paradox and trust rather than despair...

Today is an extra slow day: a storm with potentially dangerous winds is brewing,
so we'll wait it out and see what arrives later. Besides, I woke up feeling a bit run-down and headachy like something I ate recently was rebelling. Yesterday was pretty slow, too, given Di's CAD (Cold Agglutinin Disease) that kicked in after downing an iced tea on a steamy, humid day. We're still learning the unpredictable consequences of this one-in-a-million blood disease and will probably continue to be in a learning mode for the foreseeable future. This pause, however, gives me time to explore an idea that has been slowly percolating within for at least the past year - and maybe longer. 

I'm not sure what to call it, exactly, except to say that the words radical, mystical trust in God as revealed in Jesus as Christ comes the closest. St. Paul spoke of learning to see by faith, not sight (II Corinthians 5:7), as well as the invitation to live as fools in the eyes of the powerful elite (I Corinthians 4:10), and that is part of it. Jesus is reported to have taught followers to "seek ye first the kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33) in the Sermon on the Mount, and that's another piece of the puzzle as well. Add to the mix my gradual disdain for the polemics and politics of both left and right - especially the self-righteous vilification of one another that exaggerates our opponent's failures without owning our own toxic hubris - and I have come to trust the mystical revolution of sacrificial and sacramental love as made flesh by Jesus to be a creative yet paradoxical alternative to the cynical despair of our era.

A few years back, Fr. Richard Rohr clarified this for me when he wrote: "Jesus does not directly attack the religious and institutional sin systems of his time until his final action against the money changers in the temple:

Because of this, Jesus’ primary social justice critique and action are often a disappointment to most radicals and social activists. Jesus’ social program, as far as I can see, is a quiet refusal to participate in almost all external power structures or domination systems. His primary action is a very simple lifestyle, which kept him from being constantly co-opted by those very structures, which I (and Paul) would call the “sin system.”

Currently, the political and religious Left seems to be saturated with a selfish and
hate-filled anger that demonizes those they disagree with and dismisses them as either blatantly stupid or totally demonic; while the political and religious Right cherry-picks the most vile, isolated Biblical proof texts to pursue their crusade of judgment, fear-mongering, cruelty, and death that ignores and desecrates the sacrificial witness of Jesus. Both, albeit with degrees of nuance, appear hell-bent on destroying one another with their apocalyptic fury. 

+ Those I cherish on the Left justify their so-called "righteous anger" by appealing to the time Jesus brandished a whip to overturn the tables of money changers in the Jerusalem Temple who collaborated with both the priests and the army of occupation to fleece pious peasants and working people. But let's be honest: this took place ONCE in the Lord's three-year public ministry. Look at the texts and the context: Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46, and John 2:14-16. To be sure, Jesus embraced and incarnated more of the prophetic witness of ancient Israel's prophets - see Rohr's recent The Tears of Things for a popular introduction of this truth - but NEVER self-righteous and ugly anger dedicated to denigrating another. Most of the time Jesus simply engages real people where they live.

+ And those I love and value on the Right, either ignore Jesus completely - talk about heresy - or else willfully misinterpret his words about always having the poor with us to ignore the suffering of our marginalized sisters and brothers or else excuse their own selfishness or fear. Biblical scholar David Bentley Hart makes it abundantly clear in his translation of the New Testament that both the gospels and letters of St. Paul are wildly binary in their unconditional support of radical justice and compassion for the poor and marginalized. Hart also takes on the ideological misinterpretation of grace vs. law by documenting that when St. Paul celebrated grace over works, his argument was one of following the minutiae of Torah literally rather than figuratively. For in the early church there was never a moratorium on feeding the hungry, visiting the prisoner, caring for the outcast, or welcoming the stranger - including immigrants.

I often wonder whether the bellicosity of liberals is more about our loss of influence and privilege than a true burden for the suffering of this era. And it seems likely that the propaganda of fear used by so many conservatives is more about maintaining the chaos of the status quo than truly upsetting a culture of greed. Could it be that Frank Zappa was right when he told us that: Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial (and now information) complex?

So, rather than give in to cynicism (as Joni Mitchell so wisely named in "The Last Time I Saw Richard"), the despair of Nietzsche, or the absurdity of Sartre, I choose the paradoxical blessing of trust in God's guidance that Jesus articulated in the Sermon on the Mount. Small wonder dear Leonard Cohen told us that:

It's coming through a crack in the wall, a visionary flood of alcohol, from the staggering account of the Sermon on the Mount, which I don't pretend to understand at all.

In true Zen humility - and apophatic wisdom - Brother Len doesn't pretend to understand. Rather, he trusts - and the difference is both life-changing and salvific for me.