No Words

The Lord says, "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more." 

Jeremiah 31:15

No other words to describe today, a day in which at least 20 school children, 20 innocents where slaughtered at one of our schools. 20 children, I cannot even get my head around that. This is supposed to be a joyous time of the year when we look forward to the coming Christ child, yet instead we are mourning the loss of 20 blessed lives. 

I could pontificate about guns, I could pontificate about the violence prevalent in our society, I could pontificate on the evils of the world, but why? Have we not had this conversation over and over, at least after every single time innocents lose their lives? Did we not learn a lesson in Columbine, or Aurora, or Nickel Mines, or Oak Creek, or Tuscon? 

I am just numb. I have no more words!

Looking in the mirror, can be painful

Perhaps you have heard, perhaps not, perhaps it is not even on your radar, but Jacintha Saldanha committed suicide last week. If you don't know, Ms. Saldanha was the nurse who took the hoax phone call from the Australian DJ's who were pretending to be part of the royal family to get information about the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton. This tragedy has created a debate on the appropriateness of this "prank" phone calls, which while predictable, misses the mark.

While not knowing the circumstances of Ms. Saldanha's life, or the pressures she might have felt following the hoax, the DJ's actions while questionable and perhaps objectionable is not the real problem, we are. You and I, the people who listen to these shows or who have created a cult of celebrity. The radio has become a forum of bad taste and objectionable behavior, gone are the days were you just turned on the radio to find out the news or listen to music. Now the radio is a platform for all sorts of reprehensible behavior from talk shows that seek to destroy political figures, to sports talk that spew venom against players, to music stations that create ridiculous contests.

Yet, while the radio, in its desire for ratings and niches, has sunk to the lowest common denominator, we as a society continue an insatiable desire to know more than we have a right to about others. From royal watchers, who spend their days documenting the activities of the royal family, British that is, to the paparazzi who hound stars, athletes and public officials seeking to get "the" photo. Why in the world do we need to know about these people? Why in the world do we actually buy the mags that cater to such behavior, or watch things like TMZ on tv or visit the websites that serve no other purpose but to cater to our infatuation with celebrity?

Sitting in the car dealership waiting room as my car was serviced, I watched the talking heads on the Today Show pontificate on the behavior of the DJ's and how despicable it was to make the prank phone call. In the very next segment, the very next segment mind you, they had an update on Duchess of Cambridge medical condition, including pictures of her leaving the hospital. Then they proceeded to show pictures of a baby of some celebrity, mind you the baby was literally a new born, like right out of the womb. Why do we need this information?

Why is it we do not see the connection here? When will we realize that our desires and our wants, or that we we believe we have a right to, can have disastrous impacts on the lives of others? Just because we have the "right" to know about the life of another, does not necessary mean we should. Just because there is a freedom of press or speech does not mean we need to abuse it.

As Christians, we have agreed to a covenant with God, a covenant in which we have agreed to limit ourselves. That is the essential part of the covenant, God agrees to love us and care for us and we agree to live by a different standard. Yes, we have the right to do certain things, but we choose to limit ourselves. Look at the excesses of the world, do we really need to understand why we should limit ourselves?

The response of this tragic suicide is the need for all of us to look in the mirror, no matter how painful it might be, and think of our own behavior that feeds to the sickness in our world.

Why only in catastrophe?

I was going to post a rant about the lack of truthfulness in our public discourse ( don't worry I will post it) but  the devastation of Hurricane Sandy cannot go without comment. To watch the pictures, whether it is the coast of New Jersey or NYC or just around the neighborhood, one can only be awed by the power of nature. In relative terms, Havertown got off lightly, some down wires and toppled trees but that was the worst of it.To see the pictures of the utter destruction elsewhere reminds me of how precarious our lives are.

We tend to think that we are secure in our existence, that nothing can touch us. Well, pictures of Manhattan being flooded or Laguardia Airport looking like Venice quickly puts that security to question. The view of downed trees or sand filled streets of the Jersey coast reminds us that no matter what we do, no matter what precautions we take, life is uncertain.

Have you ever noticed how we are more human when we are reminded of this, that our lives are in fact uncertain? Many authors have written about the post 9/11 reaction of the United States when neighbors actually acted like neighbors, but then over time true nature came back out. As Hurricane Sandy approached, I noticed neighbors speaking to others they normally did not talk to, that included myself. Following the hurricane, neighbors worked hand in hand to help clean up. Why is it that we are at our best when we are in our darkest times?

Now don't get me wrong, if there is an admirable trait of humanity it is that when our backs are against the wall, we tend to transcend to another level. But why does it take a 9/11 or a catastrophic hurricane to bring us to this point? To quote the band Switchfoot "We were meant to live for so much more." As we recover from this disaster, and we will recover, perhaps we can live for so much more.

The Book of Leviticus gets its fare share of criticism as being archaic and rather out of touch. Yet it is also a valuable tool for creating a better world. Leviticus 19 epitomizes Jesus' teaching of loving neighbor as self, as God calls the community of Israel to share of its resources, to deal fairly with one another, to live with justice,  to not hate in your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. In Jesus ministry, he points out that life can be precarious, that bad things can happen but that our lives do not need to be defined by this. He demonstrated that we need not live lives in which we only look out for ourselves to fend off evil but that we can lead fuller lives by giving of ourselves to others.

Even living by Jesus' call will not keep us safe from disasters like Hurricane Sandy, but it will certainly make life more meaningful and create a society in which we truly look out for one another.  We cannot live to our potential by living for ourselves, we can only live for more when we live for one another. Following Sandy, we can only live for one another as we seek to rebuild, but more importantly let us continue to live for each other as we build the Kingdom.

When in Rome...

Wandering the streets of Rome is a rather magical experience. Traversing the small side streets while sidestepping scooters flying by, you approach each intersection with some anticipation. Frequently you encounter a piazza, a small oasis of rest in the midst of the bustling city or perhaps you stumble upon a church whose interior artwork would rival any museum in the United States. Of course, Jen and I did the obligatory visits to the Coliseum and other historic buildings but it was the experience of wandering the streets that was the true treasure.

Yet, while our hearts were in exploring the city, we knew that we had to take a visit to the Vatican, if nothing else to check it off the bucket list. So we set out on our second day to head over to the Vatican taking time to enjoy the Spanish Steps and the Piazza del Popolo on the way. We were excited to see that there was no line to get in and hoped that we would be well on our way to a peaceful journey through the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately, peaceful was not what we encountered.

It wasn't necessarily the tour groups per se that was disturbing, although they did not help, but as we entered the Vatican we were assaulted by all sorts of stimuli, most rather unpleasant. The first for me was the Egyptian and Greek antiquities, why does the Vatican need these historic treasures for they held no religious value? The presence of such treasures had a feeling of conquest, these treasures were the spoils. But far worse was on the way.

As we made our way through the corridors of the Vatican, ever increasing our pace to just get ahead of the tours, I noticed that in all of the artwork there was something missing, namely the Gospel. Oh, there were plenty of paintings of the Crucifixion or the Blessed Mary with Babe, but not so much the Resurrection or healing stories found in scripture. This sense of emptiness was pervasive and depressing for me, for while the Vatican is an easy target, it spoke of the present crisis on the church, where is the Gospel? Where is the sense of new life or of the Kingdom? It is almost as if we in the church have stopped at the Crucifixion and the issue of sin and judgment.

The Crucifixion, however, was not an end point, it was a new beginning. The Crucifixion was an event that lead to the Resurrection and it is the Resurrection that defines God's Grace.  So it is the Resurrection that we are called in live, in this new life. Yet we in the church have our own difficulty of living this new life, we are too accustomed to living by this world's values to live anew.

Perhaps the lesson of Rome was that the vibrant life that excited Jen and I was found in the piazzas and not in the churches. Perhaps the lesson of Rome is that life is to be lived but not by the standards of the world but lived by the example of Jesus who cherished life and sought to enrich the lives of those he encountered. Perhaps the lesson of Rome is this is what we in the church need to be doing.