Orthodox Jews, Anxiety, and Teenagers

A Discovery Walk Through the New York Times

I am convinced that life is full of incidents and expressions that sustain us.  This isn’t a mushy conviction that seeks to see light where there is none.  Sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be any.  And I don’t think any of us can force it, ‘power of positive thinking’ aside.  Side note: Bobby Knight’s new book is called “The Power of Negative Thinking.”  Back to the subject which is to share some of my experience in reading today’s newspaper.

I read the local newspaper daily.  On rare occasions something speaks to my experiences, my thoughts, or my feelings.  Most the time, however, I make a very quick trip from the main through the business sections,  with most of my time spent on the Word Jumble. It’s at best cotton candy entertainment. I walk away having only superficial disappointment or occasional pleasure at what the politicians may or may not have done around WIsconsin or Milwaukee.  A cartoon here or there can put a smile on my face.  It really isn’t much of a source of sustenance. It’s a kind of news, but nothing of much consequence.

On the other hand, I also read on line the Opinions and Columnists of the New York Times as well as movie and book reviews on a daily basis. If I get to the library or coffee shop on Fridays, I read almost everything in the Times.  An hour or so will pass and I have often have a notebook filled with quotable material.

Today, Friday March 8, 2013 is bonus day.  The writers invited me to think more deeply about something, to contemplate an insight or to consider  a new understanding.  When that happens, I experience the newspaper as a vital part of my reflective life, those things that expose ‘the heart of the matter’ to me.

What I share here is NOT analysis from a political point of view. That is my one disclaimer.  We are so immersed, dwarfed, and falsely guided by political distortion that I do not find sustaining values in that realm. The Times may be seen as a ‘liberal’ newspaper, but that is not the message I share here today.

Perhaps, however, the values I do hold become apparent by my sharing the trip I did today through the New York Times.  And, to be clear, this is the shortened version, lucky you.

A Column

In the Orthodox Surge,  David Brooks takes us to a Jewish Orthodox ‘Whole Foods’ type food market in Brooklyn called Pomegranate. As we walk with him through the aisles of the store he explains how the store is not just a place to get the week’s groceries.  It is more importantly a corner stone of community,  It works hand in glove with those who have committed themselves to the Orthodox Society.  His point is this:

“Those of us in secular America live in a culture that takes the supremacy of individual autonomy as a given.  Life is a journey. You choose your own path. You can live in the city or the suburbs, be a Wiccan or a biker.”

In contrast, he says in describing this rapidly growing Orthodox community (with a birth rate due to a much higher marriage rate) will soon be the largest in New York City:

“The laws in this view (Orthodox community) make for a decent society.  They give structure to everyday life.  They infuse everyday acts with spiritual significance. They build community. They regulate desires. The moderate religious zeal, making religion an everyday practical reality.”

Brooks’ concluding paragraph reads: 

“All of us navigate certain tensions, between community and mobility, autonomy and moral order.  Mainstream Americas have gravitated toward one set of solutions. The families stuffing their groceries into their Honda Odyssey minivans in the Pomegranate parking lot represents a challenging counterculture.  Mostly, I notice how incredibly self-confident they are.  Once dismissed as relics, they now feel like the future.”

I, nor I suspect, Mr. Brooks are going to drop everything and rush to join (and I’m not sure we’d be welcome) this community.  However, it wouldn’t likely do much harm for us to be willing to ask ourselves the questions this raises about our own values, commitments and life style.  While having severe limitations as a model lifestyle for most of us, being open to learning from this and others offering alternatives to much of the lifestyle that has become ‘American’, may be a very good idea.

And that’s the ‘heart of the matter.’

Another Column

In Our Wait-and-See Culture Robert J. Abramson provides his window into our responses to ‘incidentalomas’, the unexpected finds by doctors who are giving us an exam for one thing and find another.  In his case his exam revealed a ‘low malignant potential’ for a cyst on his pancreas. He is told to wait 6 months and come back for another test.

His concern about these six months is the anxiety waiting in the unknown produces. 

“An increasing number of people are finding themselves in this ‘follow up in six months’ mode and experiencing the same attending anxiety. The idea of waiting is in itself an existential experience.”  

His fear is that we are developing a ‘follow up’ culture that makes the future, already unpredictable,  an “I’m ok now, but what about the future?” frame of mind.  

And, in part,his closing paragraph:

“And yet, as disturbing as it is, it also provides an opportunity to live our lives to the fullest each day. As some Eastern philosophies tells us, life is like a river, in perpetual motion, and when we flow with it we attain a level of tranquility.

.....my hope is that we can come to terms with the river, make friends with it, and allow it to teach us to be present in the here and now.”

And that’s the ‘heart of the matter.’

A Movie Review

A.O. Scott’s review of The We and I tells a story of what happens on the fictional BX66 busline rumbling through the Bronx over a six hour period.  Its subjects are primarily the students who get on and off the bus, the lives they bring to and share on the bus, and what emerges from those relationships.   “At certain stops the bus or subway car will be flooded with adolescents releasing their pent-up energies in a confined space.”

What happens he says will test “even tolerant oldtimers to think grouchy thoughts. What’s the matter with kids these days?”

This is without doubt a difficult film to watch, however, I am struck by Scott’s concluding thoughts:

“And as much as it revels in meanness--the wit of a well-timed put-down and the joy of a good prank--”The We and I” is finally more interested in love, and in the sweetness that peeks out from beneath the bravado and sarcasm.  It has such a generous curiosity about life, and such a commitment to the group’s dynamics.....”

“It is also like.......a valentine to New York as too few travelers (or, for that matter, residents) see it: crowded, loud, and rough, but with room for everyone. And if you listen closely, you’ll hear the poetry in the noise.”

Most of us will never see this film.  I may not either.  Yet, Scott’s final words can be applied to my daily life.  It invites me again to consider a kind of hospitality that seeks only situations in which we are comfortable and people who are just like us.

I benefit greatly from this kind of  ‘news’ and other media as well.  I don’t have to sit around wringing my hands asking if there is meaning in life.  And that’s the ‘heart of the matter.’

Dr. King's Witness to Civility--True Conservative and True Liberal Values Strengthen Each Other

(written but not submitted last October. Included here because of Dr. King reference and Black History emphasis.  The first thoughts were triggered last October by a little seen Dr. King tribute display at the Milwaukee Central Library.  I re-visited and edited what I wrote at that time. This is the result. )

I have a dream--at least a partial one.

I want the Democrats to stand in the deep history and commitments that have evolved since the founding of the party.  I want them to check their party platform, the vision of our society, and how the leadership will function, yes in the reality that the present approach cannot offer much new direction.

I want the Republicans to stand deep in the history and commitments that have evolved since the founding of the party.  I want them to check their party platform

We need to be a country of progressives--forward thinking, risking, learning from one another.  The progressive vision can easily become abstract, idealistic, romantic, and utopian in ways that do not connect with the masses of citizens.  One critique of 'liberals' is to be ungrounded, too heady, and expect others to carry out the agenda they describe.

We need to be a country of conservatives--building on the wisdom of the past, learning from the lessons of history, creating a wealth that is made up of the varied gifts of all people as well as an economic understanding that builds the 'household' of each person and community.

I hear repeatedly that we all want the same things in our communities:  safety, work, schools, affordable products, transportation, health care, families that raise children with civic responsibility.

Is that what the Democrat platform (Corey Booker) means by expanding the middle class?  Where are the neediest recognized as citizens and given opportunities, if they are mentally and physically well?

Is that what the Republican platform means by reducing regulations so that small business people can be successful as entrepreneurs?

Where does our foreign policy, our relationship with Israel, with the African and  South American countries, with the Middle East, the Soviet Union, England etc. fit with those things "we all want."

What is it that drives politicians to want to punish fellow citizens or those desiring citizenship?  Is there another answer than prison (or nation imprisons more people than any other industrial nation)? What 'liberal' or 'conservative' values are behind denying these basic human rights.

The burden is upon the Democrat Party and President Obama to be more than 'the lesser of two evils.'  Little positive energy comes out of simply making the other guy look silly.  While my shadow side laughs when my side seems to win such debates, I know that moving together as citizens in a common cause requires a commitment to a common cause.

That is what I think Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement, even with the great opposition it had, gave to the nation and to the world.

The word 'civility' is being used by so many of us that it will soon become like invoking Dr. King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela, names repeated so frequently that the essential meaning of their work is lost.

With that risk, when people ask me what I mean by 'civility', I will increasingly point to the life--the beliefs and the deeds--of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It is both easier to make this claim now (he is not a controversial figure as an American hero) and more difficult (since he's accepted into the club, it is more difficult to appreciate his challenge to us and his fundamental disagreement he would have with some of our values.).

I walked into the exhibit( see my previous post on this experience) open to whatever struck me.  I would not have been surprised if the greatness of Dr. King had been reduced to a romantic illusion or too clearly a display to make the sponsoring company look good.

What happened to me however is that at every turn I was confronted with something he said or did that pushed the envelope I will call civility.  At times I felt affirmed.  At times I felt judged (not by Dr. King but by my own lack of savvy).  At times I was given to new thoughts about the conversation process I use in facilitating dialogues designed to bring understanding and civility.

From his letters, his speeches and his sermons, a few insights that might guide our own attempts at civil conversation.

1) Dr. King's arena for 'Civil Conversation' is the arena of 'innocent suffering.' He sought the 'Beloved Community' in the reality of the neighbor near and far.
2) He entered this arena not to solving an immediate problem but to learn and live the reality of this moment in relationship to our history.  The U.S. still is rebuilding from the life reality of slavery, its aftermath, and the clear mistreatment and injustice brought upon an innocent people.
3) He used Christian scripture not as a law to preach but an illustration(story) to invite.  e.g. "There was a rich man...."
4) He pointed to the future (we shall overcome)--his conversation is about what we should do to alter whatever is still unjust in our system.
5) He rooted his values in the larger vision:  (ie. the Constitution, the 'Dream' of the United States)
6) He recognized his limits/Others will carry on:  "I do not expect to live a long life."
7) He modeled a process of speaking deeply to specific experience while simultaneously setting forth a clear set of broader values.  He avoided the 'self-centeredness' ("are you better off than you were four years ago?) and a sense 'omniscience''("what the American people want is..").
8)He understood that each individual brings a different history to the table.  And that positions we have taken through our history can change.

Reaching for these experiences will change the kind of public conversation we have.

His gift and challenge to both political parties and to those who claim other loyalties is that core values matter.  They aren't invented in the moment, but they represent  what is best for all people.  The core values of both a 'liberal' perspective or a 'conservative' point of view are needed for a healthy nation.  That's the heart of the matter.

"Amour" -- What is Love All About?

Popular culture at its best is a channel for an encounter with reality that can be part of our ever-developing need for sustenance as people.  On an individual and community level it can feed us. The 2012 film 'Amour' is one such example.  Film, art, poetry, music and drama are the gifts of the gods.

The film ended.  No one moved. The theater remained silent.  A near full house then began to leave the film "Amour" sharing an extended silence.  No music accompanied the credits.  We were left with our own feelings and the sense that others too were dealing with some unexpected emotions.

Thomas Vinterberg, who directs, leads us gradually tothe center of being, the heart of living. The no-blinking honesty of the story unfolds from the easily understood to the more deeply problematic. Moment by moment  of unvarnished truth  absorbs and infects us with what commitment calls for when a loved one is dying.

Georges and Ann, in their 80's, provide a lesson in 'processing life.'  They leave us with the question, "how do you or will you handle life when it goes off course?"  Their answer is 'Amour', love,  but it is not the  love of pop culture.  It is a love beyond the romantic or sentimental.   It is hard core--hard dore practical and continual care that demands 100% devotion, a care we can never really fulfill.  That is the dilemma.

'Amour' gives us an opportunity to re-think how we process life,  how we 'love.'

Couples making life long commitment through marriage in our time like to write their own vows.  'Amour' asks, 'do our vows capture the reality of love?'  Or do the tempt us to dodge what we know is true?  Traditional vows set the bar very, very high.

 I, (name), take you, (name), for my lawful wife (husband), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

That is a very high standard.  It is total devotion.  All excuses for why a relationship might not work are swept away in the wake of this commitment.  We commit ourselves to an impossible kind of relationship.  We tend to forget that this kind of commitment happens in the context of a community of 'forgiveness'--you will fall short, but we will be there.  When we aren't an even greater sense of being or power of life will be.

Anne and Georges find this power in music. It strengthens them beyond what they can naturally give each other.  But then life requires even more of them.  They are finally left to use the gift of their commitment to ultimately love one another.

Age and illness gradually gives them choices they do not want.  They proceed painstakingly to adopt the kind of mundane day-by-day decisions that require more.  It is no longer adequate or sustaining to share music or words of affection or even acts of kindness.  The community and family aren't much use to them either.

Life that once called for one kind of care shift almost without notice to require a new level of attention.   No longer primarily emotion or romance, love is an act, an act of care that requires every ounce of physical and mental strength Georges can call on.

Yet, neither Georges nor Anne look to others for empathy or sympathy.  They understand the potential illusion of co-dependence.  It is their lives they are responsible for. This is now their live and others cannot help change the situation.

They will work through the choices as they see them finding neighbors, physicians and home health care to assist them, but they have no tolerance for well-meaning, yet misinformed or misdirected intentions.

They suffer the additional agony of having those closest to them misunderstand who Georges and Anne are and have to be now.  False comfort is not a friend.

From the earliest stories of humanity, the popular myths present life only through a lens of two choices--something is either good or bad.   Happy is better than sad.  Light is better than dark.

Georges and Anne make a different choices.  There is no 'good' and no 'bad', there is only a 'yes' to what is.   At the end of a day filled with changing diapers, and bedding; making meals that won't be eaten; listening to her incoherent cries;  knowing that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow will be exactly the same, only harder because of the repetition, Georges loves it all.  He doesn't like it.  But he does not shirk his duty of love.  He has promised her.  He will not let her down.  Anne, too, only occasionally alert,  does all that is humanly possible to love back.

It is not clear if they are 'happy' or 'sad' or simply accepting on some level that their choices are horribly limited.  Words like 'meaning' or 'hope' or 'cure' don't exist for them.  Neither do they feel guilty about rejecting easy but inauthentic options.  They are not attracted to take paths that lead further into deception.

'Amour' is pitch-perfect in almost every way.   No moment is wasted.  There is no extraneous scenery or characters or dialogue or acting or truth.  This leads full circle to the silence that enveloped the audience.  We're left kind of naked, but not ashamed.  Exposed but not fearful. Devastated but not without possibility.

In viewing 'Amour' some are met by mystery in the ordinary.  Is there any experience in life that is more important than that?  Or is that 'the heart of the matter?'

Quite an Ending and Beginning--2012-2013

We didn't plan it this way.  Last night, the 31st of December,  Dixie cooked a meal for fifteen people -  the men and guests at Serenity Inn.  SI is a residential recovery center for men addicted to drugs and alcohol.  We have been involved since its inception roughly ten years ago.

We had missed our regular serving date in mid-December, so when a vacancy came up on New Year's Eve we took the date as a kind of make-up.  What we didn't know until a few days ago is that one of the men, 'D', with whom we have gotten to know a bit better than some others was due to have his Rite of Passage, having completed the Inn's seven month program.  So it was fortuitous that our being there at this time coincided with his rite. The Executive Director of the Inn intentionally shifted the 'rite' to the night we were serving so that we could be there with 'D' and his wife and his boss, also a recovering addict (26 years clean).

It has long been evident to me that what so many books and surveys and experiences tell us is needed in our society happens at Serenity Inn and did happen last night.  And, of course, as addicts must do to recover, they face the truth of their living and dying. This always means digging deeply into some ugly stuff.  These are not stories to get fifteen minutes of fame at the end of the nightly news or portrayed in superficial ways in some films.  They differ in that for the recovering person the nightmare is never over.  He or she always is living on the edge of one's failures in life and one's hopes and dreams.

Our culture (and too many of our religions and self-help approaches) do not embrace this precarious edge of life.  For the addict it is a constant companion.  It is the truth of a meaningful existence.  It is tempting  to try to get rid of or forget the grittier part of life.  By doing so we also miss the opportunity to experience the deeper, more demanding things that occur when one is open to the whole truth.  With this deeper plunge can come a steadier hand to deal with life's ups and downs.

Part of the meal (the Dinner Fellowship) of Serenity Inn involves each person at the table responding to a question prepared by one of the men.  Each person, including the guests, takes their turn in introducing themselves and sharing a response to the question.  Invariably the question for the men is a question about how their recovery journey is going.  Rarely do the men dodge from either side of that two- edged sword of death and life, of despair and hope. They respond passionately but not without humor or a sense of the irony of life.

The group last night was roughly a fifty-fifty split of men nearing the end of their program and those just beginning.  This fact revealed that some men saw and knew things through their journey at the Inn that they wanted to pass on to the others.  The exchange was nothing less than profound.

Even though a talented staff has made this possible, it was evident in this group that mentors for the new men had emerged by the 'old hands.'  The staff has grasped the lesson that 'leaders don't create followers, they create other leaders.'

The comments of these mentors was incredibly touching because of their 'spot on' insight and obvious compassion for the other men.  Now tell me how often in your daily life you experience this kind of care?   Reflecting on the wonder of the dinner with a staff member I said, "You never have to wonder if you could be spending your life in a better way."

The addictions counselor spoke a word to 'D' as did many others.  What the counselor said was, "After you leave here, nothing will have changed.  The world will be the same.  The only thing that is changed is that now you have the tools to deal with the world.  And that can make all the difference."

I am part of several groups seeking to find ways to 'transform' our neighborhoods.  I continue to think about ways that churches could be more clear about their own identity and purpose.  Couldn't more groups become settings for truth-telling and tool creation for handling life's conundrums.

Almost every value that we seek to discover in community is present in recovery programs that are rooted in a caring community.  The deepest dimensions of that care are present in communities like
Serenity Inns. Why can't our culture learn the lessons of recovery and join that journey together?

What a way to end one year and begin another.  And that's the 'heart of the matter.'

My Take on the Christmas Story--Part II (for children of an undisclosed age)

I want to tell you a story.

It’s a story about darkness and light.  All ancient people have stories of this kind.

The stories often involved primitive people seeing a  big golden ball rising above them to give heat and light.  Then they saw the ball slowly fall until it disappeared and it was dark and cool.

Some Chinese do an exercise called ‘the sun and moon exchange.’ They raise one arm up to the sky and spin it around and look up at the sun.  They lower that arm and raise the other so they can observe the moon rising.

At times the light and warmth stayed for as long as did the dark and chill.  But as time passed  there was less and less light and more and more darkness.  Then all of a sudden the time of light began to be longer than the time of darkness.

The people  would wait and wait through many cycles, appearing and disappearing,  sometimes doubting that the sun would ever return.  They thought that maybe they would live in the dark forever.

Finally, when they saw that the sun began to be around longer, the remembered it as a very important day, a day of celebration and joy.

This story I am going to share with you is about a young woman who was waiting for the light.   She had learned by then that you didn’t have to be afraid of the dark.  She also knew that the sun coming up didn’t always make things better.  

She wanted light that would help her to understand her life better,  because it had become so puzzling to her.  She didn’t know what to do.   She was going to have a baby but had no husband. She was poor and her neighbors were going to ignore her.   Her name is Mary.   Her heart was troubled.  It had darkness in it.

This is a story about how the darkness of her heart became light for her and for others.

A good man in town saw her troubles and offered to become her husband.  His name was Joseph.  Some mysterious voice came to him in a dream that gave him courage.  He was told that the baby that Mary would have would be very special.  So special that he would be called the people’s King.

Now that was really pretty wild.  How could a tiny baby be the King?  King’s were usually powerful and did not like poor people like Mary and Joseph.

The King of the people at that time was a strong, not so nice guy named Herod. He was ordering poor people like Joseph and Mary to sign up with the government so the King could collect taxes, get money from them to make him and his friends richer and more powerful than they already were.

It was a dark time for Mary and Joseph and for their families. Kings had been ordering them around for hundreds and hundreds of years.  They only wanted their own place to live and their own people as their leaders.  But this never happened.  Every time they tried to get rid of the bad king, they were defeated. There was no justice.

Mary and Joseph’s great, great, great, great grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozens had been waiting for this new King, the King of the Jews, their people.  But a King never came that favored them or Mary.  How long could they wait for kindness and justice to appear?

So seeing no choice in the matter, they would have to register to pay taxes.   They had to travel a long way from their home, from out of the way, small town Nazareth to Bethlehem, the center of government.

When they got to Bethlehem every place to stay was taken.  There was no room anywhere for them to spend the night.  Mary’s heart was troubled.  It was still dark. Where was the promise of light to come from? 

But when they had lost all hope, an Innkeeper who had no regular room for them to stay pointed them to the back of the Inn where they could lie down with the animals.  They settled in to do the best they could in this not too nice place.  In some ways they couldn't imagine being more lowly.

And then it happened!  Mary’s baby was born.  It was a boy.    She and Joseph were relieved and happy.  Mary wrapped him up securely in some old blankets. Suddenly the future seemed bright.

But many people, mostly poor and ordinary people, including some tending their sheep, saw the light coming from the stable and rushed in to see what had happened.  They heard Mary’s story and went out across the country to tell everyone that a new King was born.

They named the baby Jesus which means ‘one who saves’ or ‘one who brings the light.’

The light was not only for Mary and Joseph and the shepherds.  It was for all who looked for a different kind of King.   Could poor Mary and good Joseph be the parents of such a great person?   It may sound silly for a baby to be a King,  but these people didn’t think so.

Light, a great light,  had finally come into their lives.  And the Darkness was overcome.  That’s why we tell Mary’s story at the time of year, when more light appears day by day.

Mary became the bearer of ‘the simple truth.’  Every person is special. No one is better than anyone else.  The tiny, the weak and the poor are precious. For a small group, he became their king and everything for them was changed forever.

My Take on the Christmas Story--Part One

It’s Christmas time.  The holiday was named to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but behind this celebration is a long history of story-telling and ritual. Several stories get repeated during this season.  In the United States the dominant story is the story of the commercial rush. Buying stuff fits most easily into the story of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus is the Dutch translation) kept alive by the anonymously written poem, “The Night Before Christmas”. Christmas in the United States is an amalgam of many traditions.

Of course, there is Charles Dickens’ Scrooge, It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas Story, the Nutcracker, and more.  Stories that create a mood of joy and community.

Each way we celebrate the holiday stands or falls on its own merit.  Combining them or looking for a common theme can water down the meaning of each of them.

The stories of the season are many and varied.  It is sometimes difficult to sort out the value of the differences among them.  *Though not agreed upon totally by scholars, it seems that it took almost 300 hundred years after Jesus’ birth, for part of the Christian church to chose December 25th as the day to dedicate to Jesus’ birth.  Another part chose January 6. (simply the difference in calendar changes.) Either way may have been a way of blunting the pagan meanings attached to that time of year by Saturnalia, a wild display of ‘freedom’--drunkenness, nakedness and sometime persecution of minority persons.

Our national and global context is radically different from the history that created Christmas as a given for everyone.  People in our time have seen and experienced too much evidence of a wider more interrelated and interdependent world to accept without question the story of the birth of Jesus as ‘the’ objective Truth.  That is troubling to many for whom this account from twenty centuries past has become a central meaning in life. 

As Christianity has become a part of a larger world, it is not necessarily true that its essential meaning is lost.  It does mean, however, that articulation of that story and its meaning has no leg up on any other tries to represent truth.  It is what it is, nothing more and nothing less.

The depth meaning of the Christmas story will not be advanced by insisting on it being the only story.  In fact, that weakens its potential significance.  Like any communication there must be first a relationship that can receive something in an open way.  If it is useful to the hearer,  meaning will come from announcing and sharing the story itself, not in trying to prove its worth by dismissing the experience and stories of others.  Even though Hanukkah is not a major Jewish feast, it does show up this time of year.  There is much to learn from the history and practice of the Jewish people.   Kwanzaa  has also been developed to be a way that all people, but particularly African-Americans can lift up core values.  These neither need to agree with one another nor contradict the other's claims.

Each story rises and falls on its own telling, hearing and action. It is not a question of competition but rather a question of purpose, meaning and significance for our personal and social living.

The story of Jesus has its own meaning.  We all know that mere repetition and ritualizing of it is not enough.  The challenge facing the Christian church is how to tell and share that story in a simple way that communicates the power the church believes the story of Jesus possesses. It need not be forced on others nor should it be marginalized because the other stories are more modern, entertaining, or satisfying. What is each story’s contribution to our common search for truth?

The story of Jesus’ birth (apart from the rest of his living and dying) is a simple story of human beings trying to find new life and light in the midst of death and darkness.  In that sense it bears a consistency with the many stories world-wide that over thousands of years attest to overcoming the dark forces of despair with light and the power of hope.

While a section of the scriptures of the Christian church tell two stories of the birth of Jesus (Matthew and Luke), they are told from two different perspectives. Not surprisingly differences exist between the two in sequence of events, those persons and places mentioned and not mentioned, and the author’s point of view--different angles on the same story.   A third ancient story teller, Mark, doesn’t mention Jesus’ birth at all. A fourth, John, uses the metaphors of darkness and light to communicate the meaning of Jesus in the world.

The popular re-telling of the story of Jesus’ birth usually melds these very different accounts and adds or subtracts certain emphases to make it a good story.  Martin Luther’s take, ‘the babe in the manger is the man on the cross’ suggests that to grasp the meaning of the birth, one must also see where this birth went.

Therefore, the telling of the story today is always one of picking and choosing.  One could argue that a consistent narrative has emerged that most of us recognize.

 A young woman, pregnant by mysterious means is without a husband. But a good man named Joseph agrees to marry her to avoid her disgrace in the community.  An enigmatic messenger (angel) tells Joseph not to be afraid because something special is going on here.   Joseph and Mary’s family have been summoned by Roman Emperor Augustus to be enrolled as citizens so they could pay taxes.  The ‘King of the Jews’ is the regional prelate named Herod.  They traveled a long distance  to pay taxes in their regional center, Bethlehem.  Upon arrival they search but do not find a place to sleep.  An innkeeper offers them a place with his animals in a stable.  It is there that Mary gives birth to Jesus.  She wraps the baby in ‘swaddling cloths’ and lays him in a manger ( trough for feeding animals.)  The word travels pretty widely though by shepherds who are tending their flocks outside the town. They are drawn, they say, by a light that guides them to the stable.  Through messengers named Angels, Joseph, Mary and others hear that this baby will grow up to challenge the oppression of King Herod and to bring a new kind of freedom to the Hebrew nation. The Wise Men show up later having to travel from long distances.  They seem to represent the whole world coming to recognize Jesus.

He is given a traditional Jewish name Jesus a transliteration of the Greek.  The older form is similar to Joshua, a Jewish hero that took the torch from Moses to lead Israel into the Promised Land.  Jesus can be translated as ‘one who saves.’

'Christmas' stops there.  Going beyond that is 'the rest of the story.'

Jesus is called the ‘Christ’ later in his life, a word that means ‘the anointed one.’ It is the role he plays, like Bob the Builder, Jesus the Christ. Christ is not his last name, the son of Joseph and Mary Christ.

The Hebrews, also called Jews and Israelites, have a 2000 year history of waiting for a new King, a Messiah who will throw off the slavery they experience and provide a path to a new way of living.  Some welcome this ‘good news’ while others doubt, are cynical and reject this claim of Kingship.   We are still discussing these differences today.

Can a baby born of questionable parenthood provide a new profound understanding of power?  Is there power in weakness, humility, and is that a truth that serves us more than the power of politicians, military leaders, and power brokers?

The simplicity of the story is its humanness and the truth of life it sets forth. While the world and its citizens find themselves oppressed, possibility exists when anyone can claim their own uniqueness and power.  It’s a long shot kind of hope, but when realized it carries with it a significant message about living.

Of course, as we know the story of Jesus does not stop with the story of his birth.  He teaches, preaches and heals throughout his life.  He walks among the poorest of the poor and challenges the establishment at every turn.  He eventually is killed, but becomes the central figure in a movement that is some years later named ‘Christian.’ 

This is only the beginning of a story that has been used for good and ill since its inception.  At its heart, it is a story that recognizes the gifts and possibility of every human regardless of privilege, culture, and economics.

The Jesus’ story offers one way to view life.  From the bottom up.  Some think that is the most important message in life.  Others on hearing the story might find it useful for their journey.

The past twenty centuries are filled with incidents where so-called followers of Jesus, including its leaders, have committed horrible atrocities in his name.  It is never beyond the stretch of human beings to distort a message to serve an evil purpose. These distortions certainly don’t help the case for the value of the Jesus’ story.  When these misinterpretations and uses are stripped away from the essence of the story, is there stil an essential human truth worth living and sharing?

Is it ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’? Only you can decide.  And if this isn’t, what is?

*this article is not intended as a scholarly dissertation on the subject. It is the author’s attempt to cut through all of the ways we use to miss what the story seems to be about. Any proven historical accuracies will be acknowledged.  If they serve to change the author’s conviction about the story, he will take those into consideration.

+The author is using this article as a way of answering, partially, the question, ‘who is ‘Jesus’ for me today?’

Searching for a Response

Newtown, Connecticut.  There are few things that move us to the center as quickly as the death of the innocents.  It begins with those closest to the victims as mother, father, sister and brother.  The circle of concern moves out from that to near neighbor and distant neighbor.  Because of media others of us are instantly present, drawn into the pain and suffering and inexplicable nature of such events.

The wise ones throughout the history of humanity have recognized that such happenings create in us a vacuum.  We who have or think we should have answers for everything, have answers for nothing.  All of the research and explanations of certain patterns of behavior helps not at all.  Understandable outrage over such tragedy leaves us facing the abyss.  To pretend otherwise is simply to pretend.

But all events have a context.  Experiences vary, of course, from individual to individual.  Because of the increasing number of events (Columbine, Aurora, Milwaukee,  Atlanta, Ft. Hood, Phoenix etc.) in a short period of time, at least in the short term, a whole nation is momentarily confronted with questions of identity and meaning.  We want to know more about those who commit these horrendous acts, but even discovering that is part of our own inner quest to have more of a sense of who we are as human beings and as human beings in relationship.

As shocking as Newtown is (images of 6 and years olds being shot multiple times) a school principal in Oakland, California reminds us that literally hundreds of young people are shot and die monthly and annually on our playgrounds and in our neighborhoods across this nation.  These deaths spur us to rhetoric, but not to action.  For the 22 names we hear, there are 2220 that we never hear.  The deaths in our cities becomes so commonplace and so off the radar that there is little expectation nor call for something to be done.

However, as much as we ignore some deaths and pay attention to others, Newtown may provide us with another opportunity to address things we can do something about.   Newtown's image is quintessentially American, a model community of church, school and civic peacefulness.  Perhaps it takes a shattering of that dream place to awaken us to the need there and everywhere for things like sensible regulation of firearms and high quality preventive and treatment of those with mental illness.

As we have seen in the handling of our nation's economy, too often our lawmakers do not seem to understand what is at stake in our communities.   I just don't know how and why many of the people we vote to be our leaders seem so removed from the daily life most of us experience.  Their lack of the sense of urgency is appalling. We wildly celebrate one one senator or representative here of there who actually says something.  Mayor Bloomberg of New York City has sounded a clear call for action and has articulated that action.  He speaks common sense with conviction and it seems like a voice crying in the wilderness.  Where is everyone else?

It's remarkable that only a few speak out. That there is no powerful voice from our leaders to stop the violence and for us to be responsible citizens is disconcerting at best.   I would think that majority of our elected representatives would join Mayor Bloomberg.  If there is no leadership on this challenge, why would we expect any national vision on any aspect of our lives to come from them.  Perhaps, they are momentarily stunned into uncharacteristic silence.  What does this 'silence' teach?

We are loving the movie 'Lincoln' partly because he led the nation in a way that was indecisively decisive. That is he moved ahead with fear and trembling, but his resolve moved the nation by presenting an alternative direction, a larger vision.  Who has done this since Martin Luther King, Jr. and that was 40 years ago!  With President Obama's repeated phrase, 'we are the United States of America', he has the platform to lead us into a new understanding of our national purpose.  It is not clear that he will do that.

He has certainly done what is necessary and appropriate in response to the families, city and nation to create a space for conversation about the future.  And he has done it well.  I do not think that he should have called for policy changes immediately.  Now, however, by appointing Vice President Biden to bring together a commission to produce proposals in a month is a good step forward.

Then there is us, there is me.  We are citizens. There are many existing channels though which we can give our energy and our support to stir action.  Some of these are direct advocacy channels to lawmakers.  Then there are other groups pointed more to rallying the troops, signing up and presenting a mass number of supporters to register more loudly and clearly what needs to be done.

There are groups of parents hearing the call to be more present and useful in their local schools.  There are gatherings that are discussing the violent nature of our culture and steps that can be taken in our families and neighborhoods to teach non-violence as a way of life.

Finally, however, this is not a problem to be solved.  It is a reality to be understood at ever deepening levels.  Utopian wishes and plans help us think differently, but the human condition is such that disagreement, hatred, irrational behavior and senseless violence will not disappear.  Some tragedy cannot be avoided and we learn to move ahead somehow.  On the other hand, there is so much we can do in our own personal relationships.  We can create laws that serve us all better.  We can present the human stories that underscore non-violence.  We can become more aware of the wide-spread mental illness in our country and strengthen our care system.  We can reduce the easy option that people have to obtain firearms.

In short, we can put ourselves on the other side of the fear that leads to both arming ourselves and hiding from the need to build more healthily neighborhoods and communities.  When we do not name and face our fears--of one another, of sickness, of community responsibility--we create a culture that lives in retreat from reality.  We try to avoid any experience of dying.  That direction has no good outcome.  That's the heart of the matter.