Tag Archives: human being

On Seeing Christ in Neighbor…

04 Wednesday Dec 2024

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Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/s/photos/open-door

This week, I realized I was internalizing some stress.  It feels a bit silly upon reflection, but I’ve been in my head about family, work, and personal obligations.  Somehow, we’ve managed to be even more busy than normal this Advent – so much so that I have had to call in favors to help with shuttling children to ensure everyone is able to meet their obligations.  It is entirely a first-world problem to have, and yet it brings with it such mental labor that I find it much harder than normal to be centered and grounded this year.

One of the challenges of being off-center in Advent is that our minds are so filled with the details of life that we fail to notice God’s presence around us.  The mental labor of life can leave little room for sacred whispers.  This Advent, I am using a book of meditations by Dietrich Bonhoeffer as my spiritual practice.  In one meditation, Bonhoeffer says this of Jesus, “He confronts you in every person that you meet.  As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you.  That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message.   Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us.”[i]

I wonder what appearances of Jesus through others are you missing this Advent?  How might you share some of that mental labor, or what things can you leave undone, so that you can see God more clearly?  My daughter helped me with this one this past week.  We hustled around to purchase Angel Tree gifts for some families our church had adopted.  I asked her to load the donation bags as the final step.  When I put the filled bags into the hallway by the front door, I noticed an extra slip of paper in the bag.  My daughter had made a card to go with her gift.  She had not just seen the purchasing of gifts as a good thing to do.  She thought of the little girl, who needed a coat, who wanted a few toys, who wore a certain size of clothes and shoes.  Where I saw a task, she saw a person – she saw Jesus.  My prayer is that you can see Jesus this week too.

[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger:  Reflections on Advent and Christmas (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 2.

On Stories, Remembering, and Healing…

11 Wednesday Sep 2019

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Today marks the eighteenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 – a fateful day in the United States.  Even eighteen years later, this is a day where we as a country remember – remember where we were that day, remember the people who were touched by tragedy that day, remember how a single day could transform a nation and the world.  This day hangs heavy in our consciousness each year, the weight never quite lifting even with the passage of time.

I think part of why this day is so heavy for us as a people is because of the people this day touched.  Certainly, we could look at the death toll, and recall the names of the almost 3,000 people who died that day, most without the opportunity to say goodbye to their loved ones.  But September 11’s reach went beyond those who died.  The ripple of that day is mind-blowing:  those who were physically injured, those who were bereaved, those who were supposed to be in those buildings and somehow life’s circumstances kept them away, those whose health continues to be poor from living nearby or helping with the cleanup efforts, those who walked for hours fleeing danger, those who made hard decisions that day – some leading to life and some leading to death.

Four years after that fateful day, NPR’s StoryCorps launched their September 11th Initiative.  A program built around having people tell their stories, StoryCorps launched an effort to record the stories of that specific day – of the man who traded shifts that day and whose mentor died because he had volunteered to take his shift; of the man who consoled his wailing two-year old and had to wait four months before his wife’s body was finally identified; to the woman who sifted through bones and debris in a hanger months later, trying to help people find closure; to the airline employee who checked in the terrorists that day at the gate; the father who lost both sons, one a firefighter and one a police officer, in the line of duty that day.  Every story, every single one is gut-wrenching and tear-evoking.  And every one gives a tiny glimpse into the magnitude of the ripple effect this one day had on all of us.

This day, I invite you to honor September 11 with stories.  Talk to your neighbors, friends, and strangers about their experiences.  Listen to stories like the ones on StoryCorps.  Read whatever stories you can find.  When we engage in one another’s stories, we engage in honoring the dignity of every human being, something we pledge to do in our baptismal covenant.  We allow the depth of this day to do something to us.  And somewhere in that intimacy of story, we begin to hear an invitation – an invitation to honor life today.  Whether it is an act of kindness (maybe even the kindness of simply asking someone to tell their story), or whether it is a time of prayer to honor all that has been, or whether it is a commitment to reclaiming love so that hatred can never win in such a powerful way as it did that day.  May our stories help us connect to the cosmic story of a God who loves us and gives us light in the darkness.

On dignity and solidarity…

14 Friday Aug 2015

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This past year, St. Margaret’s read the book Take This Bread, by Sara Miles.  In it, Miles describes a food ministry that she began at her Episcopal Church in San Francisco.  At St. Gregory’s, their worship is open – roles are more open, the Eucharistic Table is open, and idea flow in the open.  Like Miles was welcomed to the Eucharistic Table without barrier, she wanted to create a food ministry that was without barriers.  She didn’t want to have people register or keep records of how often they had received food.  She just wanted people to come, get what they need and let them go about their lives.  She wanted them to find a sense of dignity and welcome when so few of them experience that in other parts of their lives.

I was reminded of her ministry today when I heard an NPR story about a program in Spain called the Solidarity Fridge.  The idea was to create a communal fridge where people who are hungry can come and get what they need.  Local restaurants pack up their leftovers in plastic containers and put them in the Fridge each night.  Even local grandmas make food for those in need.  There are standards in place, including the fact that food cannot stay more than four days.  But the organizers insist that it has never been a problem.  Tapas come in at night and they are gone by the next morning.  There is no monitoring process for the Fridge.  Whomever needs food can just come and get it.  And the food is really good.  Those who are in need find dignity in not being dehumanized by red tape and by being fed superior quality food.

Their program is not unlike a ministry we support at St. Margaret’s called Food Not Bombs.  An empty parking lot is suddenly transformed when volunteers arrive with carloads of food from restaurants, grocery stores, churches, and neighbors.  People fill grocery bags with what they need and leave to feed their families.  When everything is gone, the parking lot empties, without a soul around.  The idea from Food Not Bombs is that there is enough food for everyone – and the only reason people go hungry is because of waste and greed.  So they work to remedy the situation.

As I was thinking about the confluence of these three ministries, I was thinking of how they are living into the baptismal covenant we make – to respect the dignity of every human being.  There are passive ways we can do that – trying not to be judgmental or racist.  There are active ways that we can do that – giving money to charities that feed the hungry.  But there are intentional ways we can do that too – investing ourselves in ministries that specifically want to honor the dignity in others and that will encourage us to do the same.  That is why we make those baptismal promises in the context of community – because we need the community to hold us accountable to the covenant.  This Sunday, we will baptize a child of God and renew our own baptismal covenant.  I encourage you this week to prayerfully consider what ways you might be more intentional about fulfilling those vows.  And if you are struggling, find a member of the community and ask them to work with you.  Together, we can transform this world into the kingdom of God here on earth.

Seeing dignity…

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

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This weekend I finally saw The Intouchables, a 2011 film based on the true story of a French, wealthy quadriplegic who hires a man convicted of petty theft to be his caregiver.  The quadriplegic, Philippe, has been through many caregivers.  He is a widower who lost the use of most of his body in a paragliding accident.  He is bitter and does not like the way that most highly-skilled caregivers treat him more like a patient than a person.  Meanwhile, Driss applies for the job simply to obtain governmental unemployment benefits, assuming that Philippe will never hire him.  Philippe is intrigued by this man who shows him little respect, and hires Driss.  The two begin a relationship that is different than any either of them had known.  Philippe is finally able to rediscover a joy for life and reimagine what his life can be.  Meanwhile, Driss begins to see that he can have value too – that perhaps he can start anew with life, providing for his family and having a new sense of self-worth.

What I loved about this film was two-fold.  First, I had anticipated this being a sober, but triumphal movie.  Instead, I found myself laughing throughout the film – not at a slapstick humor, but at the kind of humor one develops when things get so bad that laughter is both the inappropriate and most appropriate thing to do.  It is an irreverent humor that only two characters who have been pushed to the margins can deeply enjoy, and yet, those outcasts invite us in to our own darkness and bring us out with laughter.  The second thing I loved about this movie is the way in which each character was able to see humanity in one who had been stripped of their humanity.  For Philippe, his physical disability had taken away his ability to full participate in society.  Society struggled to see any value in him beyond his money – which is not a value for which anyone wants to be known.  For Driss, he was a criminal who was unable to hold down a job and be a responsible citizen.  Society struggled to see any value in him, leaving him limited options.  And yet, in Philippe, Driss was able to unearth an adventurous, funny, sarcastic man of compassion and fortitude.  And in Driss, Philippe was able to unearth a sympathetic, strong, talented man of wisdom and grace.  In essence, they could see the humanity in one another.

When we reaffirm our baptismal covenant, one of the promises we make is to respect the dignity of every human being.  Over and over we make that promise, and yet I think it is one of the hardest things we promise to do.  It is very difficult to respect the dignity of the guy who cuts you off in traffic.  It is very difficult to respect the dignity of your family member who constantly puts you down.  It is very difficult to respect the dignity of the man who kills nine Christians in a church because of their race.  This past Sunday, as we were editing the Prayers of the People, I found I had no problem listing the names of the deceased from Charleston.  Where I struggled was adding the killer’s name to our list too.  That action went against every instinct in my body, and yet, some small ache made me feel like I had to add him too.

Respecting the dignity of every human being is not a one-time action.  It takes a lifetime of practice.  We fail at it all the time, but we keep recommitting to the work because we promised we would at our baptism.  What encouraged me about that work this week, was the relationship between Philippe and Driss.  Watching two men, so dramatically different, and yet similar in the way that society treated them as outcasts, heartily laugh from the depths of their souls gave me hope.  They gave me hope that I might see the dignity of others through my own brokenness.  The promise for my work is that I too would find the joy that only hearty, full-bodied laughter can bring.