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David Walters: “Why doesn’t God like us?”

David Walters: “Why doesn’t God like us?”

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The last of the poems I will publish in memory of David Walters’ life and in tribute to the power of his poetic voice, a most timely word for us in a time when we wait “for a promised dawn …”

Why doesn’t God like us?

Have you ever noticed how God deserts you
When you most need Him?
He hangs around for awhile until he’s through,
Then his bright light grows awfully dim.

God reminds me, sadly, of the sun,
Here now, made known, then gone!
Shines his spotlight, it seems, for fun,
Then makes us wait for a promised dawn.

But a patient scientist pointed out to me my error:
The sun, he said, is almost in the same place today
That it was happily playing in yesterday.
It was only the earth and we who moved! So there!

But I, from living, and the logic of each day’s sharp realities,
Remembered when living wells of faith dried up,
And sincere efforts to live and love or to be kind weren’t enough,
Haunting me with their weak and uncompleted activities.

Still, like a desperate soldier, we choose the forlorn hope,
To rush high stone walls that were laid to injure and damn!
It seemed only right then that we become the sacrificial goat.
Only, I decided instead to stand with the one who had already
          died for us as our Passover lamb.

A dear friend helped me see what we too often miss:
God, he reminded me, is always present – right now!!
          – everywhere and in each moment with all of life.
Even when ignorance blinds us so that we will not heed,
          or we are afraid even to risk!
This is the time of constancy as He walks beside us in our dark
          and loneliness, and simply, loves us.

david walters
February 2015

Chastened, humbled, wiser, better

Chastened, humbled, wiser, better

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There is nothing good about this global coronavirus pandemic. There is nothing good about people dying. There is nothing good about people losing their jobs. There is nothing good about cherished cultural institutions being put in jeopardy.

And yet, I pray that good may come out of it, that when the disease has run its course, when social distancing is no longer required, when we return to offices and schools and theaters and restaurants and sporting arenas and concert halls, we will not be the same, we will not simply return to business as usual.

I pray we may be changed: chastened, humbled, wiser, better.

May we be chastened, newly conscious of our vulnerability, recognizing that we cannot bend this world to suit our own purpose and pleasure no matter how smart or powerful or wealthy we fancy ourselves.

May we be humbled, acknowledging the limitations of our capacity to take care of ourselves, the frailty of our most prized institutions, whether governmental, economic, technological, or medical. May we be simply and profoundly grateful for life at all, for each moment, for each breath.

May we be wiser, cognizant of the frivolity of so many of our passions and pursuits, not abandoning ambition or aspiration, but keeping all these in perspective, remembering what it is that does matter: faith and hope and love.

May we be better, fully comprehending, not merely in our minds, but in our hearts and bodies, too, that we and our fellow human beings, near and far, are not competitors in a zero-sum game, but colleagues, companions, housemates, siblings, we and they children of God alike, we in need of them, they in need of us.

As we face this ordeal together, may we be patient, kind and generous, hopeful, faithful, grateful, and eager … eager for the dawning of the day when this pandemic will be a threat no more, but eager too for the dawning of a new goodness, in us and among us.

Hear the good news!

Hear the good news!

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I just listened to the sermon preached by Nadia Bolz-Weber at the funeral service for Rachel Held Evans. It is powerful, moving, authentic, faithful, hopeful, and, above all, full of glory, the glory of God’s gracious love … for us. It is in receiving and embodying and witnessing to this love that we are most human, most ourselves. This sermon is very much worth a listen. You may find the link to the funeral service here. The sermon begins at about 50:20 and ends at 1:03:50.

May it not be long

May it not be long

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A prayer from John Bell …

May it not be long, Lord.

May it not be long
before there are no more beggars at the door
waiting for crumbs from the tables of the rich.

May it not be long
before northern exploitation
of the southern economies
is a fact of history,
not a fact of life.

May it not be long
before poor economies
cease to be havens for sex tourism,
child labor and experimental genetic farming.

May it not be long
before those nations we once evangelized
show us the larger Christ
whom we, too often, have forgotten.

May it not be long
before the governments of our nations
legislate against commercial avarice
and over-consumption which hurts the poor
and indebts them.

May it not be long
before Christians in this land
examine their economic priorities
in the light of the Gospel,
rather than in its shadow.

May it not be long
before we respond out of love,
not out of guilt.

May it not be long
before we find wells of hope
deeper than the shallow pools of optimism
in which we sometimes paddle.

May it not be long
before we feel as liberated and addressed
by your word
as those first folk did
who heard you summon the oddest of people
to fulfill the oddest of callings.

May it not be long, Lord.

Amen.

(From This Is the Day: Readings and Meditations from the Iona Community, edited by Neil Paynter, ©2002, Wild Goose Publications, Fourth Floor, Savoy House, 140 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3DH, UK)

as yourself

as yourself

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Jesus put it simply: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

As yourself …

How do you love yourself? Out of pity? As a duty? Because you have to?

Or is your love for yourself a desire for well-being and happiness, just because you want well-being and happiness? Don’t you defend yourself because you believe you deserve to be treated fairly? Aren’t you patient and kind with yourself, because you understand your own strengths and weaknesses and know you are still learning, still becoming? And don’t you accept help, when you do, with gratitude, believing it is offered not out of pity, but out of love, because people care about you like you care about them? Because you matter?

Isn’t your love for yourself based on a belief in your own inherent dignity and worth?

A friend shared an article with me today. You should read it. It is subtitled:

We need to change the conversation about poverty and inequality. It starts with compassion and kindness.

We need to change the conversation, to see poverty, not from the outside, but from the inside, to set aside stereotypes and see our neighbors as they are, to lead with compassion, to learn to love our neighbors … as ourselves.

An excerpt from the article …

When researchers at Princeton University showed two groups of viewers the same video of a little girl answering questions about school subjects, they told the first group that her parents were affluent professionals. They told the second group that she was the daughter of a meat packer and a seamstress.

The girl, named Hannah, performed right at grade level on the videotaped test, answering some questions correctly and missing others. But when asked about her performance, the first group, primed to believe she was wealthy, felt that she had performed above grade level. The second group, primed to believe she was not, felt that she had performed below.

It was the same video, mind you — the same girl, answering the same questions in the exact same way. But their conclusions were totally different.

Sometimes we see what we’re looking for …

a safer world

a safer world

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“The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
(Donald Trump in a Dec. 22, 2016 tweet)

This seems to me to be akin to saying: “We must pour more gasoline on the fire that threatens to consume us all until the world learns how to put out fires.” You don’t make the world a safer place by making it more dangerous. You don’t protect the people — your own people or anybody else — by exposing them to greater risk.

“I am the first one that would like to see nobody have nukes, but we’re never going to fall behind any country even if it’s a friendly country. We’re never going to fall behind on nuclear power.”
(Donald Trump in a February 23, 2017 interview)

Again, the statement is self-defeating. If it is a inviolable maxim that “we’re never going to fall behind,” then the wish “to see nobody have nukes” is an empty and meaningless and disingenuous desire. Peace, real peace, always requires sacrifice. Jesus showed the way. The unwillingness to sacrifice, the unwillingness to love an enemy — where love means the readiness to trust, or even the readiness to risk betrayed trust for the possibility of a better end for both you and your enemy — that unwillingness guarantees perpetual mistrust, perpetual conflict, the certainty of death.

Were it not for Jesus, that would be our destiny, the destiny of all of us, the destiny of the human race — certain death. But Jesus lives and we live, to live for Jesus, by choosing his way. If the world has hope, this is it: that we will choose another way, not the way of Mutual Assured Destruction (MADness!), but the way of disarming, disarming both our arsenals and our hatreds.

No path to peace can work unless it is a path we all walk together. “Never going to fall behind” is not that path, because if we all walk it ……

who is my neighbor?

who is my neighbor?

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Do not mistreat a foreigner; you know how it feels to be a foreigner, because you were foreigners in Egypt. (Exodus 23:9)

Do not mistreat foreigners who are living in your land. Treat them as you would an Israelite, and love them as you love yourselves. Remember that you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

The Lord does not show partiality, and the Lord does not accept bribes. The Lord makes sure that orphans and widows are treated fairly; the Lord loves the foreigners who live with our people, and gives them food and clothes. So then, show love for those foreigners, because you were once foreigners in Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

Do not deprive foreigners and orphans of their rights; and do not take a widow’s garment as security for a loan. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God set you free. (Deuteronomy 24:17-18)

Stop taking advantage of aliens, orphans, and widows. (Jeremiah 7:6)

The Lord protects the strangers who live in our land. (Psalm 146:9)

Share your belongings with your needy fellow Christians, and open your homes to strangers. (Romans 12:13)

Remember to welcome strangers in your homes. There were some who did that and welcomed angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them. Remember those who are suffering, as though you were suffering as they are. (Hebrews 13:2-3)

The King will say … “Come, you that are blessed by my Father! Come and possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world. I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger and you received me in your homes, naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me.” The righteous will then answer him, “When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we ever see you a stranger and welcome you in our homes, or naked and clothe you? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?” The King will reply, “I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!” (Matthew 25:34-40)

A teacher of the Law came up and tried to trap Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to receive eternal life?”

Jesus answered him, “What do the Scriptures say? How do you interpret them?”

The man answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind’; and ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’”

Syrian refugee children
Photo by Mustafa Khayat
“You are right,” Jesus replied; “do this and you will live.”

But the teacher of the Law … asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-29)