“Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16)
Here comes the light
Becoming Flame
A reading from The Desert of the Heart, a collection of sayings from the 4th-century Desert Fathers:
Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and he said to him, “Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven; his fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”
The Word
How Wonderful! I speak of the soul and
seven people rise from their chairs and leave the room,
seven others lean forward to listen.
I speak of the body, the spirit, the mockingbird,
the hollyhock, leaves opening in the rain, music, faith, angels
seen at dusk—and seven more people leave the room and are seen running
down the road.
Seven more stay where they are but make murmurous disruptive sounds.
Another seven hang their heads, feigning disinterest though their hearts
are open, their hope is high that they will hear the word even again.
The word is already, for them, the song in the forest. They know already
how everything is better—the dark trees less terrible, the ocean less hungry—
when it comes forth, and looks around with its crisp and lovely eye,
and begins to sing.
by Mary Oliver
The Golden Rule the World Over, 7
The Native American tribe known as the Pimas capture The Golden Rule this way: “Do not wrong or hate your neighbor. For it is not he who you wrong, but yourself.” Here we see the rule take a new twist into the area of blame and shame. The classic pointed finger with four pointing back at you. A parallel to Jesus’s command to “take the log out of your own eye so you can see clearly the speck in your neighbor’s.”
But this proverb is even more telling when it comes to the wisdom of The Golden Rule. The verse is attributed to the native Arizona tribe referred to as Pima. This moniker is believed to have come from the phrase pi ‘añi mac or pi mac, meaning “I don’t know” — the answer they often gave the Spanish missionaries upon their first meetings. “I don’t know,” the natives answered, and their honesty became a label, a slur, a category to place them under so that they would be considered less than. We all do it— in ways large and small—to individuals, groups, types. The other. We all know we shouldn’t, but we do it anyway. According to Pima wisdom this means, at the very least, we should feel guilty about it.
Do we? And are we willing to begin to catch ourselves and turn our pointed fingers around? And is that even the full of the wrong we do to ourselves when we wrong a neighbor? I suspect it’s more than that. I suspect what they are trying to teach us all is that hateful behavior shapes us. It turns us into hateful people, which makes our lives smaller and tighter until, ultimately, we are simply roiling with darkness and fear and anger, convinced that we had no part in it. Convinced that we are right.
The next time you notice yourself deriding a neighbor, a co-worker, a guy you see on TV, stop. Observe. Consider who you are really hurting. Consider what it would cost to not be so sure your thoughts, words, actions are right, and what you might gain by saying, simply, “I don’t know.”
The Golden Rule the World Over, 6
There are several key truths at the heart of The Golden Rule. We all want to be treated fairly. We all want to be treated kindly. We all want to live in a world where this is the norm. Neo-Confucianist Chu Hsi (circa 13th century) wrote about the elements that are needed to help find this balance: “Love contains the idea of flowing movement and activity put forth, but its operation is tender and gentle. Righteousness contains the idea of deliberation as to what is in accord with right, but its operation is decisive and distinct.”
In other words, kindness and fairness require both grace and judgement. In the Christian tradition this core pairing—-this yin and yang, if you will—-is called Law and Gospel. And, just as we all fail to live out The Golden Rule, many Christians suffer a great imbalance in their understanding of how to apply the law and the gospel in daily life.
This imbalance is extremely confusing to the culture, which is left wondering why some Christians seem so harsh and others so caring. The simplest explanation is that Jesus is, frankly, the biggest tent on earth. And the people who have been called to live out His story are an almost inexplicably diverse range of characters born in given places and times, with specific influences and tendencies, languages and life experiences, desires and agendas, blessings and wounds——not one like the other.
The one thing we have in common is that somehow, someway——over decades or in an instant——we knew God was calling us to draw closer. As we drew closer, we were brought into a specific community with people who taught us what they knew about Scripture and the life of faith and love and what it means to belong to the Body of Christ.
Now here’s where things get tricky. These faith communities are only human and, as such, they have their own leanings on the spectrum of Law and Gospel, tending towards one side or the other, and——perhaps, unwittingly——to groom others to do the same. Love or Hate. Good or Bad. In or Out.
But if we are brave enough, we will both admit and teach that we can’t have one without the other. Jesus tell us this quite clearly: “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.” (Matthew 5:17)
In other words, without guidelines and grace, and a genuine desire to understand which is required in any given situation, there can be no Golden Rule.
Heather Choate Davis 