Every Man That Hath This Hope

Does hope purify?

1 John 3:3

And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

Dozens of people have been murdered in the United States, in the last 18 months, by young men on killing rampages.  When teenage boys killed their fellow students at a high school in Colorado in 1999, our country was shocked and appalled.  But, this wasn’t the first mass killing in a school.  And it wouldn’t be the last.  About a year and a half ago, the murders of little children at Sandy Hook Elementary terrified and enraged us again.  Just this week, a killer shot and murdered a student and shot a teacher at a school in Oregon, and then ended up dead himself.  There seems to be an epidemic.  It’s even worse than you might remember – take a look at this timeline starting from 1984: http://timelines.latimes.com/deadliest-shooting-rampages/  Men from the ages of 55 to 11, most of them under 30, have made the decision to seek out human beings and kill them, arming themselves for the rampage, wanting to destroy their lives.  Sometimes they commit suicide directly.  Sometimes it’s almost a matter of suicide by police.  None of them get away.  Why do they want to do this?

Why?

Why???

The President of the United States has said, in light of the most recent killing, “this is not normal.”  But isn’t “normal” a relative word?  Certainly we would agree with the president’s assessment, I mean, it’s kind of a no-brainer to call this “not normal” – but isn’t it becoming normal?  For some people in our country, perhaps for some young men who live just down the street, these killing sprees look like the exact right thing to do – they look perfectly and brilliantly normal to them.  For me, the most chilling murder by young men is one that hits close to home, literally.  And, I think, it points to a reason why the abnormal is becoming normal.

In 2009, in the small town of Mont Vernon, four seemingly normal young men, ages 17-20, took a drive, armed with knives and a machete, looking specifically for someone to kill.  Anyone.  They broke into a home in the woods and found a woman and her 11-year-old daughter sleeping there.  They brutally and viciously stabbed, slashed, and hacked the woman to death, hacking away at the little girl as well, so violently that they not only smashed bones but also hacked bones into pieces.  The little girl only survived by playing dead.  Why did these four boys do such a thing? 

No, they were not mentally ill.  They wanted to know what it was like to kill people.  One of these boys, even after the fact, thought that this was cool.  The four of them had called themselves the “Disciples of Destruction” and enjoyed violent music and images.  In an article on CrimeLibrary.com, Michael A. Washburn writes,  “Like many suburban kids with too much time on their hands, the "Disciples of Destruction" were drawn together by a shared fascination with the cultures of death and mayhem.”  When Judge Abramson sentenced one of the killers to life in prison with no parole (the harshest penalty allowable) +76 consecutive years, she said to him that she wanted “to ensure that you stay in that cage for the rest of your pointless life.”

His pointless life.  Indeed.  I think that’s exactly the point. 

Many of these serial killers who do all their murdering in one rampage were, I’m quite sure, mentally ill.  But, people who think that other people are not worth anything, people who want to feel the thrill of killing, are not necessarily mentally ill.  We, as a nation of people, absolutely have to get together and truly help people among us who are suffering from mental illness.  We need effective ways to find them and treat their illnesses.  But this won’t be enough.  Just as banning or regulating guns won’t be enough (as the Mont Vernon attack shows).  As these killings more and more become the new normal, we have to be aware that there are young men among us whose lives are pointless, who have no positive direction, who are drawn to darkness and destruction – who have no hope. 

What are we, as a society, offering them?  Meeting beautiful women in bars, drinking alcohol, getting laid, playing video games, and putting up with a crappy job with a jerk for a boss so that they can afford the beer, the games, and maybe a hot set of wheels?  Isn’t this the ideal life of a twentysomething?  And, no, the answer isn’t to provide better jobs – Please!  Is no one listening?  Is no one watching what young men are watching, hearing what young men are hearing?  Frankly, I can see why some are rejecting “normal” behavior.  I can see why young men might want to neither become couch-sitting gamers with five kids from three nagging baby mamas nor workaholics with professional prestige and empty, materialistic lives.  I also see why some would not want to be neatly dressed, mild-mannered fathers-of-two, whose biggest excitement is an enthusiastic “Amen!” on a Sunday or the thrill of an amusement park ride once a year.  Is this really all we’ve got?  Have we nothing of real value to offer?

Meaningful relationships.  Yes, that’s a start.  But… What do relationships mean?  Working with their hands to create something solid that actually helps real people.  Yes, that’s good, too.  Are you making your sons do that?  If you are, are you making them do it so that they can be “nice”?  If so, it’s not going to work.  Nice ain’t gonna cut it.  Real love is the only thing that makes a relationship meaningful.  Real love is the only reason to build improvements for other people’s lives.  And real love is the only thing, the only thing, that keeps our lives from being pointless.

No, I’m not going to blame the parents.  Unless, that is, we, as a society, are the parents.  It does take a village to raise a child, because often the parents can’t do it by themselves, either because they are too busy, too ignorant, or too wounded themselves to know what real love is.  So… What is real love?  

Let’s take the qualities that the young killers at Mont Vernon were attracted to: courage, bravery, honor in brotherhood, something different than ho-hum-get-through-the-day, the newness of discovery, the experience of something hands-on, pushing themselves beyond where they had ever been before.  Yes, I know, even I’m feeling kind of disgusting writing down those words in light of what they did with their desires.  But, now, take those qualities to the classroom.  Now they don’t seem so creepy, but, rather, exhilarating and exactly right.  Take those natural desires of young people to the home and give them a direction in which to go.  A path to take that is beyond ordinary.  Help them to love something, really love something.  I don’t mean a particular someone – how many murders have been committed because a young boy put all of his energies into one girl?  I mean a love of nature, a love of construction, a love of science, a love of arts – poetry, music, performance arts, literature, painting, sculpture, photography, film, etc. – a love of travel, a love of commerce, a love of sports (maybe, at least they won’t have “time on their hands”) a love of community.  Teach them not to look down on other people.  Teach them that we are all interconnected.  Teach them that every human being has – that they have – inherent value that no one and nothing can take away.  Teach them about the human soul!  Every human longs for something more!  Don’t misinterpret, and therefore stifle, that longing to mean more money, more clothes, more accolades, more excitement, more thrills.  The something more for which we all long is Something More.  Something more infinite than the outer reaches of space-time… Something more intimate than the inner depths of feelings.  Infinite and intimate love that calls for courage in making new discoveries and bravery in giving of ourselves completely; infinite and intimate love that doesn’t merely help us get through the day but pushes us beyond ourselves to the sharing of that infinite and intimate love – real love.

I know that I can’t change the world.  And I certainly know that these words are too abstract to be translated into any concrete action.  But, we seriously need to take a look at hope in our country.  (Not the kind of hope that’s marketed and branded by politicians, who are too narrow-minded in their understanding of hope, and who invariably disappoint anyway by getting bogged down in politics, selfishness, or even just the practical, and lose sight of the big picture – lose sight of Something More.)  Every person is unique and has unique gifts for the building up and the giving of life.  Every person is loved into being – hope in that.  There’s the point.  No person is worthless.  No matter how bored, how small, or how voiceless.  A culture of life would understand this.  A culture of life would make decisions out of real love and not out of fear or hopelessness.  But… Ours isn’t a culture of life, is it.

©2014 Christina Chase

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Them That Love Me

Who loves God?  (Hands shook up in the air amid choruses of “Oo, oo, I do!  I do!”) 

Exodus 20:6

And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

(Weird!  I promise you, even though this verse is the one directly after the verse I received last week, it, like the other, WAS RANDOMLY GIVEN to me!  Freaky weird.  But, I guess that is true randomness… or perhaps divine providence….  Anyway…)

Who can we say really, truly loves God?  Perhaps some may think of the Pope or a very pious nun, others of a peaceful and devout Imam or a deeply spiritual Rabbi or a wise and generous Lama – or an innocent, joyful child or that elderly person you know who has given so much of his or her life to taking care of other people and serving the local community of worship.  The ones who love God, we can say, are the people of peace and charity, of forgiveness and goodwill, of compassion and joy, who are steadfast in their faith, unwavering in their hope, and self-giving in their love, people of deep prayer and spiritual belief.  Of whom does the question make you think?

I don’t usually recommend thinking of other people when a question is asked or a teaching is given – usually, I try to apply the question or teaching to myself so that I won’t get caught up in pointing fingers.  But, in this case, I believe that it is good if, when hearing the question “Who loves God?”, our minds instinctively go to other people whom we believe to be most worthy of a title such as “One Who Loves God”.  Otherwise, we might be too full of pride.  I do consider myself as one who loves God and would even gladly identify myself in this manner.  But… I know that loving is not something that one merely feels or even chooses by assenting in a kind of intellectual way.  Loving must be lived.  We love, not only with our thoughts and words, but also with our actions, our souls – we love with the entirety of our beings.  So, I ask myself, with my whole life, with my every living moment: do I love God?

In the Bible Burst that I wrote just previously to this one, I explored the question of who hates God.  My ultimate answer, which I realize now is very startling and seemingly harsh, was that anyone who hates a human being hates God.  I stand by that statement.  Truly, because I believe that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God and loved by God, I believe that if I hate another person – or even hate myself – I am despising God, upon whose image and likeness I am directing my hatred.  Yes, humans are capable of the most vile, willful cruelty and disgusting acts of evil – but no one, no human being is irredeemable to God so long as he or she has a functioning will.  Any person, no matter how viciously minded, can choose at any moment to change.  A mass murderer can want to do good and, in the course of exercising some small mercy, may come to see his murderous deeds as wrong and experience true remorse and repentance.  This is the start of one who hated God journeying toward reconciliation with God and it is a gift that God gives to everyone. 
We must want this journey of mercy for every mean hearted person if we are truly going to be people who love God.  We must hope and pray for the conversion of all sinners – especially of the worst and certainly including ourselves.  If we truly love God then we will want what God wants – and God wants every one of his beloved human beings to know mercy, to know love, to know faith and hope.  And how can they know unless they are told, unless they are shown?  And who will it be that shows them?  Are we waiting for God to take care of it with lightning bolts or plagues or a visiting host of heavens angels?  God wants us to love one another and sends us to the needy (those who suffer from the poverty of love and mercy and hope) and to the imprisoned (those who are captives to greed and vengeance and selfishness) to bring hope of salvation, which is the gift of God’s love.  We, created in God’s image, are to minister to our fellow divine images, especially to those who may have lost the loving brilliance of their identities.  It is a privilege, an honor, and a blessing to be able to show the Light of the World to those living in darkness – showing the radiance of the Light by reflecting it with our souls.  For, Divine Love shines forth through us in our every act of true love – “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”[1]

So, again, I ask myself if I really, truly love God.  Only God knows the truth of my heart.  Only God can see with infinite clarity the brilliance of my soul – and know whether or not I have sullied it with hate.

 

Christina Chase

All Rights Reserved

 

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[1] Romans 10:15

Them That Hate Me

Cycles of violence … Who hates God? 

Exodus 20:5

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Who hates God?  The easy answer that comes to mind might be atheists.  But, of course, a true atheist doesn’t believe in the existence of God – how can someone hate something that doesn’t exist?  Satanists are another group of people that we could point to and say that they hate God.  Certainly with their creed, their words and their rituals, they seek to align themselves with the mystical enemy of God and eschew all things upright and wholesome.  But… I would wager that most Satanists in action, in the world and in their families, are no less destructive and unwholesome than some who profess to believe in God.  Oh, there are certainly Satanists who choose evil deeds, who hate and curse and torture and kill.  But, are there not God believing people who do the same, calling on a different name?

How many Muslims, how many Christians, how many peoples throughout history around the world have preached and practiced acts of violence and cruelty in the name of their gods?  Enough to make a person think about wanting to be an atheist – indeed, some want-to-be influential people, like Bill Maher, for one example, blame all the wars that humans have fought on religion.  However, in all truth and reason, we can clearly see that wars arise from ideologies – which often claim no god.  Stalin’s communist regime was one of the most brutal in history and he did not systematically kill for the honor of any god, for he was an atheist.  He was vicious and destructive for himself, for power and greed (maybe even for his own amusement) for the sake of his way of looking at things, his ideology.  And is that not the true cause of every war?  Is not the real reason humans are bent on cruelty and domination that they want to be?  Wars are fought by individual soldiers in trenches and on front lines who may very well have loving reasons for being there – but wars are instigated and created by people who want what they want and will gladly have killed or destroyed anyone who they think gets in the way.  Even smaller-scale acts of violence – the cold-blooded murder of a girlfriend, the rape of a stranger, the lethal shooting of a dozen kids in a school – are not caused by religion.  Man’s cruelty to man has nothing to do with the love and worship of God.

The people who hate God are the people who hate other people.  For every person is created in God’s image.  If you hate anyone in the world – even if you hate the most horrible and vilest of persons – you hate God.  We often think that it is right and good to hate evil doers.  We laud all talk of destroying the enemies of freedom and justice.  Although it is true that anyone who is an enemy of true freedom and true justice is choosing to go against the ways of God, if we choose to hate that hate-filled person, then we, too, are choosing to go against God’s ways.  Christ said, “You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”  God does not close off divine mercy from anyone – and neither should we.  For, if we are to live as we were created to live, we must strive to do as God does and struggle to walk in the ways of mercy and selflessness – of real love.

Yes, people do horrendous things and claim to do them for the love of God – but that’s not really love.  Or, perhaps more accurately, that’s not really God.  It’s very easy to think of God as meting out pain and vicious punishment on those who would seek to go against Him.  The Bible has many, many verses that tell of God’s wrath and vengeance and the hurt He puts upon His enemies.  In the verse from Exodus 20, about the Commandment against worshiping false idols God says, “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.”  What we often think of as God’s willfully wrathful punishment, however, is, I believe, simply the natural consequences of our own willfully wrathful choices.  Do we not know that violence begets violence and those who live by the sword die by the sword?  Do we not see the rational truth of this in the world, even in our everyday lives?  It doesn’t mean that the One and Almighty God will smite anyone who seeks to worship through a religion other than the one and only one prescribed by Him.  If it did, God might welcome arguments that escalate into violence about which religion is the true religion – but, God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”  God gives us freewill and allows us to freely choose, pouring His love and mercy upon each and every one of us, relentlessly.  That loving mercy can feel like eternal pain to those who never want to receive it, not even in the last moments of their lives; or it can feel like eternal sunshine and grace to those who long for the forgiveness and love of God.

If a child is taught to hate by his parents, he will usually become a hater.  If his child, then, is taught to destroy the hated ones, then he will usually become destructive.  The person in the family who first chose, in freewill, to hate a human being or human beings, who first saw cruel domination as a good, set up a cycle of hate, a cycle of violence, that is, as we know, very difficult to break.  But, then, there are those people who willfully choose to have mercy.  Though, sometimes, they are punished by the hating people, their acts of kindness and selflessness do not go unseen.  Their true love, that choice to walk in divine ways, inspires others for generations upon generations upon generations… as are the saints of old, and new, ever inspiring, ever celebrated even after 2000, 5000 years.  And their individual lives do not end with the death of their limited bodies, their self-centered thinking, as do the lives of those who hate God by hating human beings – the lives of those who love God by selflessly loving human beings are as eternally beautiful as the Beautiful One, Who Is Eternal Love.

 

Christina Chase

All Rights Reserved

 

Departed

I would like to say that I am innocent… But I am not.

Psalms 18:21

For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

When I was nine years old, I was a thief.  Not only did I steal gulps of wine with my friend from the kitchen (warm alcohol in a Mickey Mouse tumbler) and grams of chalk dust from the school gym supply (folding it up in some paper and sticking it inside my wheelchair while waiting for the short bus to come and take me home) and various small things – construction paper, carbon, broken chalk – that I wanted and I judged no one would miss… but I also stole knowledge.  At the end of third grade, I was allowed to stay inside with my friend Beth for recess one day and we decided to open our teacher’s desk drawer and find that secret list.  A secret list existed near the close of every school year with the names of the teachers that each student would receive the next year.  We all wanted to know what classroom we would end up in – would we get our favorite teacher, would our friends be with us?  But, that information, as I recall, was never shared until the summer.  Beth and I didn’t want to wait.  We wanted to know.

 

If memory serves, I was the one who instigated and told Beth to do it.  Being physically limited, I was used to “bossing people around”.  Not only did we find out who we would have for teachers, but also who our friends, and people with whom we would like to be friends, were going to have.  Before the end of the school day, we whispered the secrets to everyone that we could.  Eventually, other kids in other classrooms let it slip that they knew – and when asked where they had heard the news, directed authorities to Mrs. B’s class.  Mrs. B made us all put our heads upon our desks until the guilty party, or parties, confessed the crime.  I did not raise my head.  I did not say a word.  And neither did Beth.  Mrs. B couldn’t keep us there forever, we had to go home.  But, as we were lining up to leave, a boy in my class told Mrs. B that I was the one who had told him, that I was the one who had stolen the list.  My teacher looked down at me and I looked up at her with my big brown eyes.  I remember myself mumbling something about Beth, ready to throw her under the bus – we really weren’t that close anyway – but Mrs. B had poor hearing.  She just regarded me through her glasses, her bright red lips extra thin and tight.  But, then her face softened.  She didn’t believe the boy.  She didn’t believe that I could do something so wrong.  To her, and to most everyone as I would find out in my life, I was an innocent.

 

Indeed, this may seem like a small and innocent offense – what real harm was done?  But, the harm was to my classmates who were all under the shadow of suspicion, for that afternoon with their heads down in the dark and silence, and, for all I know, for the rest of Mrs. B’s life.  And the harm was done to my relationship with Beth, for we never did get close.  Perhaps she overheard my mumbled ratting or perhaps the guilt was just too much for me.  And the greatest harm, I know, was to myself.  For I showed myself, in this incident, my true colors.  Thievery was easy to me and I honestly felt no guilt about that.  I was even proud.  Proud that me, who everyone thought was a little angel in a wheelchair, could commit such an act that got the whole third-grade buzzing.  The fact that I so blatantly got away with it just added to my happiness over the whole event.  But… what I was willing to do to Beth… how I was willing to hide behind the cloak of innocence with which my wheelchair draped me while pointing my finger at her….  I was not a good friend.  This is not only a crime against someone whom I considered a friend, this was, and I say this most seriously, a crime against God.  Sneaky, deceptive, smarmy, and proud of myself, I was bolstered up for many years by the memory of this robbed knowledge.  It was not merely the ignorant act of a child.  For, was there not some innocence in Eve when she simply wanted to gain wisdom, as I simply wanted to know?  And, was there not also pride and greed at grasping for something higher than herself, to put herself at the level of a superior?  And was there not shameful finger-pointing, a desperate attempt to inflict any punishment that she deserved away from herself and onto a co-conspirator?  Wasn’t Adam, too, guilty of this last crime, this greatest crime: willfully inflicting harm upon another in an attempt to hide from the consequences coming justly to oneself?

 

To escape justice, the first humans had to hide themselves from one another – to hide themselves from God.  But… there is no hiding from God.  And don’t I know that, too!  Knowledge thief that I am, did I not dare to proclaim that there is no such thing as God and devote myself entirely to a godless life with myself as the center of a meaningless universe?  No, I never committed murder in that life – although I did strangle my soul’s promptings and suffocate my own spiritual nature.  I did not steal – but I had already hijacked my own reason.  And I did not commit adultery or anything like that – although I did desecrate the temple of my body.  I broke the ways of the Lord by departing from my God.  From truth.  From real love.  From life itself.  And though this willful act was not committed through wickedness, I was still far from the truth of my identity as a being lovingly Created in divine image; I had banished myself far from the tree of life and the reality of reality.

 

Forever east of Eden, we thieves of knowledge go – and the innocent truth of who we really are, we can’t get to know.  There, but for the grace of God, would I, ever seeking, lie; it’s grace that’s brought me home again… I cannot hide from I.

Christina Chase

 

With Open Face Beholding

Lord, change me, make me new.  Make me like you!  – the plea of the sunflower.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the LORD.

There is a flower in my garden which is named for the sun.  In appearance, much like the sun is she, golden arrayed, burning bright from the center with flaming colors outward spread.  But there is more – much more meaning to her identity, because with the sun her whole existence is so lovingly aligned.

She does not mean to mimic or fool by merely sporting appearance – for what bird would dare to perch upon an orb of fire, and, so, what would she have to gain if she would scare away her own propagators, the midwives of her progeny with which she will be so heavy pregnant?  She is humble and knows that she is merely a creature bound to the life-giving sun, and by no means desires to be a substitute.  Yes, she stands tall and bold, but her height and breadth is but a measure of the depth of her humility, for her only wish, as far as a flower can wish, is to look up to that which she adores.  It is the looking up that has raised her.  It is the love of heavenly light that has opened wide her green-leafed arms.  It is her submission to her Master that has given her flowery majesty.

For, all day long, while the sun shows forth his open face, shining full with glory, her rapturous gaze is all caught up in him.  Every minute of every hour that passes, she faithfully follows his path with steadfast love.  No matter what may come between them, whether mist or cloud or dark of night, it is him she always seeks, it is him that her hope will always find.  Some dark days will fall, when a downpour may weigh her head too heavy to lift, but when the rays of the sun are visible again, the drops will slip from down her sunny cheeks and she will pay them no mind, not even to shake them away.  She looks upon the sun again, never having lost him, for she has kept the thought and memory of him, the warmth of the gift that he has given, deep in her heart.  Yes, even when the sun slips over the edge of sight and pulls the veil of night down behind him, she is patient and trusting, and does not collapse in the darkness.  Her head she bends down low – but not in despair, for one who loves as she loves can never hold despair – but in ever recognition of where her beloved lives.  Though invisible to her petal eyes, her heart is not deceived and senses, with true love’s faith, his presence beneath the surface of the world.  And so her vigilant gaze, ever fixed upon its deathless source, follows him as he shines on realms unknown and unseen, far from his touch get ever near to his soul.  And when the night is opened slow, with tender, aching rush, the sun’s rays find her ready face, expectant in faith, and she receives anew the outpouring love of him whom she adores.

From this cause, then, is this flower called for the sun.  He is her love, her reason, and her destiny.  Her blossomy pledge of devotion is her very blossoming – and she is transformed by and into the one whom she loves.

Christina Chase

In His Integrity

What’s left?

Proverbs 19:1

Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.

 “Blessed are the poor…” yes, yes, I know, but I’d like to be rich – who wouldn’t?  To live in a beautiful house surrounded by comfort and conveniences and beautiful things, to not have to worry about how I’m going to pay the bills that pile up in front of me, to have nice clothes and cars and delicious foods and to be able to travel wherever I would like or give financial assistance and material help to worthy people in need whenever I am moved to do so – who wouldn’t want to do that?  When we think of all the things that money can buy, we think in our minds – and even in our hearts – “Blessed are the rich.”

The stories that we hear about lottery winners always fascinate me.  They win huge sums of money by luck and buy all the things that they’ve always wanted to have – and they admit that they aren’t happier.  Some spend and live richly while still wisely saving and investing enough money so that they will never have to worry about blowing it all – and they say they were happier before they became rich.  Friends and family members become jealous and manipulative, trying to get some of that financial boon for themselves.  People everywhere seek them out with tales of woe in hopes of getting charitable contributions.  And some, in resentment and also in greed, will make the lottery winners feel guilty if not enough of the winnings are spent upon things that they, the non-winners, believe are important.  And then there’s all the stuff – so many things to buy, experiences to purchase, and no extra time in which to enjoy them, no extra heart-space in which to appreciate them.  And the stuff has to be taken care of – or the employees hired to take care of the stuff have to be taken care of – it’s a lot of work.  Some lottery winners become depressed, some commit suicide.  And even the rich who earn their money never seem to be able to get enough of it, are always wanting more.  Rich celebrities live glamorous lives – lives of broken relationships, drug abuse, waywardness.  But, still… Knowing all this, I would still like to be rich.  I would be one of those few who can handle it, who can do wealthy well.  Wouldn’t I?

I don’t know.  How am I doing with not being wealthy?  Am I doing middle-class well?  Actually, my parents are middle-class – but they physically take care of me in their home because of my severe disability.  I, financially speaking, am poor.  In fact, it is rightly said that I am a beggar since I can do no labor, no work inside or outside of the home, to earn my bread.  I depend completely upon others for all of my needs for survival.  So, to go back to my question – am I doing that well?  I think I could handle wealth – but that would only be true if I can handle poverty.

Jesus did not say “Blessed are the financially destitute.”  He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  I imagine that “poor in spirit” has been interpreted to mean different things over the centuries through different schools of thought.  But, the point I want to make here is that poverty itself – the deprivation of material resources, of those basic needs of survival – is not blessedness.  Merely being poor is not going to make one blessed, is not going to make one happy.  There are many, many people who do poverty badly.  Broken relationships, drug abuse, and suicide affect the poor as well as the rich.  (Perhaps, though, we may think it affects the poor more because there are more poor people than rich.)  The truth is that selfishness, greed, and unhappiness abound in humanity, no matter how much, or how little, money is ready at hand.  If, however, one is “poor in spirit” – well, then, one belongs to the kingdom of heaven.  What does that mean?

To be poor in spirit is not to have some kind of solidarity with the poor, that is, feeling deep compassion for them in their plight and helping them however one can by donating time and/or resources.  The blessedness, the happiness, comes in truly being poor – in being a beggar.  For, what do we have that is truly our own?  You can be robbed of possessions.  Your house can burn down and your insurance company go bankrupt.  You can lose your savings through disastrous investments.  You can lose your job or lose your breadwinning spouse and get evicted or have your house foreclosed upon, watch your car get repossessed and sell off your jewelry, your collectibles, your furniture, until you have nothing left.  Even that body which you use to earn money and go to the store and enjoy leisurely comfort – even that can lose its functionality through injury or disease.  That mind that you use to make sure you have all that you need and with which you appreciate what you have – even that can lose its abilities of cognition and/or memory.  And then what is left?  All that is left is what has always been, what is eternally: your belongingness to the kingdom of heaven.

Whether rich or poor, if we live our lives separated from our true identities, we will never be truly happy.  We were all created by the Uncreated Creator.  We all belong to this Infinite/Eternal One.  Your true identity, my true identity, is as a living image and likeness of God.  But, is that how we live?  Or, do we rather live as our own inventions for our own purposes?  I’m not talking about altruism here.  I’m talking about knowing who you are.  You could be blessed by living your life “looking out for number one” and understanding that that most important one is yourself – but do you know who you are?  If you think that you are your physical pleasures and enjoyments, then you are always going to miss the mark of blessedness.  If you think that you are your accomplishments and achievements, then you will never be fulfilled.  If you think that you are the praising people around you, then you will never know true love, true happiness.  If you think that you are the weight of your possessions, monuments, and money enjoyed now and left behind as legacy when you are dead, then you are most sadly missing out on the fullness of your one, unique life.

The Uncaused Cause has given you an immortal soul to animate your being – and has given you Godself to restore you to true likeness so that you may know blessedness and know it eternally.  Who you truly are is who you are eternally.  When passing things pass away, what is left?  What has always been and always will be: a beggar.  May our begging bowls be open and outstretched toward the Source of Being, the Infinitely Generous One Who truly gives us our fill.

Whether rich or poor, I can be a fool.  Better to have no material pleasures to distract me from knowing who I am, then to go about my life as a fool in perversity.  May we not choose to live our lives perversely, obstinately desiring to do what is unreasonable – and what is unreasonable is all that is is contrary to who we truly are. 

Christina Chase

The Faithful Witness

Revelation 1:5-7

5.    And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

6.    And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

7.    Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

Here upon our Earth, we see the Sun in all its radiance and feel the goodness of its heat.  Above our bony skulls is sky of blue and white, through which clouds sail, breezes blow, and birds fly; from which rain, lightning strikes, and snowflakes fall.  Gold and pink, purples and reds give our eyes delight with the Sun’s coming and going, and we are secure, here, in our green and blue home.  But, with the sun’s setting, the veil of sky is pulled away.  In the night, when the clouds are taken from our sight, we see the spaces of the universe, the cosmos revealed before us in the far-flung stars.  So far above our bony skulls that we cannot comprehend the depths of space… Infinity.

Our minds filled with wonder and awe, our bodies sensing transcendence – though some of us may fear, tremble and cower in the night; some of us may revel in the darkness and name the stars as our own; and some of us may imagine the night sky as a poetic kind of ceiling for our Earth.  The truth of existence, once revealed, cannot be ignored without willful ignorance.  Is the Earth, our home, insignificant in the vast reaches of Space?  Are we no more than a bacteria crusted rock hurling through space/time?  Scientists will take out their telescopes and microscopes for the answer.  Poets and philosophers will lyrically lament and laud with symbols and syllogisms.  Spiritually minded people will find meaning in the gaps of their intellectual understanding.  Pleasure seekers will take advantage of the night with probings and pursuits they would not undertake in the light of day.  Most of us, however, will simply sleep.

The Faithful Witness is the one who does not cower and hide, who is awake and does not ignore.  The Faithful Witness does not dissect or pretend or fear silence and limitations.  The Faithful Witness does not close in upon himself and drown out life with too much noise.  The Faithful Witness testifies.  He comes with the clouds so that he may bring light to others, pours out his blood in death so that he may bring life to others, descends to brown soil so that he may wash others clean.  The King of kings, the highest of high rulers, rules not with a bony skull, with sticks or stones, or the pink and gold and flaming silver of stardust.  The solidity of Earth causes us to feel at home, secure in our blue and green sanctuary.  But the true Sanctuary, with the infinite depths of the true holy of holies, is hidden from our earthly sight.  No where in the far-flung universe can that to which the faithful witness testifies be seen.  Nor can the truth be felt.  Nor can the awesome, infinite truth even be known by us of bony skulls.  The truth can only be loved.  The rule of existence is love and the faithful witness is the one who loves without beginning and without end..

How do we, who are at home on Earth, receive the Faithful Witness?  With telescopes and microscopes, with sentimentality and lucky charms, with sticks and stones and the self-centered limitations of our bony skulls.  Him we pierce with our scalpels and switchblades and self-inflated ideas, with the lances of our arrogance and the swords of our desperate feelings.  But, we do not truly see the Faithful Witness whom we pierce.  We are blinded by the created light of sky and the light of our own making.  One day…

One day that is not a day we will see without seeing… and then we will know without knowing even as we have always been known…

Christina Chase