem and then to other holy sites - have been an integral part of the Christian faith. To walk in this way is to acknowledge that even more than the destination, it’s the walking towards that changes you. Finally, the early Church simply called Christianity “The Way.” Jesus says he is the way – he is the route and the journey.
 
So, meeting up with the Magi again this year, I had walking on my mind.  When the star appeared, these scholars of the sky, these practitioners of religion very unlike that of the Hebrew people, consulted their charts and spread the word, assembled their group, packed up their supplies and set out walking, for who knew how long, to go who knew where, and find who knew what. They walk for months on end, day after day, night after night, week after week, through all manner of weather and dangers, navigating through storms and hunger, wild animals and rugged terrain, the court of a despot and the skepticism of scholars, to seek the One promised for centuries to a people not their own. On they walk, trusting that what they are walking toward has somehow changed the trajectory of all humankind. And day after day, they are being changed by the walking itself, their lives being shaped for, and by, this impending encounter with the light of the world, the word made flesh, one slow step at a time.
 
When the visitors first and finally arrive at their perceived destination, it’s not like they think it will be. In the capital city at the seat of power, they are ready to publicly honor the majesty of this holy one. But they can’t find him. Of course, they assume, this great child who has come to change the world is already being honored by all the important people.  Of course, the leader of this land would even, perhaps, have him in the palace.  Instead, they found that nobody in Jerusalem had heard of him. And not only that, but the scholars and priests had to be summoned to look back at the prophesies and figure out what in the world these strangers were even talking about. 
And Herod, the insecure and unpredictable demagogue, is caught unaware, suddenly alerted that his authority may be usurped by some grand scheme that somehow caught the attention of people a world away but slipped by right under his nose. 
 
So, on they walk.  And when the Magi arrive in little Bethlehem, at the home of Joseph the carpenter, these impressive people from an extraordinary place kneel before the seemingly ordinary toddler on the lap of a peasant woman. And their shocking arrival and sincere worship must shake Mary and Joseph to the core, jostling them out of the daily routine and reminding them that this whole thing is so beyond them, and that they are controlling exactly none of it. 
 
And then, because of a dream, the Magi walk home by another road to bypass the raging Herod. And, because of a dream, Joseph will take Mary and Jesus and walk to Egypt, to live as refugees in a foreign land to protect this child from being killed, like so many others subsequently are, by Herod’s violent insecurity.
 
Life is hard. But we complicate it even more. We think we should know things and don’t, we think things that should be easy and aren’t. For better and worse, nobody really gets what they deserve, and so much of it is arbitrary and out of our control. Living is filled with guesswork, and we make terrible mistakes. Evil people often get power, and good people often suffer, and figuring out which way to go is frequently fraught, and our actions have unintended consequences, and we lose people, and we hurt people, and we try to do the right thing but struggle often to know what that is, and why, why can’t God be more obvious? So we think we have to crack the code, figure out how to do it right, learn the moves, like those who went before us did, right?
 
Turns out the central characters throughout our whole faith story were also just feeling their way along, responding to the circumstances, doing the best they could, adapting as they went, just like we are, every day.  They didn’t have anything figured out.  They were trying to live attuned to the deeper story, learning to pay attention, filled with longing and sorrow, and wonder, just like we are. And God directed them, sometimes in extraordinary ways, but mostly in the most basic, ordinary, everyday way, one regular, basic step at a time. None of them ever knew much further ahead than the next step because few of us ever do. Human beings live in time. We move one step at a time, trapped inside of time. But eternity has entered into time, so nevertheless, here on this journey, we are never alone.  And “the road is made by walking,” as they say.  
 
God came into this life, to walk with us, like we walk. In the confusion and the frustration, in the danger and the worry, in the unknown and the figuring it out as you go. This whole thing is beyond us; we are controlling exactly none of it. But every part of all of it is claimed for love, and filled with the presence of God-with-us. Jesus is the way, the route and the journey.   So to practice this faith and follow this Christ, we are to slow our pace to the speed of our soul, our basic humanity, to walk along, like the Magi did, one foot in front of the other, day after day, sometimes excited and feeling it – other times so not, but still, led onward and practicing trust. We learn from them to keep our feet on the ground, and our eyes on the sky. And little by little, we are changed by the walking. Made brave to face adversity, made humble to bow before majesty, made quick to reach across human barriers to see us all in the story of God, made open to dreams and wise to know when to switch routes.  

Whatever we navigate, however it comes, the work of God happens in and through us, one step at a time. This is holy work, walking humbly with God. And in inhabiting our lives, and bodies, and neighborhoods, and communities, we join our forbears in seeking the light of the world that the darkness cannot put out. And we become people ready to pay homage every time we find Christ where he is unexpectedly residing.

Amen.

Good to Remember

Devotion for Being Apart -
July 1

This summer, I will share new devotions from time to time,
and invite you to browse through devotions that have been posted at this blog.

Here are a couple of things floating around the internet that have been helpful to me this week.  The first is just a gentle reminder.



This second one was interesting. When I began reading the lists of "how deficiency affects you", my daughter and I laughed so hard we cried.  We're now asking each other bizarre things like, "How's your serotonin?" and telling each other to take a cold shower or go for a walk.



These two reminders have joined our family's growing "pandemic survival fridge collection," which includes such classics as:





and of course,



These help us stay connected to our bodies, and pay attention to our minds and hearts.  They help us remember this is a really unusual time, and we may be reacting even when we think we are not.
Beloveds, this is our first pandemic. And not only that, but, (as someone put it so beautifully to me yesterday) "We are in a reckoning or a recalibration and it goes beyond a pandemic."  This is all of our first time through all of this.  Grace to you. Grace to those around you. Grace to us all.

What reminders are helping you stay grounded?  What helps you take a deep breath? How are you remembering that we belong to God? How are you remembering the we belong to each other?

---

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps this morning, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we can pray in this way, and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

Set a timer for 5 minutes. Pause, sit still, and breathe.  End with this prayer: 

In the busyness of this day
grant me a stillness of seeing, O God,
In the conflicting voices of my heart
grant me a calmness of hearing.
Let my seeing and hearing
my words and my actions
be rooted in silent certainty of your presence.
Let my passions for life
and the longings for justice that stir within me
be grounded in the experience of your stillness.
Let my life be rooted in the ground of your peace, O God,
let me be rooted in the depths of your peace.
Amen.

(From Celtic Benediction, by J. Philip Newell)