Where do I stand?
on the Inca Trail, Perua
For with the Lord there is steadfast love.
Psalm 130:7
Steadfast
This is the standing place
To be steadfast in love for and with the Lord.
I’m studying the cause(s) of human violence this semester. While it is easy to point fingers at those who incite violence against body and/or soul, my studies are turning my gaze inward.
Have I formed an idol?
I pray for my faith to inform my political work in the world (social action) but realize I am guilty of placing too much reliance on our system – misplacing my trust. When this or that ideology becomes my focus, the answer to stand on, I have created an idol. Idolizing God is even more problematic – when God becomes an certain answer to stand on rather than a Love to live in.
My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
Isaiah 55:8
For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been God’s counselor?
Romans 11:34
The political system has become my idol when I expect it to fix our woes. Amid the tensions of which party is ‘right,’ our civility is more and more at risk. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes in Not in God’s Name, “Civility is dying, and when it dies, civilization itself in in danger.”
How am I uncivil?
My civility is at risk when dualism takes hold. In the desperate grasp for certainty, it is easy to be drawn into the contagion of the crowd that claims the answer. ‘That’ crowd and its ideology becomes my identity, an identity of Us being right and Them being wrong. Uncertainty and working together are uncomfortable. Therefore, the dualistic notion of Us against Them is simplified and easy. I have been tempted by the easy way out. The ‘easy’ way that demonizes the other and diminishes our civility out of fear.
What is my fear?
The loss of civility gives rise to fear. Fear that They are after Us who ‘know the answer.’ They are to be feared and must be controlled or conquered. This fear quietly erodes democracy. Controlling Them out of fear eats away at our agency, leading Us to believe we are the victims and accelerating unfettered power with self-interest. Fear is born of the hypocrisy that They choose badly and We choose right. Our wrongs may not be the same, but we all commit them. Forgetting this fact and simply casting blame fuels my fears.
While I embarked in my studies to learn why They are violent, I have learned more about myself. About my own likelihood to follow the crowd in dualistic beliefs; in unwittingly idolizing our system; in fearing that which challenges me to grow. I am faced with the question…am I doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly for my own sake and the crowd I run with? Or will I avail myself to the discomfort of uncertainty to be steadfast in Love, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God in heart, mind, and body. For the love of God, self, and beloved community?
Life can only be understood backwards, and it can only be lived forward.
Søren Kierkegaard
Yep. I am learning about myself in the context of human history. Am I in this for win or lose – following the crowd in forming idols, demonizing Them, and fear? Or, am I in this together?