August 2016 – Thayer Writing

The position of Love

As I listen and read, I am always fascinated by the word “love.” It has so many meanings in our society. We “love” hotdogs. We “love” a movie. We “love” doing certain things. We “love” our dog, our friends, our spouses or significant others… we love “love.”

It is always possible to overuse an item or a word or a description to the point of depleting the meaning. Perhaps this has happened to the word “love.” When I was studying at seminary, one of my professors spent an entire Old Testament class teaching us about the word “love.” It took him as entire class to unpack the word for us. That one class effected me very deeply. Subsequently, I have never thought of “love” in the same way again.

“Love” is a word of “position,” not emotion. “Love”, as understood biblically, is not a word that describes a feeling or an emotion. Apparently, the best way to understand “love” is to think of it in terms of a motion or a direction. More specifically, “love” is understood by a forward motion toward its object. In other words, when we are instructed to “love” the Lord our God with all of our heart and mind and strength, the instruction is about movement, not feeling. To “love” God is to engage in a forward movement toward God. It is a change of position and direction, NOT A FEELING. To “love” God requires a change in the state of mind, and thus a change of direction. To “love” God means that you or I move TOWARD the object of our “love.” When I love God, I move in God’s direction. I make a conscious effort to care about God, to be in God’s presence, to allow God to move toward me, to…yes…invite God in. Hmm…

When we are instructed to “love” our neighbors, the implication is a movement TOWARD our neighbor. It is not about having a warm, fuzzy feeling about them. Loving neighbor is about moving toward…with the intent of having a relationship with them. It isn’t about “liking them,” but moving toward them…being there in their presence… In short, loving neighbor is about caring about them, looking after their welfare, hoping for God’s best for them, and doing all we can to make that happen. It isn’t a static “Oh, I love my neighbor” with no acknowledgement of who “neighbor” is, with no conscious effort to be a part of the neighbor’s life in a positive way…to…ah, yes…invite my neighbor into my life.

In our anxious society today, we need the encouragement of the words “Love God, Love Neighbor.” It transcends religion, churches, groups, sects, and division. It is simple. Love God. In other words, let us move toward God… whether it is the God Christians claim, the God Jews claim, the God claimed by Muslims…which oddly enough, all stem from the same Fertile Crescent of ancient history, and from the same roots. (The story of Abraham is a part of the history of the Jews, the Muslims, and the Christians. Abraham is the father of Ishmael first, and Isaac second [chronologically]. Ishmael is the Father of those who hear the prophecies and teachings of Muhammed. Isaac is the Father of those who hear the prophecies and teachings of all the prophets of the “Old Testament.” And Jesus, who is understood as God’s Son by Christians, is of Abraham’s lineage, and considered by all three religions, deified by one.) The Supreme Being who defies description, understanding, and control, appears in all religions. We hope beyond hope that Someone “out there” is at the very least subliminally in control of Creation. Let us unite as we move TOWARD this God. It doesn’t matter what we think about this God. What matters is that this God loves us and wants us to return that Love. Let us unite as we move toward this God…and we just might discover that it changes how we moved toward each other.

We live in a world in which too much movement is AWAY…away from God…away from each other. We justify ourselves by accusing others of stuff we’d never do and turn away. We segregate ourselves from folks we don’t “like” because of long laundry lists of reasons to move away. 1) “They” don’t believe like we do. 2) “They” don’t look like us. 3) “They” don’t come from “here.” 4) “They” dress differently from us. 5) “They” speak a different language. 6) We’ve heard a lot of scary stuff about “them.” 7) The news media has aired several stories about people like “them.” 8) They like things we find abhorrent. It is interesting that every religion claims to have the monopoly on God. Jews are the chosen race and loved by God in a special way. Christians are saved (and no one else). Muslims believe that their relationship with God is paramount and unlike anyone else’s. The “other” is the infidel. Most religions form some sort of exclusivity. And thus, individuals are justified in moving AWAY from “the others.”

And instead of moving toward God in anticipation of relationship, we try very hard to force God into little boxes or into controllable locales that we can control. We’ve been doing that for a long time. The Israelites tried by putting God in the Holy of Holies in their temple. Christians place God in the heart or an interesting place like a church-building…or even in the “Church Universal.” (Jesus is in my heart…God has filled my heart…etc.) [A disturbing example of putting God in a box: The gospel of prosperity which is so popular in America where “profit is king”, places God in the position of being beholden to believers and expected to make them prosperous just because they ask and use certain words and techniques.] Muslims place God above the heavens. (That is interesting. The understanding of the heavens was “above” the sky in 570 CE, the year Muhammed was born. Much like the Israelites and the early Christians, earth was the center of creation and everything else was either above or around, so God must be, too. It wasn’t until Copernicus upset the early Church leaders with his theory about the Sun being the center of the solar system that one could question the understanding of God being “above” all of us. And most leaders back then didn’t want to be challenged.) We want God to be where we want God because then we have control of the situation. But, what God desires is that we move in God’s direction…to love…to open our hearts…to reach out…to be transformed by God’s creative energy, enormous love, and care for all of Creation. We struggle against that. We don’t want God to be anywhere and care about any one or group that might make us uncomfortable. We don’t want God to be a part of or concerned about individuals we find distasteful. We want God to love us “best.”

To love neighbor is pretty simple. We move toward the neighbor…whether neighbor exhibits different looks, skin color, language, dress, gender, sexual orientation, faith, economic status, ability, etc. We move toward them in anticipation of making some connection with them, meeting some need, striking up a conversation, building a friendship, or making a discovery about them. We move toward in anticipation of a relationship. This “love” is unconditional, just like the “love” shown to us by our amazing God…the Creator…the One who understands Creation better than we because God has been “there” from the very beginning. Love is not “work.” It is a simple movement.

Can this love be messy? Sure. Life is messy. Differences abound. Fear springs from that which is different. Differences can make us uncomfortable, apprehensive…afraid. But the perfect love that emanates from the God of Creation supersedes that fear. That Love can strengthen us to “love” in the way that our Creator God loves.

Will we always do it well? Probably not. We are flawed and broken. Our own imperfections combined with the imperfections of those we move toward can sometimes explode. We won’t Love well. But not loving well is no excuse to stop loving. It just means that we need more practice.

Right now, in our anxious, fearful world in which all sorts of negativity abounds, we have a glorious opportunity. We have the opportunity to turn around, to ponder, to take a leap to discover our many neighbors. We GET TO love one another. Period. Notice God never said we had to like each other. We don’t. We won’t. But God commands us (with the understanding that we have the ability) to love. It is a command that MOVES US toward God and toward each other.

We can’t lose…unless we choose not to love neighbor. We can’t lose…unless we choose not to love God. If we allow ourselves to be consumed by anxieties and fears, to be distracted from life-giving energy all around us, to be crippled by negativity, we can lose. If we plant our feet in the hardening cement of hatred, bigotry, intolerance, and self-righteous judgment, we can lose. If we stop thinking, asking questions, exploring others and this world, and stop growing and expanding our experience on this earth, we can lose.

But take heart. The command is two-fold but simple. Love God. Love neighbor. Yes, we can lose sometimes. We won’t do it very well. But thankfully, we cannot be lost. We have a God who has promised to come looking for us when we get lost in the world’s ugliness. And since God is the master of the universe God created, God will find us. Thankfully, God loved and loves us…first.

Freedom from the myths that have shaped us…

We do seem to be captive to “the myth.” There are so many things that we want to believe, or that we accept unconditionally and without examination. I believe that the myths we embrace are like hugs. They make us feel safe and secure. But not one myth should live on without some examination. When I turned 50 (some years back), I started challenging the myths in my life. To my surprise, most do not remain.

The first myth I began to challenge was the concept of “American Exceptionalism.” I have been very interested in the public conversations surrounding our “great country.” It is perhaps quite obvious that most folks who live anywhere in the world probably feel like their country is “great.” (With the exception of those individuals who are forced to run from their country because of political unrest, terrorism, jihadism, or catastrophic reasons….) All my life, I have been raised with the idea that we (Americans) belong to the greatest country in the world. We learn it in school, if not be exact phrase, by the tenor of our lessons.

History is an interesting subject. It is most often written in the voice of those who have “won.” We tend to know about the Middle Ages taught through the experience of kings and feudal lords, reigning monarchs, and the people at the top of the political spectrum. We know about the Enlightenment because of the people who lit the world on fire with new knowledge and opened up the horizons beyond local geography by going beyond where the “little people” lived. We know about the Revolutionary War through the eyes of…well, us. We won! We separated ourselves from powerful England, later got the best of the French, the Spaniards and their settlements out West…

We also know some history through the skewed lens of “myth.” The cowboy and Native American era wasn’t about John Wayne, Gary Cooper and all those who played our “heroes” growing up. It was about Manifest Destiny and the white immigrants desire to plow across North America and possess it all. We literally obliterated an entire race (except for those we tidily put away on “reservations”) as we “won the Wild West.” Hardly anything to feel proud of. A LOT OF INNOCENT PEOPLE were slaughtered in that fight stretch to the Pacific Ocean.

We are taught some things about our American Civil War, but again, it tends to be through the lens of those who “won”… The Union. There are some folks today who know about the other end of things…because their families belonged to the Confederacy. Only recently have we done a better job at revealing experiences of the Confederate patriots, their families, etc.

The American problem of slavery is often glossed over from both points of view. There were Africans who literally sold other Africans for the price of the profit. There where whites who ran the ships and dumped off “these heathen” in the Caribbean islands and at the port cities of America. But we cannot forget the thousands upon thousand early slaves…who were not black-skinned at all. Indentured servants from Europe were the first slaves here in the New World. And ships full of Irish “slaves” who had been sold and counted as worthless also came to America. Some of the captains dumped those white slaves overboard when supplies got low! For the sake of convenience and profit, all races have sold their brothers and sisters for the chance at profit.

And, of course, when one considers the myth of American exceptionalism, one must come to grips with the years between “freeing the slaves” after the Civil War and the actual Civil Rights Act of 1965. It took almost one hundred years to make it right…and we’re still struggling with racial issues. Haven’t gotten it right yet. And with the advent of the first black president, racial tensions and economic tensions have risen as folks on all “sides” seem to feel disenfranchised, left behind, or worse yet, forgotten altogether.

We also have to come to grips with the continuing struggles of women in the United States. All is not equal yet. We women are not protected from religions that would subjugate us (and the Christian Church still has its own issues, so don’t immediately think I’m thinking about Islam). We still see polygamy, misogyny…everything from giving our daughters away at altars in marriage to mutilating their genitals to expecting them to cover themselves and calling it “modesty.” (That actually hails from another era when women, who remain property in some cultures, were expected to keep covered to protect others from “wanting them.”) Women remain hyper-sexualized in our media, used as products to sell all sorts of things. We still don’t have equal pay, equal employment, equal opportunity, etc. We still have a long way to go.

Part of the sticky wicket for me is how intertwined our country and the Church have become. It is very disturbing to me every time I hear some TV preacher say that America is the “New Israel…” America is a “Christian nation.” America is “chosen by God.” Oh, good grief! No IT IS NOT! We are no more “new” than any other nation that God may or may not choose to bless the world. We certainly don’t have that much to brag about. Even the good we’ve done politically in the last century is balanced with the “whatever” we can get out of it. (Case in point: We’ve not been real eager to help nations that have little to offer us. Think about the Congo, the Sudan, etc. in Africa. Not a lot of resources we’re going to get from helping them. Consequently, they languish.) We are not a “Christian” nation. We are, according to our Constitution, a nation that is not overtly tied to any religion and indeed, open to all who come to our shores. We do not discriminate because of religion. Yes, we have been blessed by any number of factors in our history, but so have countless other countries. We like to think God is blessing us more than others, but that in and of itself doesn’t make it true. However, that notion does sell nicely in our churches.

I know the lovely verse, “Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.” I get that. But it doesn’t say, “The most blessed people in the world are those who just claim that God is their Lord.” We’ve used God’s name to justify some pretty horrific moments in our history. Let’s not be to uppity about being God’s favorite. That God Israel into all sorts of trouble time and again in their history.

The myth of our American exceptionalism died for me a few years ago. Are we a wonderful country? Yes, when we are at our best! Is it great to be an American? Yes, except as I watch this election cycle. I’m embarrassed and very worried! What a mess we’ve created for ourselves!

Another myth I have released is the myth of the Church being a safe and secure place to live and work and be. I even wrote a book where I fussed with that notion for 400plus pages. That’s another essay. (Or you can read my book, An Epilogue for Eleanor. Contact me here to purchase an autographed copy.) One of my personal myths that I also released was that I had to keep my bohemian side in check. I needed to “be good,” “do good,” and “think good,” in order to be acceptable. Nonsense. I finally learned to be the best me I can be and forget the rest. One can be totally strangled by trying to live by what one thinks everyone else thinks is “good,” including The Church. As I said, there’s another essay coming about that.

Myths without examination are just great stories we’ve embraced while we’ve checked our brains at the door. We need our brains. I believe we were created with them because there is an expectation that we will actually use them. We don’t have to accept every myth we’re taught just because everyone else is grabbing a hold of it. Research, conversation and honesty are great scales on which to weigh all those myths in your life. I know I’ve discovered a great freedom releasing the myths that were entrapping me. That freedom is…well…very freeing!

Cruising…a lesson in hospitality…and a reminder of the ugly American

Last week, my husband and I had the pleasure of taking my parents and sister on a cruise to the Caribbean. They thoroughly enjoyed the cruise and fun was had by all. As we enjoyed the ship, the service and the smiles of the crew, I spent private mental time reflecting about the hospitality industry involved in the art of “the cruise.”

Crew members are taught the value of and trained in the art of customer service. They learn well how to do their tasks and to make customer service a real part of everything they do. From the moment one drives into the port area and begins that initial adventure of wading through security and registration, every last person is working to make your experience positive. Having cruised seven times, I remain enchanted with the process and with the people that I’ve met on board these grand cruise liners.

I enjoy looking around and studying the people who cruise. Beautiful people gather with their families, speaking every language imaginable. These families and individuals have come from all over the world to enjoy this week (or whatever the length). They are excited, perhaps a bit bewildered by the whole process, and yet looking forward to setting feet on the ship.

If one can listen through the din, one can hear many languages. Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, the various Scandinavian languages, British English, Australian English, Scottish English, Irish English…and yes, even American English. The many port staff members do their best to herd us all through to the point of registration where we can get our “set-sail-passes” and get on board.

This time, we spoke with an elderly gentleman who was herding us through, pointing people to the best lines or the next lines. The queue wound its way this way and that, back and forth, as each “almost-passenger” got closer and closer to their destination. This gentleman looked tired. Just before we got close to him, there was a family that really let him have it. They were so vile and ugly that I felt sorry for the man. And, much to my chagrin, they were Americans. What a great visual for all the guests to take back to their respective homes…an American behaving badly and bullying an elderly man whose sole purpose was to direct and move along the passengers.

I felt heartsick. Why is such ugliness necessary? Everyone else seemed to be able to wade through the queue with some sort of aplomb…some sort of decorum befitting the gentle-people all around. And yet, this family found it necessary to be rude in front of everyone. Ugh!

When we got close enough to him, I asked him “How are you?” He smiled. I commented, “You must feel your job thankless sometimes?” He smiled again, and this time he nodded. I reached over and hugged him and said, “Thank you for your service to us and your patience with ugly people.” He hugged me back and said, “It’s always us Americans who are rude…never the foreigners.”

I winced. Here is a man who works with thousands of people daily. He makes many observations along the way, and that is what he had to say. My heart fell. My spirit was buffeted.

What has happened to us as a country that gives any one of us permission to behave poorly to anyone else? I remember as a little girl learning about the concept of “the ugly American.” My father was privileged with a State Department assignment to Ankara, Turkey. We lived there 1967, 1968 and 1969. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Ankara. Before we moved there, Mother sat us down and gave us quite a “talkin-to.” She told us that we were to behave there as she had always expected us to, but with even more emphasis that we treat the people kindly, eat whatever was offered (I learned to eat eggplant in a million different ways!), and to make sure we played and worked sweetly with the Turkish people. In no uncertain terms, she told us that if we misbehaved or made Daddy look bad because of our behavior, there would be severe consequences. We were NEVER to be “the ugly American.”

Alas, as a child, I saw many Americans who lived there in Ankara behave badly. I learned as a young girl about the puzzling myth of our own exceptionalism that many Americans have– that we are better than the rest of the world, smarter, more clever… And worse yet, there seemed to be the assumption by some Americans could walk all over “other people” because they were not Americans. It was sad to see over and over again. But, what a valuable lesson for me as a young girl.

There I was in this bastion of hospitality, mind reeling with memories of ugly Americans I’ve seen through the years, treating “foreigners” in an unconscionable manner…treating anyone “different” as scum… There I was, looking forward to the cruise, reminded of the hatred outside boiling and bubbling as now Americans are treating each other badly, too. Children have become bullies…as I imagine they watch their elders doing the same thing in different ways. Those who have some skewed sense of entitlement, whether from affluenza or from expecting someone else to provide for them in grand ways, have taught a whole new generation that mistreating others is “alright.” Troubling thoughts to have while looking forward to a week of cruising in the Caribbean.

Thankfully, by the time we had gotten aboard and my parents’ faces were filled with smiles, I had put aside those memories and that one unfortunate experience and given in to the “allure of the seas.” It was a great cruise. I am thankful for the magic of the cruising hospitality industry…and to the “friends” we make on every ship.