For the Joy of the Journey

“…an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered, “?‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” Luke? ?10:25-27 NIV
Jesus acknowledged the expert answered correctly.

“LoveThy Neighbor” is a big deal for me and, I think, for most Christians. That was true for the people of Israel in the Bible. My perception is, “Love thy Neighbor” is a mantra many Christians choose to characterize their faith. More importantly, unbelievers expect Christ followers to “Love thy Neighbor”.

Rightly or wrongly, loving my neighbor is a convenient bar against which I measure the validity of my and other’s faith. Somewhere along the way I heard you can’t love God and not love others. As a result, guidance in my daily life is largely shaped by “love your neighbor”.

No surprise, a recent blog post triggered thoughts on “Love thy Neighbor”. The coronavirus had already heightened my awareness of the need to love our neighbor. Now, the tragic and senseless murder of George Floyd, igniting protests across our country, has magnified “Love thy Neighbor”, and begs an answer to “Who is my neighbor?”

Pondering our current situation, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) came to mind immediately. After re-reading the passage several times, I decided it might be helpful to imagine myself into the company of Jesus when he told that story.
The following are what I imagine my thoughts might have been as I sat in the audience listening to Jesus.

…a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

I’m glad that guy asked that question. I was just about to share my pamphlet, “What must I do to be saved”, with Jesus, he might find it helpful dealing with seminarians like that guy, who thinks he has all the answers.

Jesus answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

Wow, that’s Jesus, I couldn’t have said it better.

The seminarian answers, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence-and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”
“Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

Didn’t see that coming! Jesus could definitely use my pamphlet. He really needs to put some meat on the bones of “Love the Lord your God…” . Maybe the know-it-all will test him further. After all, what good would a “What must I do to be saved?” pamphlet be that just says “…love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence-and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”?

Looking for a loophole, the seminarian asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

What a wimp! Instead of addressing the obvious, know-it-all wants to talk about who his neighbor is. He’s teed up, let him have it Jesus. I bet Jesus will tell a story like he usually does.

Jesus answered by telling a story.
“There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

Can you believe those religious guys ignored that poor guy? What were they thinking? The least they could have done was call 911. They probably didn’t want to get involved. Besides they had responsibilities. Defining who is my neighbor is really a no-brainer. Where is Jesus headed with this? Surely he’ll get to the 1st commandment. I’m disappointed he’s wasting an opportunity to elaborate on loving God with a story about loving your neighbor.

Jesus continued: “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill-I’ll pay you on my way back.’

What’s going on? Jesus is doubling down on the guy in the ditch? I got it, Jesus!, he’s a neighbor. I’ve have to admit,the Samaritan is a nice twist to the story. We can learn a lot from good hearted people like him. Jesus sure put that priest and Levite to shame. I really think it would have been better story if the priest or Levite had taken care of the guy. At a minimum, they would have given him a “What must I do to be saved?” pamphlet.There must be more to the story. Know-it-all looks as perplexed as I am.

Jesus speaks to know-it-all, “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”
“The one who treated him kindly,” know-it-all replies.
“Go and do the same.” Jesus says.

Isn’t that just like Jesus? You ask him to define who is my neighbor and he flips it to, “what does it mean to be a neighbor?” Jesus should run for office. Maybe I can catch him after we break up and give him a copy of my pamphlet?

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“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matt 5:43-48

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13.8-10

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”Galatians 5.14

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a story from Mac:
A few weeks ago I was doing a community clean up in my neighborhood. I rode to the sign-in area with a neighbor, who was also the block captain. His SUV had a giant “Jesus Saves, Obama Spends” sticker on the window. When I got in the car, I had to move the enormous bible off the seat to make room. Clearly they were “gawd fearin’ Christians”.

Halfway through the clean up I approached a leaf-covered yard that others seemed to be skipping. I started to rake and the block captain ran up to me, pulled me aside and started speaking in a hushed voice.”We’re not doing that yard,” he said.

Why?”

“Because when my wife went looking for volunteers, he said he didn’t want to participate in ‘this crap’.”

“So?”

“So he isn’t getting his yard raked by us.”

I took a look down the street, at all the nicely raked lawns, and then at my neighbors truck, with the obnoxious window decal.

“You know what,” I said, “I’ll rake the yard, and if he wants to yell at someone for doing it, he can yell at me. His house is still part of the neighborhood.”

My neighbor, with his huge bible, bumper sticker and absurd blow-up nativity scene shook his head and left me to rake the yard alone.

(borrowed from Experimental Theology)

One thing that has not changed significantly with the quarantine is my morning routine.Usually I rise around 7:00 am. After necessary morning exercises, I will spend time in devotional reading followed with reading blog posts from various sources I have in Feedly. Those posts cover a wide range of subjects including theology, religion, politics, news, opinion, personal journals, etc. Next comes e-mails,most of which are subscribed, ads or spam, with occasional personal ones.
I have made a conscious effort to include sources that cross the divisions in our society. Under close scrutiny, I’m sure my biases would be exposed. At the least, they provide plausible deniability of prejudice and evidence of some semblance of open-mindedness.

As you might imagine, the amount of information can be daunting. It requires discipline to sort and prioritize my reading. Some days I resist FOMO (fear of missing out) and hit delete. Some days are a marvelous adventure, with one beautiful idea, thought, insight after another overflowing my cognitive bucket. At the point of saturation, I resort to Evernote and Notes to squirrel away nuggets for another time. For people with normal lives(?), this may sound OCD. I rationalize away that possibility by reminding myself that I am retired, old and can afford the expenditure of time and energy. (Ok, I said it’s a rationalization.)

I hear some mumbling, What is this all about and what does it have to do with “In the Middle”? Glad you asked.

Today’s reading included a post from Lee Camp’s “Tokens Show” blog. The post entitled “Humility and the Art of Politics: An Interview with Bill Haslam” included a transcript of the interview. The idea of being in the middle came to mind reading a portion of the transcript. I subsequently listened to the entire interview and highly recommend it. There is a link to the podcast on the blog page.

IN THE MIDDLE

For several decades I have been in the middle. By that, I mean my understandings and beliefs with regard to religion, theology, politics, science, and other areas could be located in the middle of a long continuum bounded by extremes. In a pluralistic society, being in the middle can be risky. This was particularly true for me, since I reside in the right quadrant of the continuum. Despite the inevitability of conflict and disagreement, being the middle affords opportunity to engage both left and right. The span of the middle was broad, giving latitude where one might settle between extremes. Over the years I found the middle increasingly desirable place to be.

Things have changed. With the advent of culture wars and political polarization, the middle has become more like “no man’s land” of WWI trench warfare. A dangerous place where only heroes and fools enter. Unlike 1919, the is no pause for a sacred night, or a pandemic. Opposing forces pledged to destroy their enemies are poised to attack anyone entering the middle. Fewer are willing venture into the middle seeking unity and peace, the price is too high.

The continuum’s shallow bell curve of earlier years has been inverted to a U curve. The span of the middle has narrowed and extremes have heightened. Participation in the middle has diminished with the increase of resentment and rejection. Change has progressed slowly, but steadily over past decades. The current pandemic has put the depth of the U curve in sharp relief. “No man’s land” is deadly for all who enter.

As a “middle man” I am keenly aware of the peril. although not in mortal danger, relationships, influence and acceptance are at risk. there is a cost and it becoming more expensive. With increased costs, the herd in the middle is being thinned out.

Some thoughts on being in the middle after listening to Bill Haslam:
1. I have concluded that Christ followers should reside in the middle. (That is worthy of serious, in-depth conversations and I am fully aware of its implications)
2. Listening to the Haslam interview I was surprised and a bit perplexed when I realized the most likely group to accompany Christ followers in the middle are elected public servants (aka politicians). By virtue of being elected in a pluralistic society, politicians reside in the middle, always contending with contrasting views. (not withstanding gerrymandering, of course).
3. Understanding we are in the same foxhole gives me more empathy for politicians, heroes and fools.
4. Haslam, former governor of Tennessee and a Christ follower provided insights into the apparent paradox of being a Christ follower in the middle. I believe they can be helpful in thinking about how and why Christ followers should reside in the middle.

Excerpts from Bill Haslem interview

There were times when I would do things that had conservatives really mad at me, and then liberals really mad at me the next day. 

Always remember, the other fellow might be right.

If you asked me if I had a message for Christians that enter the public arena in any form, whether as a candidate, as somebody that’s supporting a cause or whatever it is, you start with this idea that we can argue a lot about what the Bible says about a lot of different topics. The one thing we cannot argue with is we’re called to humbleness and we’re called to gentleness, and we’re called to being open to reason.  

You know, the word tolerance I think has gotten overused and misused. Tolerance I don’t think is supposed to be anything goes and whatever you believe is just fine and can be true too. I think we are called to be open and willing to listen. And I think that’s what tolerance actually means. It doesn’t mean that whatever you say is true, I’m fine with it, because I don’t believe that, but it does mean I’m supposed to be open to listening to understand what it is you believe.

“I always remind myself that no matter what they think about me, they don’t know the half of it, that I’m way worse than you think I am.”

So much to think about.

Perusing my re-discovered notes, I came across hand-written notes and Kindle highlights compiled in 20017 from “Thank You for Being Late”: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in an Age of Accelerations” by Thomas Friedman. My notes testify to my appreciation of the book.
“Thank You...” focuses on exponential change our world is experiencing, in particular, since 2007. Those changes are impacting every facet of our society, bringing promise of unimagined progress and, perhaps, even greater peril. Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them and cushion their worst impacts.  As I re-read my notes, I was startled by Friedman’s words written in 2016 and how applicable they can be to our Pandemic context.

In the world we are in now, acceleration seems to be increasing. [That means] you don’t just move to a higher speed of change. The rate of change also gets faster … And when the rate of change eventually exceeds the ability to adapt you get ‘dislocation.’ ‘Disruption’ is what happens when someone does something clever that makes you or your company look obsolete. ‘Dislocation’ is when the whole environment is being altered so quickly that everyone starts to feel they can’t keep up.”
That is what is happening now. “The world is not just rapidly changing,” adds Dov Seidman, “it is being dramatically reshaped—it is starting to operate differently” in many realms all at once. “And this reshaping is happening faster than we have yet been able to reshape ourselves, our leadership, our institutions, our societies, and our ethical choices.” 

Here’s what I’m thinking.
The change we have been experiencing, particularly since 2007 is teutonic in its magnitude and velocity, i.e. warp speed  (“warp 1” is equivalent to the speed of light). We now find ourselves at “warp 3” , (27 times the speed of light), with the pandemic. That being the case, the impact of change will increase proportionally, if not exponentially. (You’re welcome, Trekkies)

“…even though human beings and societies have steadily adapted to change, on average, the rate of … change is now accelerating so fast that it has risen above the average rate at which most people can absorb all these changes. Many of us cannot keep pace anymore.
This is a real problem. When fast gets really fast, being slower to adapt makes you really slow—and disoriented. It is as if we were all on one of those airport moving sidewalks that was going around five miles an hour and suddenly it sped up to twenty-five miles an hour—even as everything else around it stayed roughly the same. That is really disorienting for a lot of people.”

I found Friedman’s analysis and conclusions helpful in 2017 and believe they can be of value as we negotiate warp3 changes we are experiencing with the pandemic. I will share some highlights in the remainder of this post.

DYNAMIC STABILITY

When so many things are accelerating at once, it’s easy to feel like you’re in a kayak in rushing white water, being carried along by the current at a faster and faster clip. In such conditions, there is an almost irresistible temptation to do the instinctive thing—but the wrong thing: stick your paddle in the water to try to slow down.
“Why ‘Keep Your Paddle in the Water’ Is Bad Advice for Beginners.” Have you ever stopped to consider what the phrase “keep your paddle in the water” actually means? If you did you wouldn’t ever recommend it to a beginner whitewater paddler. The paddlers and instructors who give this advice are well intended and what they are really expressing is: “Keep paddling to maintain your stability through rapids.” When beginners hear “keep your paddle in the water,” they end up doing a bad version of a rudder dragging their paddle in the water back by their stern while using their blade to steer. This is a really bad position to be in … To enhance stability in rapids it’s important to move as fast or faster than the current. Every time you rudder or drag your paddle in the water to steer you lose momentum and that makes you more vulnerable to flipping over.
The only way to thrive is by maintaining dynamic stability—[a] bike-riding trick …But what is the political and social equivalent of paddling as fast as the water or maintaining dynamic stability? It’s innovation in everything other than technology. It is reimagining and redesigning your society’s workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and communities—in ways that will enable more citizens on more days in more ways to keep pace with how these accelerations are reshaping their lives and generate more stability as we shoot through these rapids.
It will take workplace innovation to identify exactly what humans can do better than machines and better with machines and increasingly train people for those roles. It will take geopolitical innovation to figure out how we collectively manage a world where the power of one, the power of machines, the power of flows, and the power of many are collapsing weak states, super-empowering breakers, and stressing strong states. It will take political innovation to adjust our traditional left-right party platforms, born to respond to the Industrial Revolution, the New Deal, and the Cold War, to meet the new demands for societal resilience in the age of the three great accelerations. It will take moral innovation—to reimagine how we scale sustainable values to everyone we possibly can when the power of one and the power of machines become so amplified that human beings become almost godlike. And, finally, it will take societal innovation, learning to build new social contracts, lifelong learning opportunities, and expanded public-private partnerships, to anchor and propel more diverse populations and build more healthy communities.
This is a full-on societal reinvention challenge.
It is time to redouble our efforts to close that anxiety gap with imagination and innovation and not scare tactics and simplistic solutions that will not work.

The last thing we want is for everyone to stick their paddles in the white water to slow down. That is exactly how you destabilize a kayak and a country.

MORAL REFLECTION

f there was ever a time to pause for moral reflection, it is now. “Every technology is used before it is completely understood,” Leon Wieseltier wrote in The New York Times Book Review on January 11, 2015. “There is always a lag between an innovation [pandemic] and the apprehension of its consequences. We are living in that lag, and it is the right time to keep our heads and reflect. We have much to gain and much to lose.” To put it bluntly, we have created a world in which human beings have become more godlike than ever before.

We as a species have never been to this intersection before. That we are becoming more godlike in our powers is indisputable. Today, “if you can imagine it, it will happen,”

The first line of defense for any society is always going to be its guardrails—laws, stoplights, police, courts, surveillance, the FBI, and basic rules of decency for communities like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. All of those are necessary, but they are not sufficient for the age of accelerations. Clearly, what is also needed—and is in the power of every parent, school principal, college president, and spiritual leader—is to think more seriously and urgently about how we can inspire more of what Dov Seidman calls “sustainable values”: honesty, humility, integrity, and mutual respect. These values generate trust, social bonds, and, above all, hope. This is opposed to … “situational values”—“just doing whatever the situation allows”—whether in the terrestrial realm or cyberspace. Sustainable values do “double duty,” adds Seidman. They animate behaviors that produce trust and healthy interdependencies and “they inspire hope and resilience—they keep us leaning in, in the face of people behaving badly.” When I think of this challenge on a global scale, my own short prescription is that we need to find a way to get more people to practice the Golden Rule.

…the simple truth is: If we can’t get more people doing unto others as they would want others to do unto them, if we can’t inspire more sustainable values, we will be “the first self-endangered species,” argues Amory Lovins.

TRUST

Where trust is prevalent, … groups and societies can move and adapt quickly through many informal contracts. “By contrast, people who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which have to be negotiated, agreed to, litigated, and enforced, sometimes by coercive means,” wrote Fukuyama.

The heart pumps in two cycles—systole, when it contracts, and diastole, when it relaxes. And one of the things we often think is that contraction is the most important phase, because that is what gets the blood pushed out everywhere around your body. But you realize when you study medicine that it’s in diastole—when the heart relaxes—that the coronary blood vessels fill and supply the heart muscle with the lifesaving, sustaining oxygen that it needs. So without diastole there can be no systole—without relaxation there can be no contraction. In human relations, trust creates diastole. It is only when people relax their hearts and their minds that they are open to hear and engage with others, and healthy communities create the context for that.

When you are in a real one[community], never, ever say to someone in need: “Call me if you need help.” If you want to help someone, just do it.

LEADERSHIP

Harvard University expert, Ronald Heifetz,…says the role of a leader is “to help people face reality and to mobilize them to make change” as their environment changes to ensure the security and prosperity of their community.

…leadership matters more than ever—at the political and personal levels—but a particular kind of leadership. At the national and local levels, we need a leadership that can promote inclusion and adaptation—a leadership that starts every day asking, “What world am I living in? And how do I engage in the relentless pursuit of the best practices with a level of energy and smarts commensurate with the magnitude of the challenges and the opportunities in this age of accelerations?” It is also a leadership that trusts the people with the truth about this moment: that just working hard and playing by the rules won’t suffice anymore to produce a decent life.

WHEN HAS NIGHT ENDED AND THE DAY HAS BEGUN?

A rabbi once asked his students: “How do we know when the night has ended and the day has begun?”
The students thought they grasped the importance of this question. There are, after all, prayers and rites and rituals that can only be done at nighttime. And there are prayers and rites and rituals that belong only to the day. So, it is important to know how we can tell when night has ended and day has begun.

So the first and brightest of the students offered an answer: “Rabbi, when I look out at the fields and I can distinguish between my field and the field of my neighbor, that’s when the night has ended and the day has begun.”
A second student offered his answer: “Rabbi, when I look from the fields and I see a house, and I can tell that it’s my house and not the house of my neighbor, that’s when the night has ended and the day has begun.”
A third student offered another answer: “Rabbi, when I see an animal in the distance, and I can tell what kind of animal it is, whether a cow or a horse or a sheep, that’s when the night has ended and the day has begun.”
Then a fourth student offered yet another answer: “Rabbi, when I see a flower and I can make out the colors of the flower, whether they are red or yellow or blue, that’s when night has ended and day has begun. Each answer brought a sadder, more severe frown to the rabbi’s face. Until finally he shouted, “No! None of you understands! You only divide! You divide your house from the house of your neighbor, your field from your neighbor’s field, you distinguish one kind of animal from another, you separate one color from all the others. Is that all we can do—dividing, separating, splitting the world into pieces? Isn’t the world broken enough? Isn’t the world split into enough fragments? Is that what Torah is for? No, my dear students, it’s not that way, not that way at all!” The shocked students looked into the sad face of their rabbi. “Then, Rabbi, tell us: How do we know that night has ended and day has begun?”
The rabbi stared back into the faces of his students, and with a voice suddenly gentle and imploring, he responded: “When you look into the face of the person who is beside you, and you can see that person is your brother or your sister, then finally the night has ended and the day has begun.”

...who can deny that when individuals get so super-empowered and interdependent at the same time, it becomes more vital than ever to be able to look into the face of your neighbor or the stranger or the refugee or the migrant and see in that person a brother or sister?

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… in the dizzying moment we’re experiencing right now, both blue-collar and white-collar workers in the developed and developing world feel like they are just one small step ahead of a [pandemic] making their job obsolete. …in such a transition it is much easier for humans to visualize what they will lose than all the benefits they will gain, or already have gained.
The transition will not be easy. But human beings have made transitions like this before and I believe they can again. “Can” doesn’t mean “will,” but it also sure doesn’t mean “can’t.”
Who ever would have thought it would become a national security and personal security imperative for all of us to scale the Golden Rule further and wider than ever?