Living with gratitude...

Tonight, like many other Americans, I am watching the closing comments - arguments as well insights and posturing - of the health care reform debate in the United States. There will be time later to note both the vision and hypocrisy that has ebbed and flowed over the last 14 months - and to my mind, there has been way too much of the later and not enough of the former. That said, tonight I sense it valuable to lift up a commitment to living with gratitude rather than either obligation or fear.

Fear is real - and obligations and commitments are crucial to maintaining responsibility and accountability - neither speak to the Jesus-life as I understand the gospel. Glenn Beck et al can rant about "social justice" being a communist/nazi plot throughout history, the tea-baggers may play fast and loose with race hatred and the Grover Norquist tribe are likely to continue the economic anxiety of countless good-hearted people.

But the one I turn to for spiritual insight and integrity was explicit: whatsoever ye do unto the least of these my sisters and brother you do unto me. I am a very middle-age, straight white guy who is both spiritual and religious. I understand that my way of being church is no longer dominant - it once was even in my life time - but no longer. And as theologian, Douglas John Hall has written, this is a blessing for it allows us to live into the deeper truths of Christ Jesus. In fact, now that we are no longer required to practice the "civil religion" of the United States, we can be free to follow the way of the Cross: we can advocate openly for the poor and wounded, we can trust that God will be with us when we defend the forgotten and we will experience both the cost and joy of living as disciples.

In other words, we can live with a sense of gratitude rather than fear or obligation. That is one of the reasons I suspect Jesus spoke about becoming child-like. NOT childish - but child-like - for children who are loved and protected live with a sweet trust that looks a lot like faith. Last weekend, while celebrating a wedding for a friend in Tucson, their two little flower girls showed me something of the grace a "still speaking God" aches to share with the world - and I give thanks.

There is evil in this world - real evil to challenge - and I want to stand with sisters and brothers who are serious about offering an alternative to this evil. There are reasons to be afraid and angry, too - for example, this weekend marks the seventh anniversary of the war in Iraq - but our fears and angers must not be manipulated with mean-spirited lies or self-serving pandering. Yes, America is a very polarized place in 2010 and no one is without fault.

So this night I pray for the path of gratitude: it may be our best path towards peace. St. Francis comes to mind:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console,
not so much to be understood as to understand,
not so much to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.