BEING MORE INTENTIONAL ABOUT VERY ORDINARY THINGS - FOURTEEN

This is the fourteenth in a series of periodic reflections on the "ordinary things" that many people do on a regular basis without much thought. During this pandemic, I am developing a need to "rage, rage" against hast and laziness and replace it with care and attention. My hope is to become personally more intentional about doing ordinary things with care and focused attention, while inspiring others to maybe do the same.

GETTING TIRED OF EXTREMISM

“Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.

Clint Eastwood

Interview, Time Magazine, February 20, 2005

I have always heard that we cry out in pain at both ends of life - when we come in and when we go out, when we are born and when we die. 

I am one to believe that all the "crying out in pain" that keeps getting louder and louder each day is both the birth of something new and the death of something old. It's like the image of an egg that I have used often in my preaching. One day we woke up to find thin cracks in the church starting to manifest all over it. Each day the cracks keep becoming more numerous and more obvious. As this happens, some panic and do what they can to try to tape it all back together. They are convinced that we are falling apart. I know from raising chickens that the worst thing you can do when an egg starts to crack like that is to tape it back together. I believe that what one needs to do, in such cases, is to stand back and let it hatch. I can't join those who believe that we are falling apart. Rather, I choose to stand firmly with those who believe that we are simply giving birth once again - "ecclesia semper reformanda," "the church is always in need of reform." 

I believe something similar is happening in our culture. In a panic, we are engaging in "culture wars." Some of us believe that we are dying and others believe that we are giving birth. Those who are most fearful are desperately trying to make true what they love. Those who are most hopeful are desperately trying to love the new truth. 

In times like ours, I suggest we resists embracing one extreme or the other, but try to stay in the sane center, working to save what is valuable while being open to innovation and change. The sane center need not be about watering down the truth, accepting mediocrity or compromising principles, but about embracing what is true in both extremes.  As long as it is good, true, right and respectful, why not embrace it?  Only the sowing of evil, hate, division and cruelty need to be rejected! 

Why can't we value self-reliance and take care of the weak? Why can't we appreciate science and religion? Why can't we embrace the gifts of women and men. Why can't we blend the wisdom of the old and the creativity of the young? Why can't we be both passionate and flexible? Why can't we appreciate the faith of St. Paul and the doubts of St. Thomas, the prodigality of the younger son and the fidelity of the older son, the Jewish convert and the Gentile convert? Why can't we accept the fact that Democrats and Republicans both have something to add? 

It doesn't have to be either/or. It can be both/and. We can proudly make our case without having to overstate it. We can honor the case that others proudly make without the need to silence them. 

Traditionalists and progressives both need to heed the words of Thomas Merton. "Those who are not humble hate their past and push it out of sight, just as they cut down the growing and green things that spring up inexhaustibly even in the present.”

Personally, I am trying to be like the "householder" in the gospel according to Matthew (13:51-53) who can "bring out of his storeroom things both new and old!" That passage refers to Matthew's attempt to wed the old Jewish traditions to the new reality of Jesus for Christian converts.