CHURCH CHAT #21

 

THE CRUCIAL QUESTION FACING BOTH THE OLD AND THE YOUNG

 

"DO I GIVE UP OR KEEP PUSHING?"

The myth of Sisyphus has a lot of meaning even today. In that famous story, the god Zeus, fed up with Sisyphus' tricks and cunning as well as his arrogance - believing he was more cunning than Zeus - punished him to eternally push a boulder uphill. However, as soon as he would reach the top of the hill, the boulder, like a rolling stone, would roll off and Sisyphus had to push it back again. This daunting task, symbolizing the endless rolling of stones, represents the futile yet persistent endeavors that define the human spirit.

In his 1942 essay "The Myth of Sisyphus," French Algerian philosopher and journalist Albert Camus describes his philosophy of the absurd. The absurd is both a feeling and a condition of existence—it describes the irreparable tension between the human desire for meaning and purpose in life, and the inevitability of oblivion and death. Camus argues that humans should continue to live and try to derive as much fulfillment as they can from their brief existence.

As many of you know by now, I like to journal and write. In other words, I like to reflect on my condition, the direction of my life and the directions of the lives I see around me. When I turned 80, a couple of years ago, I started journaling and writing more about aging - something I was only able to recognize a few weeks ago. The basic question I wrestled with, both in journaling and blog posting, is this: do I give in to aging or do I fight it? That's when I remembered the myth of Sisyphus and his frustration of rolling a rock uphill knowing that he could never do it! I can almost hear him thinking my question to himself: "Do I give up on trying or do I keep pushing?" It was then that the idea for this post occurred to me. It was then that I realized that my question about aging is very similar question young people have about their youthfulness. They face the question: "Do I give in to destructive effects of popular culture or do I push against it?" I realized that, in our own ways, we are both pushing a rock uphill knowing that we will never be able to reach our goal! After all, Sisyphus was condemned to his fate pushing endlessly, so why should we choose this fate?  The answer, of course, is whether we choose what we do with ourselves or whether we let our situations choose it for us! 

THE QUESTION FACING OLD PEOPLE

"Do I accept my death and give up on living or do I push against death and keep on living?"

Some people who retire, take on the attitude of "why bother?" "I have done my duty and I have a right to rest, pamper myself and let others pamper me!" "I have no place in any organization so let the organizations take care of me!" 

I choose to follow another path! I believe in re-inventing myself over and over again each time my circumstances change. I may not be able to do everything I used to do, but I can still do some things, even some new things! I am a firm believer in Bob Dylan's advice who used to sing, "If you are not busy being born, you are busy dying!" As Tom Peters, a favorite leadership guru, put it. "Unless you walk into the unknown, the odds of making a profound difference in your life are petty low!" Yes, I want to re-invent myself all the way up to, and including, my last day! 

THE QUESTION FACING YOUNG PEOPLE

"Do I give in to the destructiveness effects of  popular culture or do I push against it as long as I can? 

Popular culture is a very powerful drug and many young people (and not so young) today are addicted to it! Giving into it has destroyed many of them and crippled even more of them. They seem to be following the advice of Oscar Wilde who famously said, "The only way to get rid of temptation is to give into it!" Many follow the path of "if it looks, good, tastes good and feels good, do it!" "If everybody else is doing it, then why not do it too?" 

Seeing the disasters this has caused to so many of their contemporaries, there are, of course, many exceptions to this destructive path. Instead of choosing the path of "personal and spiritual suicide," these exceptions have radically, heroically and sometimes abruptly decided to choose "the road less traveled." Instead of joining the majority who "act out destructively to stand out," they join the minority who "act with integrity to stand out!"  I have heard about two cases recently that give me hope that more young people will join them and chose adventure over comfort, criticism over popularity, generosity over greed, difficulty over ease, obscurity over notoriety and life over death.  

IS PAIN AND SUFFERING ALWAYS BAD?

God looked over all he had made and saw that it was very good.

Genesis 1:31

Why would a good God allow good people to suffer? It is one of the oldest questions people have had throughout the generations. It occurred to me the other day that it has to be one of three reasons or "doors." 1. God is not really good. 2. People are not really good. 3. There is the possibility that something good could can come even from suffering.

If you have never experienced the goodness of God, then you might choose "door number one." If you believe that people are fundamentally bad and need to be punished, you might choose "door number two." If you are like me and believe that God is good and people are basically good, but you don't really know why good people suffer, then you might pick "door number three" and explore the fact that something good can come even from suffering.

1. I believe that some people suffer because of some of their own poor choices over a long period of time, as in the case of ruining their own health though smoking and drug abuse or going through great financial losses after much wasteful spending.

2. I believe that sometimes pain lets us know that what we are doing is not working. Pain can capture our attention and lets us know that change is necessary as in the case of touching a hot stove, sitting in the sun too long without sunscreen or engaging in risky sexual practices. Embracing that resulting pain can actually lead us to personal growth and transformation. Yes, pain can be a motivator for change, and that with the right attitude and mindset, we can transform our lives in meaningful ways. In the case of poor relationships choices, pain can signal that it is time to move on and learn new behaviors. Unfortunately, many of us sabotage this possibility by denying, numbing or backing away from such pain.

3. Pain gives us opportunities to be heroic. Heroic actions often arise from a desire to alleviate other's suffering because of what we have learned about our own pain. Our obvious efforts at overcoming challenges can inspire others to act courageously.

4. Pain often reveals our inner strength and resilience. Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do, but to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.

5. Feeling pain and going through difficult experiences can actually foster empathy and compassion for others and motivate us to advocate for change and justice.

6. Pain and loss helps us wake up and realize how much good we had to lose. The more loss we feel, the more grateful we should be for whatever it was we had to lose. It means we actually had something worth grieving for! The ones we should feel sorry for, are the ones who go through life without ever knowing about grief!"

LOOKING FORWARD IN JOYFUL HOPE

“Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?”

John 11:40

Jesus had a large circle of friends, both men and women. On the fifth Sunday of Lent, we get an inside glimpse of three of those friends: Martha, her sister Mary and their brother Lazarus from the little town of Bethany, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was that special place in the life of Jesus where he and his disciples could stop in, get some rest, enjoy a hot meal and then go on their way!  If you pay attention to the details of John’s gospel story about Martha, Mary and Lazarus, you soon realize just how close Jesus was to these people.  This is a story about intimate friends, affectionate friends.

First, we know that this Mary was the Mary who kissed Jesus’ feet in public, washing them with her tears, drying them with her hair, and rubbing them with perfumed oil.  (When was the last time anybody kissed your feet?  You must be pretty close to do that, not to mention doing it in public!)  Read down the text and you see that John underlines, again and again, just how intimate these people were with Jesus: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”  “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus very much.”  “See how much he loved him!”  They are even so close that these two women can “chew him out” and get away with it: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would never have died.”  And finally, seeing Mary weep, we are told "and Jesus wept!" 

One usually thinks of this story as the “raising of Lazarus,” but Jesus’ raising of Lazarus actually occupies a very small part of this story.  Of the forty-four verses that constitute this story, only seven of them take place at Lazarus’ tomb.  The miracle of the raising of Lazarus is the climax of this story; it is not the center.  This is a dialogue between Jesus and the two women about God’s power in our lives.

In his gospel, John’s stories always have two levels:  one on the surface which is true and another below the surface which is truer still.  This intimate story is meant to reveal to us not only the depth of their friendship, but also how intimate is God’s relationship with us!  The pain of this family is the pain of God for his people.  By listening in to the dialogue, we are also taught what they were taught:  about the depth of God’s love for us, about God’s willingness to give us new life, and about God’s power over our worst enemy – death.

(1) We are taught about the depths of God’s love for us.  One of the biggest challenges I have faced as a priest is to convince people of God’s unconditional love for them.  Why is it that so many of us have been trained by people who have dismissed these intimate stories of God’s love and have combed through the Scriptures, piecing together condemning, judging, and damning messages that they turn into a religion?  Why did they, and why do we, find those negative messages more believable?  I have received more letters questioning my “too lenient notions of God’s love” than any other critical letters since I became a priest.  Jesus revealed the “true God,” not this “false mean god” that people have created since Adam and Eve.  Even in that story, God says to Adam and Eve, “Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11).  In other words, “Who told you that you were bad, separated from me, and defective?  I certainly didn’t!”  Jesus came to talk us out of the mean God we keep creating in our own minds.  I can’t imagine trying to live my religion without being in love with God! I can’t imagine practicing a religion based on fear and dread!    

(2) By listening in on the conversation between Jesus, Martha and Mary, we are taught also about God’s willingness to give us new life.  This eternal life is on both sides of death.  Death does not have the last word.  Eternal life is not just some promise for the future; it is available to us right now.  We are in it, as we speak! Through Jesus and in Jesus, those of us who are “dead on our feet” can be resurrected now.  We can be born again.  We can act boldly on our own behalf to live purposeful lives, to help others, and to claim the powers that lie dormant within us.  One of my favorite old movies is Harold and Maude.  This is Maude’s message to Harold throughout the movie: “Oh, how the world dearly loves a cage!  There are a lot of people who enjoy being dead.” Jesus came, not just to bring a wonderful life after we are dead, but right now!  

(3) And, as this gospel teaches us, God has power over our worst enemy – death.  We live in a death-denying culture.  Some of our expensive funeral practices would leave outsiders with the impression that we believe that we are going to come up with a cure for death someday!  That makes about as much sense as leaving the runway lights on for Amelia Earhart.  We don’t even know how to die.  Modern medical technology robs us of the spiritual experience of “letting go” of this part of our life.  Through Jesus and in Jesus, we are able to see in death that “life is changed, not ended.”  I feel sorry for those who are conscious at death’s door without this faith. 

Over the years, I have had the awesome privilege of talking to some very conscious people getting ready to die: especially those with AIDS and with cancer.  Some were not pious people, but most were deeply spiritual.  Some were able to tell me that they accepted their approaching deaths and they wanted to “do it well.”  Some were extremely thankful for the “eternal life” they had experienced in this world.  Some looked with “joyful hope” for the “eternal life” ahead of them.  My brother, who died last week, had one of the most grace-filled exits from this life I have ever experienced. He died of a aggressive form of leukemia. He lived just five weeks and had no pain or need for morphine until the last day and a half. He was proud of the fact that he had reconciled with everyone he knew! He told me he was not afraid to die, that he was grateful for this life and that he "looked forward to going to heaven." You know, if you’re facing death, it doesn’t get any better than that!  I hope I can do half as well. I too pray for the ability to be conscious, filled with gratitude and ready to go when the time comes! Yes, I want to be conscious! I want to choose to let go and leap into that great unknown, to leap into the arms of God!

The message in this gospel is this:  God loves you very, very much.  He wants you to enjoy the eternal life that you can experience right now, and he wants you to know that death does not have the last word.  You can enjoy “eternal life” forever, yes starting right now!