Israel is a land of contrasts. One day this summer the interfaith group with which I traveled visited Massada, an arid plateau in the desert where in the first century the Jews battled the Roman invaders to the death. It was Israel's hottest summer in 35 years and temperatures ranged from 90 - 110 degrees. We then descended to the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth. There we swam in this large and salty bathtub - really just floated, since the water is so buoyant one has trouble keeping one's balance.
Then there was the mud bath. This mineral-rich mud is supposed to have healing powers, and so we slathered mud on ourselves and on each other until we looked and felt really quite silly. When time came to rinse off in the fresh water shower, I experienced not so much healing as relief - which I suppose is a kind of healing. But the Dead Sea is quite dead - it has no outlet; it is simply stagnant.
The next day we were among the beautiful rolling hills of Galilee where Jesus walked some 2000 years ago. Our home-base was a kibbutz - not the nostalgic kibbutz built by socialist-minded pioneers; that is long-gone. This kibbutz was a resort on the Sea of Galilee which flows into the Jordan River and on out to the Red Sea. It was still hot, and so taking a swim in the truly cooling and fresh waters of Galilee was both physically and spiritually refreshing.
This topographical image of the Dead Sea and Sea of Galilee is a tempting preaching metaphor. Lives that are lived unto themselves alone become stagnant like the Dead Sea; lives that are poured out for others help nourish the spirit. The depth of that truth is the key to a contemporary understanding of spirituality - a term often heard among us - and its twin, religion, a term a bit out of fashion.
William Sloan Coffin, one of the great religious figures of our time, says that "The moral test of spirituality is justice."[1] But how can that be? Does not spirituality have to do with the personal life; isn't the spiritual individuals experiencing the intangible? And is not justice that pouring of the self into tangible causes that go beyond the self?
Recently I read a helpful distinction between spirituality and religion. The spiritual has to do with purely personal experience: prayer, zazen meditation, contemplation, reading - all of these are private experiences - and worthy ones at that. The religious, however, has to do with the individual in community. And so, while it is possible to be spiritual - connecting ourselves with the invisible forces of the cosmos quite apart from any religious group - to be religious is to be member of a community.
Of course, it is possible to do both - to have private spiritual experiences and also to belong to a community that transcends the self. For me, the critical truth is that the spiritual is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the religious life. I need that personal mystical connection with a reality greater than I am. But I also need the social connection with a community of people with purposes that transcend my own.
The spiritual life has to do with renewing ourselves, tapping into the transcendent, energizing our spirits - but for what? If the spiritual life stops right there, it dies - it becomes like the Dead Sea - stagnant. The spiritual life needs expression - outlet - just as the water from the Sea of Galilee. Otherwise, it is lifeless. As theologian Paul Tillich said, "There is no vacuum in spiritual life, as there is no vacuum in nature. An ultimate concern must express itself socially."[2]
The religious life is not primarily for ease or pleasure, though these are a vital part of human experience. The religious life has demands - something often forgotten in an age where the spiritual is often identified with a warm fuzzy feeling in the toes.
The Internet provides an illustration of how a feel-good spirituality by itself undercuts the rigor and the purpose of the religious life which is lived in the world. From a prominent religious headquarters came the following pronouncement: "Jesus shall be said to have been born in a rustic-but-spacious birthing suite and not a manger, with the amount of gold and frankincense bestowed upon Him by the wise men quadrupled and the amount of myrrh halved; it shall henceforth be as easy for a rich man to enter Heaven as it is for a camel to pass through a heated three-car garage; and the episode between Jesus and the money lenders in the temple shall from now on be interpreted as an internecine argument over appropriately aggressive fundraising tactics."[3]
And so my own spiritual sense of gratitude for being, my own sense of oneness with Reality, my own feeling of identity with the whole of humanity, my own attitude of well-being leads me inevitably to the public arena where our lives are lived out. If I ignore personal spiritual growth I am in danger of losing my center of being; I ignore the public realm at peril of losing my sense of moral responsibility.
Tradition has it that while revolution was waging in Petrograd in 1917 a convocation of the Russian Orthodox Church was in session a few blocks away engaged in bitter dispute over what color vestments their priests should wear. Any religious movement which succumbs to trivialization, which ignores the times in which it lives, is sure to be damned by history, and deservedly so. Our movement is not immune to such temptations. We must resist the temptation to the trivial, which is all about us in a culture that says - to be is to consume.
But the active life in the world is both blessing and curse. It is the source of much meaningful experience. Some of my best friends are those with whom I have been, figuratively at least, in the trenches of social action. But when one publicly commits oneself to a cause or a position one risks embarrassment, rejection, criticism. I know. I've been there and done that. We've probably all been there and done that.
When one risks the self in seeking to transcend the self - to get beyond the limits of ego - there are powerful experiences to be had. Annie Dillard in her essay on "The Wreck of Time" tries to take our century's measure by reminding us how we relate to the vast historical forces. How do we deal with news of the death of thousands in a natural disaster many miles away? She even quotes Joseph Stalin that "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."[4]
Dillard relates our lives to the sea: "We see generations of waves rise from the sea that made them, billions of individuals at a time; we see them dwindle and vanish. If this does not astound you, what will? Or what will move you to pity?"[5] It is all a stage - we know this - a temporary stage on top of many layers of stages, but every year a new crop of sand, grass and tree leaves freshens the set and perfects the illusion that ours is the new and urgent world now."[6]
Why are we watching the news, reading the news, keeping up with the news? Only to enforce our fancy -probably a necessary lie - that these are crucial times, and we are in on them."[7]
The spiritual self must always encounter the news - the news of the day or the week. And what shall we do with that news? Absorb it in self-importance, or reject it as having nothing to do with us? I think of a cartoon with a Dan Rather-like newscaster concluding the evening broadcast: "This has been today's news. If you don't like it, then create some of your own."
Recently I heard Harvard University Professor Cornel West, eloquent speaker and writer on matters racial. In a packed Aenon Baptist Church - with a very diverse audience he reminded us we are all in one boat in this country - in this world. If there is a leak, all are going to get wet. If it sinks, all are going to drown. He went on to say that the day is over when we can expect a prophet like Martin Luther King to lead us to the Promised Land. There is no Messiah in a democratic social movement for change. We are the leaders we have been looking for.
He is not optimistic about the possibilities for justice. Optimism is a secular construct that has to do with predicting the future. But he confessed to being a prisoner of hope - hope as a religious virtue that has to do with helping create the future. And that we do together. Passionately he told us, "As long as I'm on this side of Jordan I will fight for justice."[8]
But it is so hard. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was once asked why he had not yet reformed the UN after five months, given that God had taken only seven days to create the universe: He replied, "The Lord had the wonderful advantage of being able to work alone."[9]
We have become cynics, preaching a self-fulfilling prophecy that what we do will not make a difference. We sometimes worship at the altar of St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. The late columnist Sydney Harris defined a cynic as "not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, but one who is prematurely disappointed in the future."[10]
We need to read the news a bit more carefully. This week a letter crossed my desk from The Rev. David W. Dyson, Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, and leader of the People of Faith Network: "We hope you heard the good news about Nike! Nike agreed to stop doing what they said they weren't doing before - using child labor and toxic chemicals to make their sneakers. There is still a very long way to go". But here's the point! Nike did not come to this place by accident" or of their own good will. There was a carefully crafted, doggedly run campaign to tell the world the truth about Nike". So, we need to rejoice in what has been done, but we cannot tarry for long as there is much more to do."[11]
E. B. White once lamented that each morning he arose "torn between the desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."[12] Or, I would add, to plan a life. To savor the world or to serve the world? I conclude that to savor one must serve; in serving one does savor.
There are many ways to save the world. October 24 is Make a Difference Day, sponsored by U.S.A. Today and the Points of Light Foundation. People are invited to participate in some volunteer effort to improve their community: clean up parks, paint houses, collect medical supplies and do other projects. All this is fine.
However, I have two problems with Make a Difference Day. One is that it lets us off the hook too easily. It can let people think that responsible citizenship can be fulfilled by a one-time project.
Recently, I encouraged our School Partnership Program to submit an op-ed piece celebrating its tenth anniversary this year and encouraging others to go and do likewise. To make a long story short, the paper wasn't interested, though we did get a "Thumbs Up" on the editorial page. The fact that dozens of volunteers have been working in an inner-city school for ten years is simply not as newsworthy as a group of people on a one day burst of service. That is one reason why I don't "do" Make a Difference Day. Justice is not an extra-curricular activity - it is a way of life - the spiritual and the social seamlessly interwoven.
The other reason I don't participate is even more fundamental. Service projects by the private sector are good. Our congregation works in soup kitchens, homeless shelters and more. However, there is always the danger that we think these private efforts will be enough to lift 37 million people out of poverty. While public officials from President Clinton to Governor Pataki are bragging about declining welfare roles, the people on the front lines of service cite ever greater numbers of people in need, as the so-called welfare reform legislation kicks in - and it has only begun to take its toll.
There is a danger that in focusing exclusively on service, we will forget the prophetic role of the church in advocacy - calling the whole community to account for providing for the least of these. Soup kitchens can never compensate for reductions in Food Stamps; shelters can never compensate for lack of low-cost housing. There is no way the non-profits can do jobs which should be done by government.
And so I don't "do" Make a Difference Day." Instead I urge us to mobilize ourselves to make a difference every day, by supporting financially and personally programs that have staying power. And I urge us to balance our efforts between direct service to real people in real need and advocacy that does not let government or private sector structures like business and labor off the hook. After all the U.S. Constitution charges government with providing for the general welfare and the New York State Constitution mandates the state to care for the needy.
We have all heard the slang phrase "We're history!" meaning that our endeavor has failed. It's all over. Pink suits "are history" in the fashion world. The Buffalo Bills "are history" in the NFL Superbowl chase. Geraldine Ferraro "is history" politically.
However, there is another way to look at that phrase, "We're history." We are indeed history. We make history or it makes us. We act upon the world or the world acts upon us. We are active shapers history or we are passive recipients of what the powers and principalities decide. We are history.
I leave you with these words of my friend and colleague Nick Cardell who has campaigned to close the School of the Americas, a training facility for Latin American police and military personnel who have been implicated time and again in violation of human rights in their home countries. For his civil disobedience Nick was sentenced to six months in jail. Recently, he wrote these words:
"Sometimes I'm asked how or why I got involved in this cause. One easy answer is because what we do to each other is my business. These people - victims and victimizers - are my people. And there is also a very personal need. When I was a youngster I scratched my initials into the middle of the highest steel girder on a bridge leading into and out of New York City. No one knows it is there. But I do! In my adult life I have wanted to find life-affirming ways to write my initials on the tree of life. As poet Mary Oliver put it: 'I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.'"[13]
Nor do I.
return to main page