Know thyself

And God, the creator and sustainer of life, urged the Prince to perform his duty as a warrior. But the Prince cried out, 'How can you, the protector of the living, tell me to go forth and kill?' And when the Prince looked up the life giver changed form and appearance. God spoke then, 'Behold now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' -From the Bhagavad-Gita

It is hard to read the Bible passages where God commands the Israelites to go out and kill, to commit acts of genocide. How do we reconcile the God who claims to be love, with the God who at best condones and at worst causes wholesale destruction to happen?

Even if we have an answer to that, there is the problem of suffering. How does a loving God allow suffering and injustice to exist? Job and Jonah, in the Old Testament, ask similar questions and the only response they receive is: Who are you to question me? Do you know what my plans are for you? Can you even imagine all that I am doing?

It is intriguing to remember that humanity is made in the image of this particularly mysterious and unpredictable God. The above passage from the Bhagavad Gita seem to re-enforce this contradiction. How can we can be at the same time a lover, a Father, a Mother, a protector, and also be a liar, a thief, a destroyer, a killer?

The Old Testament ecclesiastical writer also notes this apparent contradiction in ourselves in the verses which say: there is a time to plant and a time to uproot, there is a time to kill and a time to heal.

Where is the comfort here? Ecclesiastes is full of mourning and despair. And when we think about the atrocities that occur daily between people, we ask where is justice?

If God is an unfathomable, chaotic god, then nothing matters, everything is meaningless. If we are made in the image of chaos then morality, good and evil, right and wrong, law and order has no foundation.

Except we are always given a choice. We have the freedom to choose who we are and how we act. We are not predestined to be good or evil, to create or destroy, to heal or to kill. We might go through periods where we do good or evil, where we plant or pull up, where we build or tear down. But ultimately those ups and downs, those cycles do not limit us, unless we resign ourselves to our fate, unless we give up. But even giving up is a choice. We can choose to fight or to surrender. Nothing we do is without choice.

The Prince in the Bhagavad Gita is struggling with his choice to be a warrior. On the eve of a great battle, where he must go and kill, he is chickening out. Perhaps he enjoyed the life of luxury of being a Prince, perhaps he liked the prestige of giving orders and leading men. But when faced with the reality of war, he cries out: This is wrong! We can't know why he is having a sudden awakening of conscience. And why God orders him to go and kill is a mystery. Why doesn't the life giving God, who first approaches him, validate the Prince's moral objections? Why does this God later reveal himself to also be the taker of life?

The mystery is that God is urging him to make a choice which makes no sense to the Prince. God, if we assume God has supreme control over events, put the Prince on this path. The Prince is free to depart the battle, God is not forcing him to take part, nevertheless God is urging him not to turn back from his duty, no matter how repulsive. (The reverse is also true; God does tell a killer to go out and heal. I think specifically of God calling Saul of Tarsus to stop persecuting and executing Christians. Saul later changed his name to Paul, and became the famous 1st century Christian saint.)

The question then is a matter of faith. Can I, the Prince, have faith that God is leading me in the best possible direction? Am I sure that my actions are the healthiest and most proper? How can I tell when it is the time to kill and when is the time to heal? Do I have faith that the path I am on is the most beneficial path?

These are questions that can't be answered hypothetically or in a vacuum. The can only be engaged in the moment, and through conversations with others, with ourselves, and with God.

Ultimately, we can never know what is good or evil. Even Jesus, in two different accounts, corrected a follower who called him good, saying: No one is good except God alone.

We can only choose a path and walk it boldly. Faith says that God is in control and that even when we make mistakes they are not final.

I titled this entry know thyself, because ultimately knowing thyself is not about discovering a concrete identity. It is about being infinitely complex, ultimately unknowable, and continually flexible. Know thyself in this context means to know thy actions. And to accept the consequences of those actions irregardless of the outcome.

And no matter what that outcome is, we believe God has the last word and that word is and always has been good.

Why I choose not to vote

I've spoken with a few of you about my choice not to vote. Hopefully this will clarify why it's important I don't vote. And what I choose to do instead, which I believe will be infinitely more useful.

For starters, I want to live in a society that says, there is enough for all of us. I am looking for a community that says the hording of wealth is not the way to peace. The way of the sword and the dollar has failed us again and again. Yet all I hear the presidential candidates refer to is, "the American Dream," "I believe in the free market system," or "Protect America's interests." My heart breaks for the profound violence inherent in those phrases. I cannot support a leader who accepts the American way of life as default and good.

I won't vote for either candidate because my faith lies with another kingdom. My politics are intertwined with my faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, I don't want to muddle my beliefs with the messianic promises of change that permeate this election. I already have a savior and I doubt he ever wore a suit, although I can't be positive. I've never seen a photo of him.

I'm not apathetic towards the dilemmas of living in this world. But our current problems are the same old crises, in fact it seems that we are living in a cyclical world: the more things change the more they stay the same. It's a scary country to live in when so many of us are hurting and there are so few places to turn. We aren't facing a new vague threat, just a rehashing of the same tired plots.

What is it that makes this election so much more momentous than any previous one? Why the anxiety and anger and fear now? An honest answer to these questions is perhaps the most depressing thing I can imagine. Has the US always been in a war of some kind? Have there always been elderly amongst us who cannot afford to retire? Have there always been homeless on our streets? Does the Hippocratic oath still apply to someone who can't afford to pay the hospital bill? Have the poor always been with us?

The fact is that I'm as complicit as anyone in living a comfortable life at the expense of my neighbor. (I'm not saying the reader is complicit, that's for you to decide, trust me I'm a terrible judge. I know many of you have hearts of gold and serve tirelessly. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone other than myself and the system, which we have let convince us is good.)

This is my cry to our community and to the church. I'm asking to be held accountable to this decision that by not voting I'm taking on a much bigger responsibility: to do whatever small thing I can to love my neighbor, to love as I have loved myself. I have been unfaithful for far to long. I just can't convince myself that voting will absolve me of my responsibilities as a lover of God. The idol of independence has lost it's appeal. My vote doesn't matter if I'm not willing to stand up next to my neighbor, who is suffering, and share their burden and neither does my faith for that matter. I want to seek a new way of living. Nothing I've tried so far has worked.

I just can't believe that any political candidate offers anything fundamentally different from the past 200 years of US policy. But I do believe in the small way, the way of humility and self-sacrificial love and service. I reject the promise of power and change that our right to vote is supposed to symbolize. I believe there is a better system, a better way to live, which is founded on interdependence. I want to participate in a society where 'mine' becomes 'ours,' unfortunately that's not what America means, yet. The vote on November 4th is no paradigm shift, it is no peaceful revolution. But we have been promised a better world. I know I won't vote for the old world when I know there is a new one being born right here, right now.

If anyone reading this has any suggestions about faithful communities that are trying to live a new way, or if you are active in life affirming work, please let me know I'm always looking for new rays of hope.

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." --Mother Teresa



I was greatly inspired by The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborn, it's an exciting read. I have to thank Shane for sharing his thoughts on community, God and love. Also here are a couple of links that helped me compose this note, maybe they can make clear anything I stumbled over. (I recommend exploring these sites. They contain a wealth of, what I'd call, prophetic vision):

http://www.thesimpleway.org/shane/sampler.pdf
(The Irresistible Revolution, Chapter 5)

http://www.cpt.org/resources/writings/sider

http://www.cpt.org/about/gitw

http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/

And just for fun:
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2947