November 6, 2018 -- Election Day
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| I Voted |
It's Election
Day. The crescendo of ridiculous campaign advertising will recede tonight. I
think it's silly when people say all the money spent on campaigns could be used
to feed all the hungry in the world. While I suppose that's technically true,
it seems to me that the people who give so generously to campaigns aren't the
ones volunteering in underdeveloped places with marginalized populations and
generously donating of their wealth to feed victims of famine -- and they
aren't going to. If they didn't give to political campaigns I don't think their
money would find its way to feeding the poor. That's my thoughts anyway and
it's my blog so, ......
But the
crescendo of political advertising will recede tonight to a murmur of what it
has been in the last few days. The President can go back to spending his days
and nights in Washington and his weekends in the Hamptons or at a club in
Virginia or Florida. And we can get on to what really matters tonight, UK
versus Duke. That's where our passions really lie because UK fans rejoice in
loathing Dukies.
Loathing
seems to be gaining in popularity these days. Maybe it's been there all along
but it seems a bit more open and obvious. People seem to feel a little less
shame about open enmity for others. I suspect just about all of us were taught
not to hate, but well, that lesson doesn't seem to have taken too well. Before
Christian Laettner hit that shot in the 1992 Regional Final, he stepped
directly on the chest of Aminu Timberlake who was lying helpless on the court.
Laettner should have been ejected and if he had that infamous shot would never
have happened. But it did, and the hate rolls on. So much so that in 2015, ESPN
did a 30 for 30 episode entitled, "I Hate Christian Laettner,"
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| Laettner's foot on Timberlake's chest |
But you know,
loathing seems more evident in other places. There are neo-Nazis in our country
right now and the Southern Poverty Law Center tells us membership is on the
rise. There are also white nationalist groups that are growing and becoming
more bold in their visibility. The men of the KKK wore masks to cover their
faces -- but not these white nationalist groups. Anti-Semitism? Rising. Mass
shootings based on ethnicity, religion, national origin -- on the rise. Happens
often now. Loathing of Central Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans (who are US
citizens), exploding on social media. Political loathing is definitely on the
rise. Democrats are sick, perverted and are inviting gang members into our
towns. Republicans are hateful, racist and bigots who want all brown people
disenfranchised.
We seem to be
getting way better and way more demonstrative in our loathing. Yay us!
In my sermon
this past Sunday, when speaking about the Lectionary Gospel text for Pentecost
24, Mark 12:28-34 I offered a quote from Henri Nouwen. It's a difficult quote.
Let me say a word about Nouwen. He's one of my spiritual heroes. Nouwen was a
Catholic priest whose gentleness and compassion inspire me. After nearly two decades of teaching at
academic institutions including the University of Notre
Dame, Yale Divinity School and Harvard Divinity
School, Nouwen went on to work with individuals
with intellectual and developmental disabilities at the L'Arche Daybreak community
in Ontario.
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| Henri Nouwen |
Here's the quote I shared. "For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered,
no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only
children, women and men to be loved."
No loathing there. No prejudice against women, GLBTQ folks, people of color, the poor, the rich. No loathing at all -- only love. Loathing is easy. Loving is difficult. Jesus clearly prefers not to call his followers to what is easy, but instead to what is divine. Love is divine. Loving one's neighbor as one's self is divine. It's our imperative. It's the greatest and the first commandment says Jesus. So, that's what we are called to do.
And yet, loathing is everywhere we turn. So here's where I come down on this whole blog post, where the rubber meets the road so-to-speak. We are not called to change the world, we are called to change ourselves. If we change our hearts then the heart of the world will be changed. One by one, individual by individual, town by town, state by state, country by country, one great body of humanity living in a large neighborhood we call Earth.
There are no boundaries to love. No borders. No colors. No teams. No parties. No boundaries to love. That's difficult. It's really difficult to love like that. Jesus has put us in a bind with this imperative to boundless love because, Go Cats. Beat Duke.
Peace and Love,
Jerry
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