MAY 2012
So here we are again, in the midst of the seven weeks of Easter leading to Pentecost. We’re bombarded with stories from scripture about people struggling to understand and live into the gift of new life offered to us in the resurrection of Jesus. We’re assured over and over again that with God all things are possible. It’s a free gift, no strings attached. We do not deserve it and we cannot earn it. We just need to be willing to accept it. Sounds great, doesn’t it? So why do we continue to feel so miserable, so inadequate, so alone, so misunderstood, so knocked around by our emotions, so…
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find myself ricocheting between feeling great and being reduced to a puddle of self-pity in what seems like nano-seconds. I find myself bouncing between serene confidence and a sense of utter ineptitude because I am either the perpetrator or the recipient of a careless word or offhand remark that wounds and diminishes. So where’s the Easter promise in all that?
Right now I’m reading a book by Karen Armstrong called Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. She is a prolific and widely respected author whose most famous title is probably A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Because of her dedication to seeking truth and exposing perversion in religious beliefs and practices, and her desire to foster mutual respect between all religions, she was an important voice following the attacks of September 11, 2001. This newer book is predicated on her understanding that “The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.” What I’m finding is that this book addresses the questions I’ve raised about Easter living. My sense is that she believes that compassionate living is what ultimately leads to the kind of peace, personal and communal peace, that Jesus offered his disciples in that room where he appeared to them after his resurrection.
I believe that one of the chief struggles in living our Christian faith is the tension between believing the promises about how life can be which are pure gift, and discovering how to put them into practice in our day-to-day existence. I would guess that this is a universal struggle regardless of what path human beings take toward the Divine. That means there is hard work involved in living into the promises. To live into the promises requires head work and heart work and behavioral work.
There is a culture in this congregation, often fostered by me, that adult education offerings require the “teacher” to be prepared to do the lion’s share of the work and the “participants” to simply come and receive what has been prepared.by the “teacher.” I doubt that is a particularly good way to operate so I am proposing something different. I am inviting eleven people to join me in reading and exploring the Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong. If you want to participate, it will require three things of you:
- · purchasing the book ( Amazon.com and, I imagine, some retail outlets)
- · reading the chapters before we meet
- · a commitment to look honestly at your own life with the other people in the group
I will not put up a sign up sheet. If you want to participate I want you to call me and tell me. The group will be limited to no more than twelve people including me, and if more want to commit to this process we will do it again in the fall. The day that seems to work best on the parish calendar right now is Thursday evenings. Call me if you are interested.
RPM
