It occurs to me…

Elie Wiesel died yesterday.  Only in his death have I learned anything of him beyond that he wrote and spoke of the The Holocaust.   Truly a “Joni Mitchell Moment” – “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone.”  Luckily, his lifetime of work remains and is readily accessible.

Today I spent some time reading up on Wiesel and started reading Night, which my wife had on the bookshelf.  In my crash course it seems that Wiesel’s overriding message was to warn of the danger of indifference.  Numerous sources quote him as stating that “the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.”  Having witnessed yet survived The Holocaust first hand as a teenager, Wiesel clearly lived to fulfill his own vow: “I swore never to be silent wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.  We must always take sides.”

It occurs to me that it is so easy to be a spectator, even when the judgment needle instantly pegs the “wrong” side of our morality meter.  Having settled down into a spectator’s seat, it is even easier to remain a spectator.  Wiesel clearly spent his post-Holocaust life fighting indifference,, past, present, and future, and encouraged us to do the same.

“Action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.”

What am I currently indifferent on that I should be taking a side on?

Reading in Krysta Tippett’s Becoming Wise today I came across this conversation involving Father George Cayne and Brother Guy Consolmagno:

Consolmagno: The more you know, the more you don’t know….

Coyne:  If we knew it all I’d sit under a palm tree with my gin and tonic and just let the world go by.

Consolmagno:  Which is not a bad thing t do every now and then.

Coyne:  Well, every now and then, but it’d get kind of boring.

In that exchange I am reminded of this – no matter how much I know (or think I know), there is infinitely more that I don’t know.  That thought, that reality, in and of itself, should help quell the pride and feed the humility.

“And when he came unto himself he said ‘How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!  I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him,  Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no longer worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants.’  And he arose and came to his father”  Luke 15:17-20

The younger son is at the bottom of the bottom, alone, broke, and nothing but darkness ahead – at least that’s how he sees it.  But then a sliver of light comes into the darkness, a ray of hope, the moment “he came unto himself” arises when he recognizes that he need not/should not go it alone.  Inherent in this moment is the acknowledgement of an error, recognition of his monumental screw up.  That’s hard, and we should not gloss over that moment.  On more positive terms we can call it a moment of clarity, a moment of enlightenment, but at its center it requires a monumental swallowing of pride.  This is the critical moment, the fulcrum on which his future is balanced.  Does the younger son remain stubborn, independent, alone, or does he acknowledge his weakness (and at the same time rely on his strength) to turn to face his demons, his past, to envision a brighter future in a partnership with the Father?

In the younger son’s words there is purposeful surrender.  “I have sinned against heaven and before thee…make me as one of thy hired servants.”  Not to this degree, of course, but I am called to surrender, to “come unto myself” each day, many times a day.  Do I hold back on that quick judgment, repress the biting sarcasm, acknowledge instead of ignore?  When the sliver of light comes into the darkness do I repress the still, small voice or acknowledge it, follow it?  Do I remain in want or turn around and head back home?

From an On Being podcast and Krysta Tippett:

“Listen for the voices of those who will not shout and will not throw themselves in front of a microphone.”

In all times, but particularly in the midst of a political campaign that will likely be a season of shouting and people throwing themselves in front of microphones, this settles in well.  Literally and figuratively, I tend to listen to the loudest voice.  Yet In the midst of the shouting and people grabbing microphones there are others, many others, who need to be heard and considered.

We sit around a table, seemingly together in at least one belief

Same place, same room, but in different chairs, each with a position at the table

Each arrived and sat down having won victories at a cost, having rejoiced, having borne indignities, having suffered, laughed, offended, looked back with regret and amazement, having felt amazing grace

So what are we cooking here?  What are we creating?  No one of us has the recipe or the instructions.

Each seasons the mix with experiences, beliefs, prejudices, preferences, stated or not, so that what results does not belong to any one, is not perfect to any one, but is acceptable, more or less, to all who remain.

“And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.  And he joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him in the fields to feed swine.  And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him.”  Luke 15:14-16

This is that spot and I think these words describe it as well as any – it is difficult to describe emptiness with something, in fact it somewhat defies the word because emptiness is that, a feeling of nothing, and it is hard to describe nothing with something.  I suspect everyone has been there, or felt they were there.  That feeling of aloneness slides into despair and before you know it, there is a full-on pity party going on.  No matter who or what is around, there is an utterly consuming sense of being alone.  That’s where the younger son finds himself.  He took his inheritance, turned his back on his family, traveled far only to lose it all.

Years ago we took a trip to Washington D.C. and as we were rushing through the National Gallery of Art to get to something at a given time when we passed in front of a painting by Pierre Purvis De Chavnnes of the Prodigal Son at this point.  I wanted to linger, couldn’t, yet the image has stuck with me ever since.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words – this one is worth more.  http://uploads3.wikiart.org/images/pierre-puvis-de-chavannes/the-prodigal-son.jpg

Reading today from Krysta Tippett’s Becoming Wise I ran across this from Rabbi Johnathan Sacks:

“Don’t think we can confine God into our categories.  God is bigger than religion.” 

Religion, any religion, is just that – a human attempt to “confine God into our categories.”  Two thoughts occur to me.  First, if each religion or individual is asked to draw a “circle of religion,” when any are compared they almost certainly share some common ground, as with the overlapping areas in a Venn Diagram.  Second, our circles, all of our circles, are likely too small and don’t do justice to God.

Reading today from Krysta Tippett’s Becoming Wise:

“You know, the question isn’t whether we’re going to have to do hard, awful things, because we are.  We all are.  The question is whether we have to do them alone.”

Kate Braestrup

Indeed.  We all deal with troubles.  They are different troubles, no doubt, because any trouble of mine is different than trouble of yours if for no other reason (and there are likely many other distinctions) that your troubles are not, in the strict interpretive sense, mine.  That said, in all trouble there is a commonality.  There is a human heart involved — and, if we are lucky, more than one.