God, it would be so easy to ignore this topic.  No one would notice – really!  But with a tinge of what the Hebrew prophets must have experienced, I cannot remain silent.  History is strewn with too many well-intentioned, polite folks who did not speak up in a moment of moral turmoil.  But it is simply the turmoil to which I can attest with any certainty.  I have no final resolution or easy route out of our cultural arguments.  All I know is life changed fundamentally for all of us forty-one years ago when the Supreme Court handed down Roe v. Wade.

Expressing any Pro-Life sentiments feels something like coming out as a gay man – scary, risky and crossing the Rubicon.  I cherish my liberal, progressive orthodoxy and wouldn’t want anything I said to threaten my reputation, web of relationships, or access to people of influence.  It would be so easy simply to be stereotyped and/or dismissed by cultural elites of every stripe!  More significantly, I do not want to dishonor or dismiss women. Surely theirs is a privileged, though not exclusive, voice that must be freely and fully expressed.

And, we all have to remain in this together – this I believe with all my heart.  Can we agree that it’s precisely the frozen entrenchment of opposing camps which we all detest, yet holds our nation captive and keeps too many of us mute?  How do we begin getting past this on a topic that has held us in turmoil for forty-one years?  Where to start?

Can we all agree to celebrate the origins of Planned Parenthood?  Can we Catholics stop with our knee-jerk vilifying of the organization?  Will we recognize a shared value in the founding inspiration for the organization – to confront poverty!  I am also compelled by the “seamless garment” only most recently articulated by Pope Francis: “All life has inestimable value even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation, made in his own image, destined to live forever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect.” It is nothing short of refreshing to hear religious leadership calling all of us to such moral and ethical consistency!  Moreover, I believe there are more than sufficient “secular” threads holding us together as a nation (e.g., Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, Pledge of Allegiance, etc.) to initiate a shared, civil conversation – if we have but the shared will and commitment.  Can we commit that our dialogue remains ongoing, inclusive and non-ideological ?

Yes, this would be nothing short of revolutionary.  But, do we have a choice?  Is the present state of affairs tolerable? …sustainable?  Besides, a revolution in cultural values, world-view and self understanding is underway in any case! The only question is whether we recognize seismic shifts and choose to exercise moral discretion and human influence in the shaping of our lives in this new reality.

All this reminds me of a profound reflection by Archibald MacLeish printed in the NYTimes on Christmas Day, 1968 immediately after the astronauts to the moon were the first humans to see Earth from the depths of space.  Perhaps his concluding remarks are instructive on this anniversary of our life-changing event of 1972. I leave his blindly “sexist” language intact for the purpose of showing just how much more enlightened we might become in only a generation or two:

“The medieval notion of the earth put man at the center of everything. The nuclear notion of the earth put him nowhere — beyond the range of reason even — lost in absurdity and war. This latest notion may have other consequences. Formed as it was in the minds of heroic voyagers who were also men, it may remake our image of mankind. No longer that preposterous figure at the center, no longer that degraded and degrading victim off at the margins of reality and blind with blood, man may at last become himself.

To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold — brothers who know now they are truly brothers.”

The struggle to truly comprehend and consistently respect who we are – all of us and each of us, together – remains our challenge, opportunity and only worthy choice.

(Some may wish to read Archibald MacLeish’s reflection “Riders on Earth Together, Brothers in Eternal Cold” in its entirety: http://cecelia.physics.indiana.edu/life/moon/Apollo8/122568sci-nasa-macleish.html)

“On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South’s beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. Over and over I have found myself asking: ‘What kind of people worship here? Who is their God?'”       – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Like no other national holiday, this day challenges us to an individual and collective examination of conscience and honesty about how we live professed moral values. In that light, it makes sense that this day is increasingly being understood as something more than a day-off but, rather, a national day of service. Here is a reflection for the occasion:

Do we take Christmas seriously — God’s free choice to “become human”? Or, as another preacher once said, “Is our faith so heavenly minded its no earthly good?” Does our faith explicitly or implicitly encourage “disembodied” faith such that injustice is tolerated because “it will all work out” in the afterlife?

Do we see everyone as created in the Image of God? Does our faith affirm the fundamental dignity and worth of each and everyone, rejecting any claims of moral superiority, ether explicit or implicit?

Do we carefully and critically examine Scripture as “Living Word,” remaining receptive to the Spirit’s present impregnating action in our world, instead of being frozen in fundamentalism that idolizes the past?

Does our faith confront and reject any teachings that might cause us to, personally or collectively, act with violence or incite rage or hatred towards others? Do we believe that war is only to be used as a last resort or not at all?

Does our faith further interfaith cooperation and empower our ability to feel compassion for the suffering, for someone who may be different from me/us? Or, does it lead us to love and care essentially for those in our immediate group or people like ourselves?

Do we see social justice and equality – as well as individual acts of charity – as integral to the Gospel and “God’s will”?

Do we really believe that “God is love”? Do we profess the foundational commands to love God and to love others as we would love ourselves? Or, are we imprisoned by dogma with judgment as the defining characteristic of God?

I am hugely indebted to Paul Brandeis Raushenbush for inspiring this reflection.  You may find his original posting on which mine is largely based at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-raushenbush/martin-luther-king-faith_b_4623051.html

When I find myself particularly exasperated or frustrated with the world – trifling example: shoveling yet more snow  and chopping layers of ice but my car still won’t make the tight turn into the garage – there is a habitual expression that spontaneously comes out of my mouth, “Oh God, come to my assistance!”  “Now!” is an implicit directive to the illusive Presence in my day. No, it’s not some pious, anesthetized whimper recited too often, too easily, during the years I technically had an obligation to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.  No, my plea for assistance today is part despair, part admonition (of that absent third-party I often allege to be God), part remorse, part resignation, part desperation.  Whoever composed the Liturgy of the Hours knew what real prayer is like! Yes, all prayer really needs to begin with “Come!”  Pairing the rejoinder, “Lord, make haste to help me!” was singularly perfect and sheer genius.  Often, “Now!” is not any too soon.

If you read my previous posting, you already know that I’m big on “skin in the game” when it comes to prayer.  For God’s sake, isn’t that what the Incarnation was all about?  We sanitize the Manger scene into something sentimental, warm and cozy.  C’mon, was it?  Is that what our world needs today?

Some days I don’t know if I even know how to pray anymore!  Sometimes the best I do is that spontaneous muttering, “Oh, God!”  Sometimes I even question whether God has enough “skin in the game.” I am consoled by a quote that came to me yesterday via Frederick Buechner on Twitter.  He directs us to Ann Lamott in Help Thanks Wow:

 “Sometimes the first time we pray, we cry out in the deepest desperation, “God help me.” This is a great prayer, as we are then at our absolutely most degraded and isolated, which means we are nice and juicy with the consequences of our best thinking and are thus possibly teachable.

Or I might be in one of my dangerously good moods and say casually: “Hey, hi, Person. Me again. The princess. Thank you for my sobriety, my grandson, my flowering pear tree.”

Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, “I hate you, God.” That is a prayer, too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you’ve had in months.”

Real, true and sincere!  Pretty good criteria for prayer in my book!

Recently, my friend Susan shared a Prayer for the Homeless distributed by the Church of England during the Christmas season.  It was a nice pious prayer. But where is the “drawing near” of the Incarnation? Praying for those-other-than-ourselves who serve “them” turns me off. I was able to say this quite bluntly to Susan because we are good friends and share a mutual understanding that sometimes we need to get off our knees and give legs to our prayers! 

Susan agreed.  But, she also pushed back in a manner I enjoy so much about her.  “Richard, I see it as both/and, not either/or.  I assume you do also. The need to give our prayers flesh doesn’t obviate the value and need for prayer.”  The fact that I am still ruminating about this suggests there is still something that annoys me. 

Yes, prayer is good — essential, in fact. What I am beginning to find lacking in so many pious texts, words and rituals is “incarnational-investment.” Where is the “skin in the game”? Christian prayer needs to include a “…and what about me?” …”where am I in this picture?” Our prayer might be that of an anchorite (I’m reading about Julian these days) or my 97 y/o friend in a nursing home but it requires a “Here am I. Send me.” engagement. A Prayer for the Homeless?  Again, nice prayer — harmless and presumably efficacious, just deficient. 

Maybe the final arbitrator should be the cold and homeless themselves. Sometimes prayer is used to let ourselves off the hook, feeling warm and cozy.

IMITAMINI QUOD TRACTATIS
for priests in these difficult times

the day you were called
to break bread for a living
was the day you were called
to be broken.

the days you spent bending over bread
are spent around a mystery of fraction.

if you are indeed broken,
you need to gather up each other’s fragments gently,
and remember how, again through you,
He feeds so many with so little.

– John Kinsella